Quincy High School - Goldenrod Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

Page 20 text:

Each morning for the past three years I have been riding a bus to school and in that time I have suffered from bruised ribs, black and blue toes, headaches, and lost homework. Every time I stepped on the smoke-filled bus until I alighted. I realized I did so at my own risk. Getting on a bus with a pugnacious bus driver, who I swear hated teenagers and probably kicked dogs, and half-awake kids with cigarettes dangling from their lips, was not the great- est thing to do so soon after eating breakfast, but nevertheless, it had to be done. As I got on the bus acrid cigarette smoke stung my eyes and filled my nostrils while I fervently searched in vain for a seat. Due to the overcrowding I’d come to a dead stop inches from the bus driver bellowing in my car. “Move to the back of the bus! With gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I’d struggle to move further down the aisle, only to stand beside a person who must have never paid heed to deodorant commercials on television. My mouth would quickly dry with my tongue lying liih- lessly in the bottom of my desert-like mouth and to get the heart to skip a couple of beats and race wildly, the bus would fly around a corner on only two wheels. Each time the bus would jerk to a halt persons would fall over one another, crushing toes and jamming books into unguarded ribs, and there would always seem to be an elderly lady whose umbrella point would jab my knee. At least once every week when the bus was half-way to school there was some person, in the very back of the bus. who had to get off at the front door. As this one soul would push and shove his way to the front, he’d smash me. along with a few others on the head with his elbow. The intensity of the blow could then cause two of my six books to go crashing to the floor, skinning the old woman with the umbrella whose steely glaze refused my mumbled apologies. When the bus would finally role to a halt I would stumble off. dazed and aching, only too glad to welcome the cool air that rushed to meet me. I realize now that each time I took a bus to school I took life into my own hands. Peggy Kirk