“See You Next Year!”
I heard that this morning. You know, the sorta-joke you tell people in late December when you won’t see them for a couple weeks.
Whenever I hear that, I always think of my elementary school bus driver, Ken. Every year, that was Ken’s go-to joke as he dropped us off on the last day before Christmas Break (as it was then called). He would say it to every kid at every stop. Ken was a black man in his fifties, with a larger build and slightly graying hair. When he wasn’t driving a bus, Ken was a church minister downtown.
One morning in fourth grade, Pat Ross and I, sitting in the back of the bus, noticed the man driving to work behind us picking his nose. We made a sign out of loose leaf paper and markers that read “PICK A WINNER DUDE!” and held it up to the window. The man got embarrassed, stopped picking his nose, and the rest of the bus laughed.
When we pulled up to school, Ken turned the interior lights on, which meant that we should stay in our seats and be quiet (usually this meant somebody was in trouble.) Ken stood up in front of the bus, and towering over us, in his deep bellowing black minister voice, said “Ladies and Gentleman, the only winner you can pick… is yourself.”
He then turned the lights off and we silently exited the bus.
