MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XV

BIG OLD SCHOOL BUS

Part VI

The principal of our junior high school served his last year at the end of my ninth grade year. He had finally made it to sixty-five. He was somewhat rotund and as bald as a peeled onion. Quite naturally, his nickname was "Baldy" or "Chrome Dome." He and I never liked each other very much. I think it probably sprung from the time I was in the seventh grade and had a bad experience with a hot dog I had eaten for lunch. I had been back in class for about fifteen minutes or so and just knew I was not going to keep it down. Now, I've had a gut like an iron pit all my life. I felt really good all morning, but that hot dog was really working on me.

I told the teacher and took off for the bathroom. I was in the "B" building at the time and had to go down the stairs, across the driveway, up the steps , down the walk, into the main building and down the hall to get to the bathroom. I made it. But just barely. I spewed into the first lavatory, right by the door. I cleaned myself up, swished a lot of water and spit it out, then sat down on the stool. Up and do it all over, this time in a commode. Flush and clean up again.

About five minutes after the second time, Baldy walks in. He asked me how I felt and I said weak and nauseous. His response was that I needed to clean out the lavatory, that I should have used the commode, and that "You country boys are going to have to learn to use the bathroom properly." And I thought, "Yeah, and there are privies all over this town?" Well, what a hoot!

I told him that I ws not going to clean the lavatory, that that was the janitor's job, not mine. I told him I was lucky to have made it into the bathroom at all and didn't spew it all over the hallway. He replied that, yes, I was going to clean it. He also informed me that I needed to come to the office when I had gotten it all cleaned up. He walked out. I pulled off some toilet paper and put it on the end of a pencil I had found, placed the toilet tissue at the bottom of the lavatory and ran the lavatory about half full of water. Then trudged down the hallway to his office.

When I got there, the secretary told him I was there and he called me into his office. He asked if I had cleaned it up and I told him that the lavatory was stopped up somehow and the water wouldn't go down in it. He had me sit down and told me he was going to call my parents to come and get me. I said he'd have to have aloud voice because we didn't have a phone and neither did we have a car. He was just about to blow a gasket and was fingering that old paddle in his right hand, but he got himself back under control. He let out a great sigh, the telephone rang, and the bell rang for us to change classes. He waved me out, I retrieved my books and went to the last class of the day. From that time on, it seemed that every time I turned around, old Baldy was watching me.

Being kids, we loved to bait him whenever we could get by with doing so. And the very best time to bait him was when the buses lined up on the street out in front of the school at the end of the day. On our bus, we at the junior high school were sometimes the first to load, sometimes the high school kids were on the bus when it pulled up out front. And there were times when we were the last bus in line, right in the middle or the very first one in the line. We always liked it best when we were in the center or last. But the center was really prime time for us.

Being in the center put us right at the steps leading from the street to the walkways that led to the front doors of the school. Baldy loved to stand on the steps, leaning on the rail and observe the loading of the buses. Weather permitting, which was just about all the time unless it was pouring the rain, the windows on the bus was either partially open or wide open. A busload of kids creates a lot of heat inside the bus, especially when it is not moving.

And the windows being at least slightly open was ideal for our favorite pastime of Baldy-baiting. I never knew of a driver who ever said the catcalls were coming from his bus. In fact, they laughed as much as we kids did about it. And every bus had its' good and its' better catcall artists. Acknowledged by all the kids as the very best, was a kid who lived on Upper Buck Creek and who rode our bus. He could change the sound of his voice from a deep bass to a high tenor in an instant, so Baldy never knew who he was looking for. This kid would move from the back of the bus to the front and back again making his music--"Hi, Baldy,", It's Mr. Chrome Dome," "Fat and bald, that's the man"--and he would vary the call up and down, high or low, from each end of the bus.

One afternoon, hot October, windows all down on every bus, it started as the first bus rounded the corner and continued from every bus as they lined up--a constant chorus, with our guy orchestrating the song, it seemed. Baldy was getting more and more upset. He finally exploded and jumped onto the steps of our bus, climbed on up into the bus and yelled that he would get the persons expelled who were making the calls. Our guy was hunkered down near the back of the bus, Baldy turned his back, and the kid yelled out, "Baldy, Baldy, Baldy" really quick. Before Baldy could get turned around, the kid was sitting in the seat as if nothing was going on.

He started back into the bus and suddenly, from the bus in front and the bus behind us, there arose a continuous hoot of "Baldy" and "Chrome Dome". He jumped down off the bus and went to the one in front, then to the one in back, and as he passed there were a lot of calls from our bus. Frustrated he went from bus to bus telling all the kids that they were going to get expelled if the catcalling did not stop, that he would catch every one who was doing and make sure they got expelled.

No one ever did. And the catcalling continued for the rest of the year, if anything worse in the spring than it had been in the fall. He retired that year from that principalship and took a job as a teacher in Logan County. But the thing I remember most about him was his constant reminder to all the males who attended the school, "Boys will be men." He lived to the age of about 90 or 95, after finally retiring for good at about 80. His daughter died a couple of years ago.