His sign read, “safe, reliable and courteous” and I suppose to his mother he may have been, but to the kids riding the city bus from the Cove in Panama City, to Bay High School, Shorty the bus driver was, just short. He was short tempered, short of breath (he smoked) short sided and short of brains according to most of us. The bus made two trips through the Cove, one at 7 AM and one at 7:30 AM so if you didn’t get to hear Shorty at 7 he would be back to get your day off on the right foot at 7:30. “Safe” to Shorty meant “sit down and shut up dadgumit” and “reliable” was, “I’m darn sure comin back there if ya’ll don’t sit down and shut up dadgumit. The kids brave enough to smoke, usually Cools, sat in the back of the bus and the smoke trail could be seen from the front.

Shorty could see it from the large mirror he had in front of him. For years Shorty’s world was what he saw in that mirror but of course, it was in reverse. The kids who sat near the front were obliged to tell “bus driver jokes” whenever possible and one thing Shorty was not short of, was hearing. Every time I read about an “incident” on a school bus I think of Shorty and what his response might have been. You could put kids off the bus in those days and Shorty, if he could reach you, would put you off the bus. Then you would have to walk the three miles or so to school. If you got put off the 7 AM bus and walked fast you could beat the 7:30 bus to school and nobody would be the wiser unless you forgot to put on deodorant that morning and then everybody would know you got put off the bus. Of course we didn’t to sit in those days.

Ol’ Shorty would pack so many of us in there we could stand without even touching the floor of the bus. He would take on riders until he could barely squeeze the door shut and then he’d take on one more just to make sure there would be absolutely no movement taking place in the isle where we all stood. A can of sardines had nothing on us but when you think about it, it wasn’t a bad idea. If two kids had it in for each other there was no way they could get to each other to fight and by the time we got to school they’d usually forgotten what the argument was about anyway. We didn’t have room for book bags back then but if we had, mine would have been empty. I only brought a book home…usually the lightest, a few days before report cards came out in order to impress mom and dad. I wasn’t a good student and in fact I think I must have been DDT or whatever they called it in those days.

The bug man, Mr. Faircloth, used to cruise our block two nights a week during the summer trying to stir up the mosquitoes and kill anything else that moved. We called him “The Fogger” and rode our bikes behind his truck as he sprayed. A heavenly smell it was but obviously not good for the brain. Some of us got labeled DDT kids from the Cove. But I digress. Riding Shorty’s bus was one of those experiences you don’t forget and in fact cherish. I even put off getting my driver’s license until I was seventeen so I could keep on riding Shorty’s bus. My folks sure didn’t mind that…we only had one car, a used Cadillac, black, that looked like a hearse for sure. I suppose it was a symbol of our “wealth” but beings it was used I don’t think anyone was all that impressed. Besides, when you’re walking around with cardboard in your shoes, word gets out. I’ll say this for Shorty. He treated us all alike, mean. Yep, Ol’ Shorty, “safe, reliable and courteous”… guess he did the best he could for a guy seeing the world in reverse. I don’t remember missing a single day of school.