My dad drove a school bus when I was growing up. Because we lived so far away from the school and the transportation bus barn, Dad kept the bus at our house during the school year. He would drive his morning route to pick up the kids who lived on our road and along the highway and deliver them at school.
After the morning run, the bus drivers would meet in the bus garage. Then one of the drivers (Elmer Wolfley) would drive a short bus to take all the drivers back home. In the afternoon, Elmer would drive the little bus by our house again to pick up Dad. He would pick up the other drivers on the way back to the bus barn. Then all the drivers would make their afternoon bus runs to deliver the students back home.
While Dad would encourage the kids to clean up after themselves, about once a month or so, Dad would say that he needed someone to sweep the bus. This job was not very fun. It was hard work to get the broom under and around the seats. In addition, sweeping the bus meant lifting the lower seat cushion and removing all the trash that kids pushed down between the seat cushion and seatback.
The benefit of sweeping the bus was that sometimes kids would lose money between the seat cushion and seatback. So, you would find loose change between the seats. Dad would let us keep any loose change we found when we cleaned the bus. Thus, it was sometimes worth it.
One time, Cade and I were helping Dad clean the bus. We found a $20 bill between the seats. We were quite excited. But Dad said that was too much money and we would not keep it even though we found it. He took it on the bus and asked the kids who usually sat in that particular seat if they lost a $20 bill and returned the $20 to its rightful owner.
Helping Dad clean the bus was usually worth $0.30 or $0.40 or so. It also helped teach me the value of respecting public property. To this day, I try not to leave trash in public places.
Post Script: After I published this post, Dad shared with me that he used to drop some of his spare change in the seats to make sure we always found some coins. Thanks, Dad!
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