Today Margaret returns to one of her day jobs, driving a school bus. The craziest thing, though, is that students don’t start until Thursday, February 6, but each day between now and then, school bus drivers have to drive their entire routes twice a day as if they were picking up and dropping off student. Four days of, in my opinion, unnecessary fuel use and driver time. The only good part of it is that drivers get paid for driving empty school buses for the next 4 days.
Margaret’s run is unbelievably long, a 2-hour round trip of about 62 miles. Her route goes way out into the rural countryside from Rylstone. And she does this morning and afternoon. That’s a lot of driving!
Because there weren’t any students today, Margaret asked me if I’d like to ride along. Absolutely! We drove to Kandos to pick up the bus and then in the bus we drove back to Rylstone elementary and junior high. Then it’s back to Kandos high school. Then on to Ilford elementary. And now she takes all the kids to their homes, all of them off the main roads and down several country dirt roads.
I will say that the countryside she drives through is absolutely beautiful. Mostly it is rolling hills with lots of pasture land with grazing cattle, goats, and sheep. The occasional kangaroo jumps across the road.
Margaret said she loves driving and finds it very peaceful on her route. I asked her how she handles the kids on the bus. She said they are mostly well-behaved and that she sees the kids grow up from elementary school through high school, so they all know what she expects from them.
It was a great ride and I got a chance to talk with Margaret. She had a tough time during her messy divorce and has paid a really high price. It sounded to me like she got lousy legal representation and her ex-husband’s family, well-known in the area, did some dirty tricks. As a result, Margaret has had to work very hard to give her kids a stable home. In addition to driving the school bus, she does cleaning of a large homestead owned by a well-to-do-family from Sydney who allow friends and family to use the property for holidays. She does the cleaning, with Clare, in between her school bus runs, so she has to be ever conscious of time. Margaret is quite amazing, and I understand her much better having had the two hours to talk with her during her afternoon run today.
This was a great view from the top of Lou’s driveway this evening looking past the neighbor’s house.
