When I was a Freshman and living in the high Sierra Nevada mountains with my family, it took us approximately 90 mins to get to school. Since it was a very small community, our “school bus” was a Chevy suburban and my dad was our “bus” driver. (After my sophomore year our Suburban-bus was exchanged for a mini school bus... the Suburban was much less embarrassing) Myself, my older brother David, and 3 other neighbor kids were the extent of the “bus” riders. One of the neighbor kids was named Greg. Greg was a good guy and we all really liked him but, he was always a little... ummm... stoned. (If you could see the scent of marijuana Greg would have looked like Pigpen from the Peanuts)
He would get into the suburban, greet everybody with some goofy, yet friendly way then he would usually fall fast asleep for the duration of the ride to school. The rest of us would visit, finish up homework, snooze, and listen to the radio.
The drive was beautiful. Coming down the mountain into the foothills was magnificent. There were many points along the trip where we had sweeping vistas of the entire valley. When low clouds settled in the valley, our view looked like a fluffy white ocean.
Anyways...
Sometimes the drive was very monotonous, every day seemed like a perfect replica of the previous. Most days, during the first hour of the trip we wouldn’t see or pass any other cars.
On one particular day, due to unavoidable icy conditions, the Suburban began to slide down the road on the ice. There was no way to completely control it. The car drifted from one side of the road to the other. There were tall snowbanks on each sides but, my dad/bus-driver was able to keep us from hitting them, and the car continued to float along like an inflatable mattress set free down a river. My dad did the best he could to regain control, but there truly wasn’t much that he could do, he just focused on keeping us from crashing.
At some point Greg woke up from his pot coma to witness the fun.
We were all a little nervous but, Greg was excited. He started cheering, yelling and chanting. Then without warning, another car came into view and we were headed right towards it. Greg kept cheering “Go Roger!, Go Roger!” (My dad/bus-driver's name is Roger) We all joined in on the chanting. My dad, who is one of the best drivers around, was able to avoid the other car by half a millimeter. Greg broke out in the loudest yell. The rest of us laughed out our nervous tension and commended my dad for his excellent maneuvering. It was some of the greatest driving. My dad... the worlds best bus-driver!
Within a few minutes Greg was back to sleep.
