Back up, please!

It's time for my annual whine-fest about sitting around with my coffee instead of watching a young'un climb aboard "the bus."

This morning, during a particularly asinine column by George Will (he'd best be watching his back...he attacked Jimmy Carter!), I heard a strangely familiar, but no longer panic-inducing grind of the yellow school bus gaining speed on our long block. I glanced back out the window, over my shoulder, in time to see an icon of (almost) every child's school daze. For those children who must today give up barefoot and pick up booksacks, I'm sorry. For myself, who still comes across occasional remnants of school supplies and discarded backpacks left from my own learning-bound brood, I'm totally bereft.

For a moment I welcomed the memories of pulling/shoving the latest primary scholar out the front door in breathless entreaty: "Oh majestic, golden coach: receive this hapless, almost-ready child one more time into your crowded, bouncing bosom. Next time, I promise she will be at attention, at the curb, but not too close to the curb, when you approach. (under my breath: not)"

Of course, we seldom wound down from breakfast, hair ribbons and book-gathering 'till the imperial transporter roared down the street, again exhaling reproach with the hydraulic hissing brake, as if to say: "Hurry up, reprobrate. The rest of us just can't WAIT to spill onto the sidewalk of Generic Elementary, and you're holding us up!" To which, had the vernacular been available, the unanimous remark from all aboard would have been: "NOT"!!!!!

Thirty years! It seems like much less.