I Lived in a School Bus
I Lived in a School Bus
Why I liked it and what I learned from those three months in 1985
Most people never use the emergency exit door at the back end of the school bus, but for about three months when I was 5 years old, that was the front door—to our house.
The bus became home for my parents, my older brother, and me on September 16, 1985. We had left our white ranch-style house in Durango, Colo., six days earlier, meandering some 1,300 miles east to live on my uncle’s farm near the town of Elizabeth, Ind. (population 178 in the 1980 census). About a week after we arrived, we celebrated my fifth birthday.
Living in a school bus wasn’t the original idea that enticed my parents to ditch life in a resort town in southwestern Colorado. The way I remember it from what my parents told me and my brother is that the idea originated out of a quest for a different lifestyle that also brought them a bit closer to their parents who lived in Michigan. They had started homeschooling both of us boys, and I suppose there was something appealing about the prospect of living off the land with my mom’s brother—Uncle Rick to us kids—and his family.
Uncle Rick was what one might call a “funcle” nowadays (I’ve been blessed with a few of these—and I try to be one). Quick with a joke and full of adventure, he seemed to know or be able to figure out virtually everything. He was a U.S. Army veteran, car mechanic, and autodidact who built his own home, slaughtered his own pigs, and cleaned and repaired his own cistern. Before adopting his rural do-it-yourself manner of living, he did a stint working on big heavy equipment at Caterpillar.
He once gave keys to my brother and me that he claimed would start up any Caterpillar machine. I have no idea if that was true—we never had the opportunity to find out—but we fantasized about using them on the biggest of bulldozers, backhoes, and off-highway dump trucks. I kept my key in a special spot for most of my childhood.
Uncle Rick was resourceful. So I can’t blame my parents for trusting that he’d find a wonderful—and temporary—mobile home for us to live in while we all worked together to build a permanent residence on his property. At least that was the original plan. The Colorado house was already sold by the time Uncle Rick called to let us know that he didn’t find a mobile home. But, he added, “I did find a really great school bus.”
There was no turning back.
It actually wasn’t that bad. Uncle Rick worked hard turning it into a makeshift home, removing the seats and installing carpet. He built some steps for us to use at the back door, and at some point, he installed a wood-burning stove with a chimney that went up and out one of the windows.
Twenty Acres Before I Reached Barbed Wire
We slept on mattresses placed directly on the floor, which was comfortable enough. My brother and I made some artwork for the walls and windows. For meals, we generally ate in the house with my uncle, aunt, and cousins.
We read quite a few books, but we spent most of our time outdoors in the Indiana countryside. The property included some fields, woods, and a pond—plenty of room for a gaggle of kids to explore.
There were a few downsides, including no running water and no air conditioning. Quite a few flies got into the bus, due perhaps in part to the period of time during which Pedro, an 800-pound Black Angus steer, was tethered nearby. But those matters didn’t seem to bother us much at the time—because we kids had what now seems like an almost absurd level of freedom and autonomy.
We roamed, heading down the hill to the pond, into the woods, and back around and up toward the house.
We poked at the dirt in the garden, checking out the progress of the tomatoes and green beans and turnips.
We played with the goats, occasionally trying to help milk them.
We got dirty and smelly and tired.
Even now as a middle-aged adult, I seem to compare any current experiences of freedom and autonomy with that incredibly high standard set back in 1985.
Self-Efficacy Wrought by Freedom
Those three months gave me the sense that I could do things myself. Part of it was that I saw other people doing things themselves, adults who improvised and looked things up and fixed what was broken. Paying other people to come fix or build stuff would have been a bizarre notion.
The other part of it was that the other kids and me were often left to wander like free-range chickens. We made messes. We got bumps and bruises. But along the way, we realized that we too could figure things out. We could make things both imaginary and real, and it was fun.
I also learned a few other specific nuggets. These include:
Stuffing fresh chicken eggs into the pockets of one’s jeans isn’t the best way to transport them.
Raw goat milk has a distinct-yet-palatable flavor—unless the goats have recently eaten wild onions.
Speaking of goats, don’t get in between a billy goat and his love interest or he might knock you against the wall.
One lesson that’s clear from the research on adversity is that successfully navigating it can help you better navigate it again in the future. As much as we might enjoy the comforts of modern life, we shouldn’t shy away from experiences that test us and stretch us. One danger of a comfortable life is that it’s fragile.
We left the bus toward the end of 1985 and eventually settled in a modern house in nearby Lanesville, Ind. It was still small-town life, with one stop light and a population of fewer than 600 people. Although we didn’t have Pedro and his flies, we continued to have quite a bit of freedom to live and learn. And I’d like to think that I’m a bit more resilient because of it it.
After the bus but before we settled in Lanesville, we lived in a mobile home somewhere else nearby for about nine months. While there, Uncle Rick called to let us know that he had sold our yellow former residence. The new owners would be driving it down the road near where we lived, and he wanted us to know so we could see them drive by.
We stood outside for a while, and then, sure enough, there it was—rolling down the two-lane road through the alfalfa fields, chimney and all.