The old system with orange school buses

Occasionally when I drive home from breakfast I'll see an orange school bus parked along the road in front of the Soils Lab. Not sure why it's there but it's probably that the driver is ahead of schedule and is committed to arriving at a certain residence at a certain time. No problem with that.
The problem is that you sense risk when driving around a school bus at any time. So I simply never do it. I don't care to drive within a block of an orange school bus. No, I have never gotten a citation because of this issue. But we're all most familiar. Some of us appear to let our guard down which is why we occasionally see a citation report in the media. The fine is substantial and the consequences are probably severe for one's car insurance.
How severe should the punishment be? Is there room for reasonable judgment? You see, a majority of such infractions probably do not involve recklessness. The motorists are most likely very slow and cautious and just have a lapse about the absolute necessity to stop. Isn't there a former Morris mayor who got in trouble? More than once in fact? Surely this person was careful and did not endanger anyone's safety.
I wouldn't want to be a bus driver and be under pressure to report these things. Morris legend has it that there is/was a particular bus driver who "liked" turning in motorists. A couple years ago I noticed in the media that a couple of these charges were dismissed. That piqued my interest. So I asked around, as I am wont to do, and learned that the bus driver put out the stop arm when a motorist was already halfway past the bus. The bus driver had previously been advised (twice) not to do this, my source told me. I surmised this was the bus driver of Morris legend.
I feel sorry for people like the former Morris mayor who probably "crept" past a bus with the utmost of care and discovered there was draconian punishment. These people probably feel personally insulted and hurt that there is an insinuation that they neglected kids' safety. We live in a prickly new world in many respects.
My personal issue with the bus along Northridge Drive was accented as I had to plan my personal "detour." So I drove over to the opposite end by the dog kennel and proceeded to the east. Problem is, most of that road is unpaved and can get wet and slushy. There are potholes.
In the future in this situation, I shall park the car out front of the Soils Lab and walk home. I will not drive around a school bus. Am I overreacting? You might think that if the lights aren't flashing, it's no biggie to just drive along. The late Erwin Anderson, bless his memory, told a story once about how he drove around a parked bus that did not have its lights flashing or stop arm out, and he was scolded by the driver anyway. Erwin must have parked within a block or two. He engaged the driver in argument.
It used to be common to see orange buses around town during the UMM Jazz Festival. All those visiting schools. You'd see a bus parked outside Pizza Hut. Then as now, I don't wish to go anywhere near. Change your route. In my case, drive through potholes and get the car muddy. I rinsed it off later in the day. Yes this is sounding like the "angry minute," a feature of the old "Dark Star" WCCO radio show. To refresh: an obviously caffeinated guy ranting about one of the frustrations of daily life.
School buses! Man, be careful. So I'm suggesting there ought to be more discretion in assessing wrongdoing. Is there any room for that? Reckless drivers should always face consequences.
I remember hearing about a meals on wheels driver/volunteer who got a ticket for not wearing seat belt. Can't we cut some slack for these volunteers? She's deceased now, bless her soul.
I'm 64 years old and for most of my life, seat belt use was voluntary and no one thought anything of it. When the system changed and I got pulled over for the first time, I didn't even get a warning, I got a ticket. Suck your cheeks in because things are really getting "tight." Will we ever loosen up again?
There was a time when society thought it no big deal that certain drivers had consumed too much alcohol. Oh, I assure you. People congregated at "watering holes" on Friday and Saturday nights, then they might proceed to a restaurant for the "bar rush" where they acted like total idiots - and society thought this was "funny." Maybe the young people of today aren't aware of all this.
The restaurant now known as DeToy's once operated 24 hours. Oh, it had imperfections back then. But it was to be saluted for having such extended hours, even if college students would "hang out" and not order much. The restaurant served its share of "drunks." Perhaps yours truly? Ahem. Those were the "old days."
 
Getting kids to/from school
I got to thinking about the whole system of orange school buses. Might this whole model be obsolete? How many families would have no problem getting kids to and from school, just with parents and their automobiles? This has the benefit of kids not being beholden to the exact bus schedule. Come and go at school as you please.
For sure some families might not have this flexibility. But the universal system of "school bus" seems rather unwieldy. And, perhaps too expensive for the public.
The Morris school district had a serious proposal a few years back to end in-town bus service. At first most of us thought this was radical and surprising. Upon further reflection, why not? I heard the common sense suggestion, BTW from another Morris mayor, that the country buses could just stop at certain designated stations in town - "bus stations" as it were - and pick up town kids on their way to school. It makes total sense but you can imagine one roadblock: the requirement of kids to walk a short ways to get to the pickup point. And, our society cannot countenance that because of the fallout from the Jacob Wetterling tragedy.
We are so risk-averse that we have to continue spending a fortune on school bus transportation.
Oh, but we cannot tolerate any risk for our kids, right? And wouldn't you want to stone me for suggesting otherwise? OK this would be a good question for the New York Mills Great American Think-off. Is that still held?
Risk and children? The boomer children grew up when "risk" was really out and about everywhere, as we played unsupervised etc. We pray that nothing bad ever happens to children. But toward this end of preventing risk, we are raising our children like they're caged chickens, resulting in obesity among other problems. So in some states we hear about "free range parenting" laws which, to be blunt, mean we allow some risk into the lives of our children.
Oh, isn't that terrible? Well, I don't know. God in his wisdom created the world in which we live with pitfalls. Talk to Him about it.
The old system of orange school buses was developed in a time when every neighborhood in America had a batch of school-age kids. That is not the case now.
When I was a kid, certain neighborhoods were associated with kids who made an imprint with their personality. I was a close friend of the kids along South Street in Morris. "The South Street Kids": sounds like a good name for a movie.
 
A note re. Stone's Throw in Morris
On an unrelated topic, I received an email last night with a story about how Stone's Throw Restaurant is doing, that restaurant of the Go Fund Me campaign:
 
A couple of our band director friends were going to attend Jazz Fest Friday night, decided to eat dinner beforehand at Stone’s Throw. I asked one of them today if they got to the concert Friday as I didn’t see them there. She said that they went to Stone’s Throw, and it took an hour and a half to get their meal after they had ordered it, so by the time they got done eating, it was to late to go to the U. An hour and a half wait for food? Hmmm... The blurb on the GoFundMe pitch mentioned they’d be cutting corners and making do with fewer employees having to do more. I don’t think it works that way.
  
Surprise at ShopKo: It's a bombshell enough that ShopKo is closing, so I go out there to make a farewell purchase as it were, of about $62 and as I write out the check I'm told "no checks." Sheesh. I had to leave empty-handed.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com