Hi again, all.
Hope you’re all busy eating some leftover yummies and enjoying time with your families.
As the countdown continues, we suddenly find ourselves in week #2. Still a ways to go, but we continue to move in the right direction.
So, I’ve been thinking about it, and it is with some sadness that I take us back to the Brooks Hill School, Fairport, NY. There’s some irony there, as it was always a pretty happy place for me. But one particular day more than 50 years ago, something happened that I can never quite forget.
It’s early Fall 1973, and I’m on the bus to school.
As I mentioned in a previous post, for all of Rochester, NY’s abysmal weather, every now and then Mother Nature would give us a break. That day in late September was surely in that category, golden sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. And that morning, I even hopped onto the bus with no jacket.
I was riding on the bus that day, enjoying the sun through the windows when we arrived at the busy drive-up circle. Kids in a nearby bus began their regular chorus of “PU 62!” as we came driving up towards the flagpole.
Back in those days our buses all had code numbers. We were 6222 and our rival bus was 6127, and we would take turns heckling each other. A little stupid, maybe, but it was just harmless fun.
So, as we headed to the middle of the circle for drop-off, the obnoxious chorus of “PU 62” just got louder.
I looked across to the other bus and saw my friend, Mike, with a big smile on his face, reveling in all the noise he and his bus mates were making.
Eventually, both buses hissed to a stop, kids pouring out of both doors, remnants of the singsong “PU 62” chorus still hanging in the air.
I started to walk towards the main doors, my bag lunch in one hand, a science book in the other. (Backpacks weren’t really a thing then, and all my books, pencils and other stuff were in my school desk).
I had just gotten through the main doors when I heard it.
There were two sounds.
First the sound of screeching tires and then the sound of a dull thud.
I ran outside, just in time to hear some kid screaming. And then another. And another.
When I got out to the bus circle, I saw him right away. He was lying there, tried to get to his feet and then suddenly fell right back down.
The bus that had struck him was sitting at an odd angle, the engine idling. The driver, who looked like she was maybe around 40, was still behind the wheel, her head in her hands.
Because of where I lived, relatively close to the school, we were always among the latest arriving buses. The school across the street, Minerva Deland, started earlier than us, and I guess that’s just how the schedule worked.
I mention that because there just weren’t a lot of students still left outside.
I ran over to him, and another boy, maybe a few years older than I, ran over with me. Except for the bus driver, who remained behind the wheel, now sobbing, there were no teachers or other grownups around. Nobody.
When we got to him, he was still trying to get up, his body not responding.
You don’t know much when you’re a kid; at least I didn’t.
The boy who ran over with me was a little older. Sixth grade, maybe. You’ll laugh, but even after the better part of a lifetime, I still remember exactly what he said to me.
“Let’s take him out of here.”
I remember nodding to him, and then we picked him up as gently as we could onto the curb just off the bus turnaround.
And just as we were moving him, a few teachers finally showed up.
At first, they tried to shoo us away, but the older boy protested.
“There’s nothing you can do for him,” one of the teachers said.
As good as my memory is, I just can’t remember that teacher’s name. Brooks Hill Elementary wasn’t an especially big school, but I don’t remember ever seeing him.
Even though your ability to guess a “grown up’s” age when you’re a grade school kid is decidedly limited, I’ll bet he wasn’t much older than 25.
Over the years, I figured he must have been a sb or even somebody from the neighborhood. Whoever he was, I never saw him again after that day.
As for that poor dog, he had pretty much stopped moving. I’ve never been very good at knowing breeds, but he looked like a Poodle, a large one with curly black hair.
He seemed to be well cared for, his black coat shiny and well-brushed. He didn’t have any tags, though, so there was no way to tell who he belonged to.
The mystery teacher/neighbor gently moved the other boy away, and he walked both of us back to the main outer door.
He told us that we had done a very nice thing – a brave thing – and that we should both feel good about what we tried to do.
Even though I never found out who he was, he was very decent and kind, telling us that the dog wasn’t suffering anymore.
The older boy seemed to know what that meant, and he started to cry. And as you can imagine, it took me all of three seconds to burst into tears.
They eventually took us to the main office. I guess they figured we both could just cry it out there and then go to class.
In retrospect, that was probably an OK plan.
That is until we both noticed a janitor placing several desk chairs around the fallen dog’s body.
I didn’t understand it then, but because no one had yet claimed the dog, that’s about all they could do.
The two of us cried a little more, as we kept looking out the window at the fallen dog. Eventually, though, we both calmed down, and they walked us back to class.
I was about to explain to my friends what had happened, and they said they’d heard already. I guess it was big news.
I got through the rest of the day OK, but I turned the water works back on right when I walked into my house. My mom, surely frightened at first when she thought something was really wrong, did a good job of calming me down.
When my dad got home that evening, I explained to him what had happened. First, he told me he was proud of me, and then he said that the dog was in a better place. I felt a little better, but I had a few teary nights after that, trying to deal with what I’d seen.
That other boy, whose name was Jack, had moved to town very recently, which probably explained why I hadn’t ever seen him.
As the school year moved along, I would see him in the halls every now and then, but we never really talked.
He was a sixth grader and moved to the junior high the following year. I never saw him after that.
Many years later, I was walking along a dark street with some friends, and a dog came out of nowhere and got slammed by a car. The hit-and-run driver quickly sped away.
The dog slid along the road and rolled onto the tall grass.
My friends and I ran over to see that that the dog was hurt, but it didn’t seem like it was too bad.
I ran to get my car and we put him in it, hoping to get him to a vet hospital in the local area.
We put him in the back, and a girl about 12 years old or so came running over.
“Roscoe!” she cried out and went to the back seat of my old Cutlas Sierra and began gently petting the wounded Roscoe that looked like an Airedale.
Pretty soon, the rest of the family showed up, and they put Roscoe in their car. That was nearly 20 years after that sad day at the Brooks Hill School, and I prayed for a happier ending. A few hours later, I called the animal hospital, and the vet told me that Roscoe the Airedale was going to be OK.
See you all tomorrow.
JFish
Copyright John Fischer, 2024