Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

     I know what you are thinking. I’ve seen you looking around the house trying to remember where you stashed the electric blanket away earlier this year. The cool snap that blew in over the weekend was a wonderful reminder of what summer evenings in Iowa should be like. It was also a sign that the start of school is just around the corner. It made me think of the old pear tree that sat just south of my house until the DNR unceremoniously hacked it down this summer.

     That old tree had stood for years and was always the sure sign of the start of school. Although it didn’t produce like it had in years past, when the pears were ready for picking one knew that it would only be a few days before the school bus came down the road and stopped in front of the house.

     We rode a number of busses when I was growing up. First it was the kindergarten bus that took us to school in the morning and brought us home, along with the cooks and the lunch boxes for the Dexter school at noon each day. Sherilynn Algreen was my bus driver and always made me feel safe about going to school. One never got bullied on that bus, unless it was by one of the cooks who once goaded me into singing my own version of “Country Roads” on the way home one day.

     As we got older Dennis Simpson would pick us up in the “big” bus. This was certainly a change from the little bus that brought me home from kindergarten. It was full of kids and I always held my breath as we went down Dexfield hill on the way to Redfield.

     Soon it was time to move up the road to the home of my Great Grandparents and with it came a new bus driver. Marvin Coulter would deliver us safely for the rest of my time in school. He took care to always honk when we kids were running a bit behind, or engrossed in some morning cartoons, and still laughs to this day when he thinks about my Mom and I carrying my baby brother to the bus when he started school. Seems to me that he either loved Mom a great deal that he wanted to stay with her, or he just didn’t like school.

     It was on that bus that I met the neighbor kids and where friendships were formed. It probably was also the place where my habit of disliking change came to be. I was used to Marvin driving the bus. Liked it that way. Same old routine every day without change, in rain, and snow and hot days with the windows down where you would stick to the green vinyl seats.

     On those rare occasions when Marv was gone we usually had Joe Keaton or “Smoking Joe” as we kids called him back them. If there was ever a guy who drove it like it was a rental it was Joe and I often wondered if he forgot that we kids were sitting in the bus as he barreled along the gravel roads.

     We all survived though, and today I look back and think of what a thankless job driving the bus must have been. I sure am thankful for every one of the drivers I had over the years who kept us kids safe and made sure we made it to school before the bell.

See you next week….remember, we’re all in this together.