The Ruler

The Ruler
I was an only child but it never really seemed so, because there were always lots of other kids at our home. Both friends and cousins spent lots and lots of time at our place, and Mom and Dad treated them all like their own kids. They both loved kids. I think that’s why Dad drove a school bus. I must admit, though, that sometimes I felt that they treated other kids better than me, but I could never deny that they loved me dearly. I was never abused but both my parents new how to give me a good spanking when it was deserved.

One of the saddest things we ever had to do was telling Dad that he had to give up his driver’s license, because he was getting too dangerous on the road. All we had to do was ask him how he would feel if he were to kill someone on the road, and he gave in. Dad was a school bus driver for many years and was extremely proud of his perfect driving record. He never had a ticket or any kind of driving accident while behind the wheel of a school bus. He was often heard quoting that fact as proof that he was a very good driver. He was too, until his eyes began to fail him. Nothing seemed to bother him on the road. He was in a sort of zone when he drove.

There were times when the kids on the bus would make lots of noise. Now, that’s just being kids, so Dad would toddle on down the road seemingly oblivious to the cacophony echoing from his bus. He always noted, when talking about the noise on the bus, that it only happened on the night run when the kids were on their way home. They weren’t nearly as exited in the morning to be going to school.

I remember one Friday evening in particular when the racket on the bus had reached an ear splitting volume. I can’t say for sure but I think it was the last day of school, before Christmas holidays. Dad was, as usual, puttering down the road with a bus full of noisy kids when finally the noise became too much to take. He didn’t start to scream at us all to shut-up, or threaten to kick somebody off the bus. He didn’t threaten to call parents, or get anyone in trouble at school. He simply pulled the bus over to the side of the road, set the parking brake and shut the engine off. There he sat staring out the windshield as the world went by.

One by one the kids noticed that something was different and fell silent. We waited, then we waited some more. We probably only sat on the side of that road for a couple of minutes, but to a rowdy bunch of kids just aching to get home it seemed like an eternity. When the crowd was sufficiently settled Dad simply said, “Now can we be a bit quieter, or shall we sit some more?” The rest of the ride was made in near silence.

As I said, Dad loved kids, but he did expect them to behave on his bus. No cursing, no fighting and no destruction of anyone else’s property was ever tolerated. At the time the boys all carried a comb in their back pockets, and we all carried six inch rulers in our geometry kits. Some of the older boys took to snatching combs and rulers from other kids and snapping them in half. Dad hated this. Whenever he swept out the bus and found the broken pieces of comb or ruler he would bless Mom and me with a, not so short, tirade on the values of respecting other people’s property.

One day we were sitting on the bus waiting for the last of the stragglers to get on and we all heard a resounding snap. Yup, someone had just broken a ruler and Dad knew who it was. The bus immediately became as silent as a tomb. Dad stood up addressed the offending boy with a pointed finger, and ordered him to sit in the seat just off the driver’s right shoulder by the door. The punishment seat. He was to remain seated there for the next week at the end of which time Dad hoped he would have learned his lesson and to respect other people’s property. That done, Dad sat back down in the driver’s seat and started the bus.

Suddenly there was another resounding snap. In one motion Dad shut down the engine and was on his feet surveying the entire bus. Just a couple of seats back sat a very silly boy, with a piece of ruler in each hand. It was me. I had picked up one of the previously broken halves from the floor and while fiddling with it broke it in half again. It had been an accident, but there was no point in trying to tell Dad that.

If you think Dad was angry with the other kid, you should have seen him with me. I was immediately kicked off the bus and had to walk home. I was banned from riding the bus for the remainder of that week. And for the rest of the school year I sat in “the punishment seat.”

I tried to explain, but Dad would have none of it. He told me over and over again that he didn’t play favorites and that nobody got special treatment on his bus. Still, today, it seems to me that I did get special treatment. I got punished much worse for breaking what was now a piece of garbage than the other boy did for breaking the original ruler. I survived, and was none the worse for it but that incident still bothers me a bit to this day, but I never broke another ruler, or a piece of one again.