Author’s Note:  I am a stay at home mother who happens to hold a part time job.  That job is bus driving.  I drive an elementary route and a junior high route.  As you can probably imagine, some amazing and funny events have transpired over the last few years one of which I’ve written below.  Names have been changed to protect…well, basically, to protect me and my job. I'll also be writing about miscellaneous thoughts regarding non-bus stuff.  This is my world!  Welcome to it!

WHEELS AND WEATHER

By Kathryn Hardeman 

My husband, currently a truck driver, has come full circle.  In college he carried the label super jock and he reigned supreme as the campus football star.  Why he ever showed an interest in me, a total football nincompoop at that point in my life I’ll never know, but forever remain grateful.  Anyway, he was a star, a handsome one with bulging muscles and a sculpted body, and we hooked up.  Not without a lot of flack mind you.  There were many women on campus with serious designs on my guy who didn’t appreciate having him snatched away.  And they let me know not very nicely several times that they wanted him, intended to have him, and I would be less than a speck of dust on the radar.  Pfft! To them.  I was in love with my studly superstar and I didn’t care. 

Obviously, over 25 years we’ve both matured and changed.  We brought three children into the world and muddled through the serious, funny and tragic.  My confidence has grown along with some gray hair.  His body isn’t what anyone would consider sculpted anymore and he keeps his hair short so the receding hairline doesn’t show as much.  I like him though.  I wouldn’t trade and I don’t share. 

Recently, the company to which he leases his truck brought in a photographer and asked to use his picture in their company ad in a trucker magazine.  It was fun for him and a nice compliment.  However, there have been some unexpected repercussions.   Apparently several women have telephoned his company asking for his name and telephone number.  Not to apply for a job mind you, they want to apply for my husband.  The ladies in the office explained to the women that he is married but the opportunistic hussies didn’t care.  On the home front though it’s been fun.  Got his picture taken, got an ego boost and suddenly, my husband’s gone studly again.   

**** 

A couple weeks ago my husband was driving down a highway just outside of Dallas when traffic slowed to a standstill.  Now car drivers may be in the dark regarding highway events but truck drivers use their handy dandy CB to spread important info.  As he rolled to a stop my husband turned up his CB to learn what had caused the traffic jam.  Sure enough, a few seconds later he heard a driver ask what was causing the pile up.  A response came back, “There are pigs running down the highway.”   

“Pigs running down the highway?” came the incredulous reply. 

Laughing, the first driver answered, “No Driver, not the two legged kind.” 

It seems a bunch of pigs were crammed into the back of a trailer.  The trailer came open and they sort of rolled out onto the highway and freedom.  Sadly, one piggy didn’t survive but all the others after much panic and frantic chasing were finally corralled and loaded back into the trailer. 

Give a guy a digital camera and he can entertain himself all day. 

The Great Dallas Highway Pig Chase 

One little guy had a piggy standoff because he refused to docilely load back into the trailer.

“Go ahead, make my piggy day.”

I’m goin’ to the Big House. 

****

Spring is rolling through my area much to my personal enjoyment.  Temperatures rose this weekend to the balmy category making plants bud and folks respond accordingly. 

Guys polished and rode their motorcycles.

Trees budded.

Children figured since they didn’t have to wear a coat,

it must be time to run through water in bathing suits. 

Vehicles were restored to their shiny summer glory. 

The lawn maintenance urge reared its head and lawnmowers were heard

throughout the afternoon. 

****

And now for a couple odd sights around town, those places that make me gaze and wonder as I savor their uniqueness. 

As long as I’ve lived here, the boat has hung in the back yard.

I’m convinced that they are either waiting for a floods they can float it out

 or the boat is permanently stuck because there isn’t enough room to remove it from its berth.

They had to have hung the boat and then built the house. 

At the ostrich/goat farm, emus, goats and sheep graze in harmony.

Picture the goats and sheep closer in and to the left.

If one has to have tree stumps and a power meter in the front yard

one can at least decorate.

That’s a squirrel, a fish, and an odd gremlin type figure.