A ten year old boy told me that he loves vegetables.

My work is done here today. 

11/22/15
Ellen’s Ride
A few years ago I won the bus route lottery. It wasn’t a real lottery. Every summer bus routes are administered via a bidding process. One summer about eight years ago I came home after my summer travels to a message from my supervisor. She said, “Jimmy Joe, where are you? You missed bidding! Are you coming back to work? We only have three routes. If you want one you’d better get down here!”

It was slim pickins. I chose a route that had only one school, a high school, and barely enough hours to cover the health insurance. The day before school started an elementary school was added to my route.

On the first day of school I set out in the dark looking for my new stop. I didn’t have time to scope it out so I drove slowly down the winding hill until I saw a little girl and her dad waiting on the corner. Ellen was five years old and cute as a button. No other kids rode the bus to the elementary school that morning… or the morning after that or any morning for the next three years. There were as many as three to five kids riding home in the afternoon but in the morning it was just Ellen and me. I was Ellen’s personal chauffeur.

There are many advantages to having one child on a bus route:

1) Seating charts are easy. Seat #1 = Ellen. Done.

2) No fighting to worry about.

3) If Ellen wasn’t riding the bus her mom would text me early in the morning and I would relax and have breakfast on the bus.

4) If a paper airplane hit my head I’d have a pretty good idea who threw it. Ellen. (Just a hypothetical – Ellen never threw paper airplanes.)

I could go on and on.

Disadvantages to having one kid on the bus:

I told my Pop about my great new route. He said, “That’s costing the taxpayer.”

Thanks, Pop, way to burst my bubble.

A middle school was added to my route. After I dropped Ellen off I picked up fifty ornery middle school kids. It balanced out.

Ellen and I became pals. We would make up fun and magical places and creatures to see on our way to school. It was like driving in a parallel universe. One day I picked up Ellen and asked her where she wanted to go.

She said, “Mt. Everest!”

“Mt. Everest it is! I’ll just push the magic purple button to activate automatic snow tires and oxygen tank. Now if we can only get the heater to work…”

We would travel to the moon, the bottom of the ocean, around the rings of Saturn, and always get to school on time. One morning we even went back in time to Brooklyn, circa 1955. I spoke in my native New Yawk tongue, which Ellen picked up on right away. It was cuter than cute hearing her say, “Hey, what are you tawkin about?”

During this time I went to see Ellen’s principal and offered to do a free lunchtime concert for the kids. She loved the idea and it became a tradition.
I wrote a song called Ellen’s Ride. It takes the listener through our morning ride to school, complete with The Jungles of Forest on the Cliff, Rhinocepotamus, and the Three Legged Iron Back Rusted Belly Fish. I gave it to Ellen for her 10th birthday. Ellen’s mom put the cd on and asked Ellen if she knew all the places in the song. She smiled and said she did.
Fast forward a few more years.

Chrissie and I recently finished recording an album of music for Children. It’s called Playing in the Dirt and for this project we’ve named ourselves Mr. Bus Driver Man Sir and Her. 

It took us a year and a half to complete and we are very pleased with the finished product.

Yes, Ellen’s Ride is included on the album. The whimsical, playful and darkly colorful tune features none other than Ellen, now in middle school, on the cello! Her mom asked if I would mind giving her a ride home from the recording studio. Would I mind?! It was wonderful catching up with Ellen and I still knew the way.
We also have plans to add a picture book to accompany the cd. Illustrations will be done by multitalented musician and artist Darrin Kobetich.

We are running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for production costs for the cd and to get the book done by next year. So here’s my shameless plea:

Please help us out by contributing to our project! We have a whole batch of rewards available based on the amount you pledge.

The campaign ends Dec. 7 @ 11:11pm. If we don’t meet our goal we get nothing so please pledge. We’re pulling our hair out over here!

We have some great guest musicians on the album and the production is superb. I am very excited about it! You will love it!

Here’s the link:

kickstarter

Life gets even better when my worlds collide!
Jimmy Joe

My Pop once said to me, “You have so much talent. You shouldn’t have to drive a bus.”

True enough. Thanks to this man (and my Mom) I had guitar lessons with a great teacher throughout my teens. Pop worked extra hours and refinanced the house so that I could attend The Berklee College of Music in Boston and Musicians Institute in Hollywood. He wanted me to get the most from my education without having to work a part time job. For this I am forever grateful. 

My father was once a fine singer. He studied voice with an opera singer and sang in the supper clubs in Manhattan. He was also a talented artist. There’s one surviving painting that I know of that he did in the 1940s. He was young and very good. Unfortunately he did not have support from his family and he was forced to work all through his youth. He chose to do things differently for his own children.
When I turned thirty I decided I needed a day job. Until then I’d worked many odd jobs. I was a jack of all trades. I’d washed windows in Beverly Hills, fixed cars, built playscapes, sold bread, had a food business, delivered lunches, etc., etc. I scoured the paper (pre-craigslist) and circled possibilities. I applied to ten jobs in ten different fields, all of which I was qualified for. I knew what I didn’t want to do. Most of the potential positions fell into that category. The one listing that stood out and got me excited read, “School Bus Drivers Wanted.” 
Sign me up! 

My first day driving a big bus was a Saturday. My trainer, Doris (also my Mom’s name, pronounced DOOR-iss in TX, DAR-iss in NY – we joked about that often), took me out in a torrential downpour. I drove through flooded roads (I didn’t know any better), up hills and through town. We covered most of Austin. I was having so much fun Doris said, “Keep driving, Jimmy Joe!”

Driving the bus was the easy part. I learned to drive in a full size Chevy van that Pop bought new in 1982. Then I had my own van, a ’69 Ford Econoline known to the world as The Beast. The bus was just a bigger van. 

The greatest challenge was waking up for the morning route. It took me years to get used to getting up way before the crack of dawn. More than once I woke up to daylight and I knew I was in trouble. It usually happened on a cold, windy and rainy day. I felt bad for the kids waiting for me in that nasty weather. I thought about my Pop. He always got up around 5. Mom made him breakfast. He went to work and Mom went back to bed. I always assumed he was a morning person. Then Pop retired. Without the burden of a day job, he was staying up to watch the midnight movies and sleeping in until 10 or 11. Pop was a night owl like me!
“If it wasn’t for the kids, traffic and early mornings, this would be a great job!” – (old bus driver proverb)
So how does a night owl musician take on a job that gets him out of bed at 4:37am? One friend said, “Jimmy Joe gets up so early he has to wake up the rooster!”
The answer is… he sleeps in the summer. That system worked for a long time. But back to Pop’s initial comment. After a while he saw that I loved being a musician and school bus driver. His attitude about it changed and he began to ask me about the job.

I started to include School Bus News in my monthly music newsletter. I wrote about the fun, crazy and poignant things the kids said and did on the bus. The newsletter that started around fifteen years ago eventually developed into this blog. 

My two worlds began to intertwine. I started writing songs for, inspired by, and sometimes with the kids. I was playing shows at the schools. From early on I’ve had a guitar that lives part time on the bus. I play in the afternoon when the kids are boarding the bus and on field trips. I’ve had young adults say, “You sang the Mango song when I was in 3rd grade!” It’s an awesome feeling. At the end of each school year I have the children sign my guitar. I’m on my second school bus guitar. Each has many layers of signatures. Someone asked if there was anyone famous among them. I replied, “Not yet.”

A silly sense of humor is one of the things I’ve inherited from my father. 

When it comes time to take attendance on the bus I say, “Raise your hand if you are NOT here!,” or, “What time did Ellen not show up today?” 

I also give quizzes. “What?!? A quiz on a school bus?!”

The questions weren’t difficult.

“How do you spell FBI?”

“What color is an orange?”

“What’s the phone number for 9-1-1?”

Here’s what I mean about Pop passing his humor down to me:

Many years ago my sister Amy called the house very late at night or very early in the morning, WAY past curfew (a story for someone else’s blog.) Pop answered the phone in a groggy voice.

Amy said, “Sorry to wake you, Dad.”

His sleepy voice replied, “That’s okay, I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”

So, for the sense of humor that makes my wife roll her eyes, I have Dear Ol’ Pop to thank/blame.  

Jim “Pop” Natoli

Nov 3, 1928 – Oct 11, 2015
Love,

Your son
**************************************************************************

Fall has arrived in central Texas and the temperature has plummeted to the mid eighties. I had forgotten what it meant to sweat, I mean really sweat, while we were away on our west coast tour this past summer. We came back to Austin smack dang spang in the middle of August. It was like broiled soup with a side of fire ants and mosquitoes to spice things up. Within a week I was back on the bus driving my new route. During that first week back I realized my mistake. I forgot to pack the two or three extra T-shirts I so desparately need in the unairconditioned bus. I also forgot to disinfect the seats from the summer route and football games.   Football season also starts in August and I had the misfortune of hauling a few of the high school teams to and from their games. Did you know that they never wash those shoulder pads? Picture this:

It’s August and I’ve recently returned from frolicking around the very cool west coast. It’s 103 in the shade and I go to the high school after my route. The boys have been practicing in the afternoon heat and are pumped for the big game. They pile into the bus and I’m nearly  knocked out of my seat by the smell and the game hasn’t even begun yet! We crawl to the game in rush hour traffic. I’m trying to stick my head out the window to breathe some refreshing car exhaust but I can’t reach and I can’t very well hold my breath for an hour. So I endure.

We finally get to the stadium and the team shuffles out of the bus. It’s a great relief, although an echo of the stench remains so I grab my little guitar and find a spot in the shade. 

After the final buzzer I brace myself for the stampede. All 25 windows are wide open and the fan is on high. It’s a losing battle. I don’t know how I didn’t pass out on the way back to the school. At least the coach didn’t order the kids to close all the windows. They sometimes do that as a courtesy to the driver, to save me the trouble. That’s when it really gets bad. I think that is why they’ve installed the little red panic button on each bus. 

I made it back to the bus barn, then to my car and the air never smelled sweeter. The next day I went to work armed with a bag full of T-shirts, disinfectant and paper towels. 

It’s only 85 today but it’s creeping back up to the 90s and I have a football game later this week. Send thoughts of roses and fresh air.

-Mr. School Bus Driver Man Sir

We’re well into the new school year. I’ve traded in the lion bus for a frog bus. The frog doesn’t roar like the lion but it outperforms it by leaps and bounds. Okay, enough of the bad puns. 

I miss the kids from last year’s route but I’m getting to know a whole new batch. One worried little girl said, “I’ve lost something. I don’t know what it is and I don’t know where I lost it but I’ve always had it.”

I never did find what she didn’t know she lost.

I have a new star of the bus already. She’s four years old and bursting with cuteness. One day I asked her how she was. She said, “Good. I didn’t pee in my pants.” Yesterday she was very excited that her grandparents came to visit and see her off to school. She said, “I have a grandma and I have a grandpa. And, and, and…” 

I cut in and said, “And they’re going to meet you at the bus stop after school!”

She said with a big smile, “Yes, they’re coming to the bus!” 

Sure enough, Grandma and Grandpa were waiting at the bus stop. The little one was frustrated because she couldn’t unbuckle the seatbelt fast enough to spring from the seat into their arms. They seemed like very nice folks who were as happy to see her as she was them. The next morning my little friend was waiting at the stop with her grandparents. As she climbed up the giant steps she said, “Hi Uncle Jimmy Joe!” I thought it was a one time fluke, calling me uncle, but she sat down and said, “Uncle Jimmy Joe, can you help me with my seatbelt?” I didn’t bother to correct her. Then she said, “Uncle Jimmy Joe, did you know me when I was a little girl?”

I said, “How old were you when you were a little girl?”

She replied, “She was two.”

I asked, “Who was two?”

She looked at me like I forgot to plug in my brain, “My little sister!”

Later that day as the kids were piling in to go home, the girl and her friend were calling me Uncle Joe. I tried to teach them my other name, Mr. Bus Driver Man Sir. 

After that I was addressed as Mr. Sir Bus Driver, Mr. Uncle Bus Driver Sir and, well, you get the picture.
I overheard a middle school boy say to his friend, “Why would you dream that Curious George could kill you? Why?!?!”
The high school bus is overcrowded. One afternoon a young man declined an invitation to go to his friend’s house. He said, “I can’t. I got house arrest.” 

I thought he was joking until I noticed the bulky black device wrapped around his ankle. Should I be scared, I thought. No, he knows he has to be on his best behavior. 

I think it’ll be a good year. 

Mr. Uncle Sir Bus Man Driver

Hi Foks, it’s been way too long and I don’t want to lose you, especially after hearing that the average attention span is down to eight seconds. Eight seconds! What was I talking about? Oh yeah, back to School Bus News.

Since it’s been so long, why not pick up where we left off with the name game?

The two little girls who called me Mr. Jimmy Joe Man Sir moved to a different school during the school year. They were a handful of trouble but I sure did miss them when they left. I hope Ariana catches the ear of a good music teacher. That 6 year old girl has rhythm and can carry a tune without a bucket. She would often play percussion on my guitar as I was playing it. When I changed rhythm she would quickly fall into time. I tried to trip her up by changing tempo and time signature. She stopped and listened for a second and started hand drumming on my guitar to the new beat. One time I was playing a very rhythmic fingerstyle blues when Ariana boarded the bus. I said, “There’s my little Drummer Girl! Will you play drums with me?” She listened to the percussive sounds and said, “It doesn’t need drums.”, and she went to her seat. She was right. The piece I was playing had all the rhythm It needed. I don’t know if many professional drummers  would have made that call.

Another child on that route called me Barnacle Head one day. I’m not sure why, but I put a stop to that business. He got used to calling me Mr. Bus Driver Man Sir.

It was a fun year on the Lion bus. It’s more fun now that it’s summer and we’re playing music all the way up the west coast. Here are some highlights from the school year.

One morning on my elementary route I was chatting with the boys in the front seat about going to the moon on our way to school. I said, We don’t have enough gas to get to the moon today. Maybe if we find a portal…”

Alex: Portals spin you around really fast! Well, not too fast.

Me: The new portals are better. They’re not too fast. Are there any gas stations on the moon? We may have to fling ourselves into orbit to get home.

Kyle: What’s orbit?

Alex: It spins you around really fast! Well, not too fast.

Just then a boy named Nick said to me, “You are super crazy, dude!”

I said, ” You will all have assigned seats soon.”

Nick: I don’t think so!”

Me: Oh, yes you will!

Nick: I’m not going to have an assigned seat!”

Me: Yes, everybody will have an assigned seat.”

Nick’s friend Oliver: It’s a free country. Haven’t you read the constitution?

On the last day of school a little girl who liked to play tag climbed the steps of the bus, licked my arm and said, “Tag, you’re it!” Then she ran to the back of the bus. I said, “I don’t want to play tag with you today.”
One advantage to driving so early in the morning is being able to watch the sunrise above the horizon while in the same glance seeing the full harvest moon set in the rearview mirror.

That’s it for now, probably until the new school year starts in late August. 

Tag, you’re it!

Mr. Jimmy Joe Man Sir

A Bus Driver by any other name…

What’s in a name?
For the past sixteen years I’ve had children ages four through seventeen call me Bus Driver. Bus Driver is my job. Bus Driver is my title. Bus Driver is not my name. For the past sixteen years I’ve been telling children that Bus Driver is not my name. One principal told the kids to call me Mr. Natoli. That didn’t seem right at the time. I felt I was too young (early thirties) to be called Mr. Natoli and besides, that’s my Pop’s name.
When I was a child we called adults Mr. Smith or Ms. Jones, etc. Somewhere along the way it became customary to call adults Mr. Frank or Mrs. Jenny. I liked the lack of total formality in the new naming system so I decided to have the kids call me Mr. Jimmy Joe. Some did but most still called me Bus Driver. Finally I’d had it with being called Bus Driver. I said, “My name is Mr. Jimmy Joe. You may call me Mr. Jimmy Joe. If you can’t get past calling me Bus Driver then you MUST call me Mr. Bus Driver Man Sir!
It was sort of meant to be a joke but kids took to it. Some Call me Mr. Jimmy Joe but more call my Mr. Bus Driver Man Sir. Two little girls on my current route, being either creative or confused, call me Mr. Jimmy Joe Man Sir. I like that one. I still refuse to answer to Bus Driver.
Speaking of names, many people have asked me how I managed to grow up in New York with a name like Jimmy Joe. The answer is I didn’t. My parents named me James Joseph. They never called me James Joseph, or James unless I was in big trouble. As an adult the majority of people calling me James have been creditors and sales people, so, I don’t have a very positive association with that name. Growing up I was called Jimmy or Jim. When I was a little boy my Aunt Jo started calling me Jimmy Joe. The neighbor kids caught on and they continued using that name long after they moved to rural upstate NY. It sounded natural in that setting. Back on Long Island I think there was a law against double names and if there was, the neighborhood bullies would be happy to enforce it. My double name was limited to Aunt Jo and the neighbor kids who moved away.
Down south folks don’t understand how you’d get Jimmy Joe from James Joseph. By golly, if you want to call your kid Billy Bob you don’t go naming him William Robert! Billy Bob types out just fine on a birth certificate.
Fast forward to my mid-twenties in Los Angeles. I was selling bread and pesto at farmers markets all over the LA area. One of the volunteers at the Hermosa Beach market was an older gentleman named Dick Storey. (He said they called him Cocktale, but that’s a story for another venue.) The first time I met Dick Story he walked up to my booth and said, “What do you know, Jimmy Joe?” I was surprised. I said, “How did you know I was Jimmy Joe? Nobody has called me that since I was a kid!
He said, “Well, you look like a Jimmy Joe, don’t you?”
A year later I was living in Austin and the name fit like a glove.

Every bus driver experiences it. Every bus driver dreads it. It happens once in a great while and can’t be avoided. Today I won that special lottery.
“SOMEONE THREW UP!”
The cry came from somewhere near the back of the bus. I was taking the elementary kids home and made it halfway through the route when it happened.
“It smells bad!” said one girl.
The other kids chimed in as they craned their necks to see the damage.
“What did he eat?”
“Looks like carrots.”
“I think I see beans.”
“Who puked?”
“He must’ve had grape juice.”
“I think he had apple sauce.”
I pulled the bus over to check on the boy. He said he would be okay the rest of the trip.
As these things go it was not that bad of a mess, however, the Body Fluid Cleanup Kit was woefully inadequate. I threw a greasy rag down to contain the mess until the rest of the kids were dropped safely at their stops.
I was two stops from the end when I heard the first signs of a possible chain reaction. A voice from the back said, “It smells really bad and my stomach hurts!”
“I think I’m getting sick!”
I said, “Hang in there, you’re almost home!”
I wanted to drive fast but I knew that would make it worse, especially around the curves. We finally made it to the last stop without incident. The parents at the stop thought the bus was flooded with vomit from the way their kids described it.
I pulled over to clean up the mess. The cleanup kit showed signs of budget cuts. There were a few grains of stuff similar to kitty litter, latex free gloves and a biohazard bag but no disinfectant. Just then one of the dads asked if I needed anything. He offered paper towels and disinfectant. I said I had plenty of paper towels but I could sure use some disinfectant. I put the towels to work while he went  home to get a bottle of 409. I welcomed the harsh chemical smell. I sprayed half the bottle, handed it back and thanked him. On to the middle school.

ps – I just filled a big container with kitty litter. Tomorrow morning the Lion bus will be equipped with Puke Protection!

I drove my route that morning like always. When the kids were safely tucked away in school and the bus parked in its spot I walked into the building at the bus barn to clock out. People were crowded around the television and I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I went home and turned the radio on (I had no tv) and heard that the towers had collapsed. I remembered my own 6th grade field trip to New York City. One of the highlights was taking the elevators 110 stories up to the roof of the World Trade Center. I tried to call my family in New York. My sister Amy was working in Manhattan at the time. After a while I got my parents on the phone and they heard from Amy and she was ok, just rattled and having a hell of a time trying to get home to New Jersey. I went back to work that afternoon. I didn’t want to but the kiddos needed to get home and I didn’t really want to be alone either. A six year old boy asked me why I was wearing all black and why I looked so sad. I said, “Because a lot of people died today.” He asked how and I told him. He asked if it was an accident and I said no, it wasn’t an accident. He said, “You mean they did it on purpose? That’s so stupid!” I agreed with him. I hadn’t thought about why this boy didn’t know about the attacks. The school probably thought it best to leave it up to the families. The boy asked and I told him.

It was 101 degrees on our first day back to school and no, we don’t have air conditioning in the buses in Austin. The morning route was smooth and uneventful except for one minor glitch. My bus had a zebra sticker where there should have been a lion. It caused a little confusion but I promised the parents that I would have a lion sign by the afternoon so their kids wouldn’t be confused.

I put not one but two lion signs on the bus to make sure the kids knew where they were supposed to be. We made it through the afternoon but not without a hitch.Halfway through the elementary route a little girl named Violet asked me if I got to her stop yet. I pulled over and checked her paper and sure enough her stop was the first one. Just then the radio spoke up, “Base 6 to Jimmy Joe. Do you have a girl named Violet on your bus?” I said I did and that I would take her back to the school after I dropped off the other kids. We got to the school and I walked her inside to her very anxious mom. It set me back thirty minutes on my middle and high school routes but one mom’s relief and gratitude made it all worth it. Violet never got upset. I told her I was taking her to her mom at the school and she accepted it. As it turns out the school put her on the wrong bus route. I was very happy to get Violet back to her mom and a little sad that this cool little girl wouldn’t be riding my bus anymore.