…the summer of driving a school bus in the cornfields. “Poor Irv,” is all I can think to say.
Irv was my superior – the guy in charge of all the drivers running detassling crews throughout the county for the NC+ company. Every morning after the corn had matured enough to be stricken of tassles, (sounds awful!) I would head out with my rig around 5 am, travel to two or three small towns, return to the city park with a load of teens ready to earn the best wages around for a kid, and then set out with a map and directions for the field we were going to deprive of some pollinating ability.
In the course of the two months I wrangled teens and stalks, I managed to run over irrigation pipe, back the bus into my neighbor’s car (I think he parked it there on purpose!) and blow out something with the engine in the town farthest from home. I always dreaded calling Irv, and yet he never yelled at me or chastised me. He just shook his head, obviously thinking he wasn’t paid enough for the job.
I never sent the crew into the wrong field in spite of my directional dyslexia, I didn’t miss a single day of work, and I lost weight dragging myself through those muddy, irrigated fields every day for two months. They even asked me to return the following summer? I would have, save my family moved that year and we no longer lived where someone would let me drive a bus.
Every fall when those yellow transports fill the roads I remember that summer and Irv, a model of patience. Be like Irv.