Grateful to Mike Mason for this guest blog. I met Mike a number of years ago at the KASA.
What Driving a School Bus Taught Me
By Michael A. Mason
I am grateful to have been able to do the kind of work I dreamed of doing during my childhood. I served five years in the United States Marine Corps, enjoyed a career in law enforcement and ultimately managed large staffs in a dynamic private sector company. In 2022, I completed another bucket list goal when I wrote a book titled, “Working in America -Spectator or Gladiator…You Decide”. Later in the same year, I took on a completely different challenge, one I came to love just as much as I loved the rest of my professional life. I decided to earn my commercial driver’s license and apply to become a school bus driver.
I drove children who were severely autistic, to a school dedicated to working with them. I met some amazing, dedicated young instructors who came to work each day focused on nurturing children challenged by autism. I worked with an aide on my bus who had an unbelievably positive attitude. Our students would sometimes grab her hair or clothes, or strike out at her physically, yet I never saw anything, but compassion, love and understanding come from her. She made me laugh and laugh hard every day. I also learned a few very valuable life lessons. I learned that the children I transported each day, who I would have initially described as non-communicative, were in fact very communicative. The challenge for me was in learning their language. Working with my kids also made me aware of how lucky we should consider ourselves for capabilities we take for granted. I was in awe of the wonderful parents I met, who greeted my bus each morning with warm smiles and did the same when I returned with their children in the afternoon. I was humbled by their giving spirits as they addressed challenges that would crumble people of lesser fortitude. I drove my kids to school so that they, like all school children, could learn something new every day. Little did I know it would be me who would be learning something new every day. I can only hope I gave them as much as they gave me during my brief tenure as a Chesterfield County school bus driver.
