I did except senior year when, by my own assessment, I was too cool for riding the bus.

Rode it from fourth-tenth or so. My girlfriend drove us the last couple of years. Kids behaved on my buses too. There were no fights or getting picked on. The first day of school every year, without fail, regardless of school, there would be no bus. We'd go to the office and complain, and then they'd get it right the rest of the year. Never could figure out why they skipped us first day. My son has ridden the city bus either to or from or to and from school since he was in fourth grade. The people on the bus take care of the kids. Bus drivers, police officers in the station and at school, AND the bus patrons. I've never seen or heard of anything bad on his bus rides and he's a junior this year. He'll drive part of next year, but honestly, he prefers the bus or train. He attends a magnet and that's the stipulation in Nashville, no buses for magnet kids. But, we get to ride the city system for free. Works out.

We lived very close to all 3 schools we attended (elementary, middle and high schools) so either my Mother or Dad took us. I often walked to or from the middle school which was the closest. I also had to walk uphill, both ways, since we lived on a hill and our HS was on a hill. Didn't walk there much because of traffic around it but did walk home a few times.

Yes, I always rode the bus, 1st thru 12th. Some kids were loud, a few were obnoxious, but not so much that the driver ever took us back to school, which was the 'threat'! Once we were let out early due to snow. Our bus made it halfway home, then slid slowly into a ditch. We sat there about a 1/2 hour until a second bus could be sent to take us home.

Remember being let out of class, and rushing to the bus line so you could get the best seat? LOL that was usually all the way in the back, where you'd bounce way up each time the bus hit a pot hole. I'm sure the drivers loved that -- not!

More recently, my daughter took the bus, 1st thru 12th. The main difference in her experience was that the "nice" drivers let the high school kids listen to music on iPods.

We walked to elementary school, grades kidgrtn thru eighth grade, then when we entered high school we caught the bus at the elementary school to the high school.

We were called "town kids".

Most of my years, we lived close enough to walk to the local school. By my fifth year, we lost our high school to a school that was 6 miles away. So when I went to high school, I walked to local school and caught the bus to be taken to the high school. We had a male driver. He was a very kind man, but he brooked NO nonsense and we all knew it.

I walked or rode my bike to grade school. 7th grade, we began riding the school bus to town to the Jr. High, then High School. I had a friend just a short walk down the road whose father was the shop and drivers ed teacher, and in high school I'd often walk to their house then ride to school with them, in the high school's drivers ed car that he drove home every night.

That school bus ride though, coming and going, was a great place to get homework done. We didn't have nearly the amount of homework that kids seem to have today ;0)

During grade school, I walked to and from school, home for
lunch and back. No
time to dilly dally. We were poorer than dirt, and didn’t have a car, so no ride.

High School was slightly farther, and the bus was an option.
Rather than stand around and wait for it, I walked the entire time, but stayed
for lunch. If the weather was -20°F, extra layers of clothing and face protection was added. An earlier arrival time was necessary to thaw out before class.

I rode a bus from 3rd grade on through graduation. We lived on a farm, and grades 7 to 12 were about 5 mi. from us. Grades 1 to 3, I walked. At first, my mother walked with me, then came back in the afternoon to walk me home. All kids from the adjoining farms walked together. I'll always remember one day when the snow was very deep, the snow plow came by just as we got to the end of our driveway, and stopped to give me a ride to school. My mother rode, too, I'm not sure if he gave her a ride back to the farm or if she walked back. That school was almost exactly 1 mile from us. No hills, though. :^) All 6 grades were in that one room school then. Starting when I went into the 4th grade, elementary grades were separated into 2 separate one room schools, grades 1 to 3 in one school, grades 4 to 6 in another, which was farther away. That was probably the first year our school system had buses, and I rode one. One winter, our bus got stuck somehow or another one day, on a little used dirt road. No way it could get out. There were about 7 or 8 of us on the bus at that stage of the route. The owners of the closest farm took us all in for the night, and until the bus could be gotten out the next day. It turned out to be a fun adventure for us kids, but our parents were worried sick that night. Thank goodness my folks and the farmer we stayed with had phones and we were able to get word to parents that we were safe for the night. This was in the early 50's, and phones were still something of a luxury.

Rusty

Grammar school was almost in sight of my house, walked to and from and came home for lunch, sidewalks all the way.

Middle school was more than a mile away, straight through the center of my home town, sidewalks all the way, and also up hill both ways.

High school is when I took the bus. We had to walk about 10 minutes to a central location where the bus would pick us up and drop us off. If the bus didn't show up we'd leisurely walk to school, winding up a couple hours late, but it was an excused tardy. Juniors and seniors were allowed to drive to school if their grades warranted it, but I always took the bus even though I had a car.

I did. Elementary through Jr. high. So weird how now there isn't bus service for all schools, all kids.

If you mean my city always, the explanation is... to attend our magnets, you can live anywhere in the county. Anywhere. And it's not small geographically. So how could they make the rounds to all the areas and then get to all the schools on time? It's an impossible task. You can drive your kid, or you can send them on a city bus. Works out. Even when I was poor in money and time. They're not denied access and given a way there, so why not?

We lived way out in the country so definitely rode the bus. Same bus driver for all my years. He owned a little general store and would stop by there on occasion for some reason and he would let us go in and buy some penny candy or gum. Not many of the kids had money. I got gum a few times but had to get rid of it before school.

In my high school years when I was able to drive I took the car to school. It was a small town so there was just one school with three different buildings for elementary, middle, and high plus the gym. Everyone knew each other.

I rode the bus almost every day for 12 years. Even my final day in high school, I rode the bus home. I had a car, but my parents said a perfectly good bus went right past the house, so I could not drive. Sometime in 11th or 12th grade, we got a new bus, and it had a radio!! How cool was that?? We had a nice driver who would tune it to a station that the kids liked.

Early in elementary school, our bus driver was called Beepin' Benny. He was an old guy (probably 40!) and he used the horn about as much as the brakes. He took no prisoners, and would not hesitate to evict a rowdy rider. Remember the lights in the ceiling, the silence lights? If those lights came on, you shut your yap or else. He did turn that bus around more than once and take us all back to school.

My grandparents lived maybe 1/4 mile from the elementary school, so occasionally I got to walk there after school. If Mom wasn't going to be home to meet me, I would go there and wait for her. I thought I was the biggest of bigshots on the days I walked to Grandmas!

From kindergarten to when I got my license during high school. It was a rural area, so we had a .25 mile walk to get to the bus stop. Not bad. But some students really had it rough--their bus left before 6am they had so far to ride to reach the school.

Never. Went to Chgo public schools, walked to grade & high school. Just mapquested the distance to high school, 1.6 miles each way; nice healthy walk twice a day.

I walked or rode my bicycle to elementary school, but rode the bus to middle school and freshman year of high school. After that, I was involved in before school and after school activities so my mother drove me for a few months until I got my license and I could afford to buy a car. Luckily, I had been working and saving money since my early teens so I was able to buy a car pretty quickly. I think my father signed the note so I would qualify for the loan at 16 years old.

The bus stopped across from my house, but it arrived at 6:30 a.m. If I missed it, I had to run to the other end of the neighborhood to catch it at the end of its route. That also meant that I had to stand up for the whole trip because the bus was always overcrowded. I didn't miss it very many times!

I walked to school back and forth four times a day for ten years as I came home for lunch. Each walk was at least a mile so it totaled four miles a day and I started as a six year old by myself!!! Then when I was 12 my parents built a new house a few feet from town line so I had to go to the township school for two years till they merged. So in 8th and 9th grades, I rode the bus.

Yes, I rode the bus to high school, back in the 60's. It was pretty tame, if it got loud the driver would threaten to turn off the radio, that quieted everyone. I was always worried I would miss the ride home, especially when I had PE for the last class and it was in a building far from the bus area. (Sometimes I dream I am running to catch the bus as it's leaving although I never did miss it)

I lived in town and about three blocks from school so always walked. Our nighborhood was full of kids so it was fun to walk with everyone. Plus stop for candy if needed!

.

I lived in a large city. I walked to elementary school (a few blocks away) and middle school (as did mdln, I just checked the distance, it was about 1.6 miles each way.) When I started high school, I went with a neighbor/friend. It was a 10 minute walk to the major street where public transportation (a city bus) could take us the remaining 3.5 miles. After not too long, we realized the trip could be much faster if we stuck out a thumb while waiting for the bus because we almost always got a ride quickly, sometimes even from teachers at the school. We'd take whichever came first. After maybe a year of that, older friends who drove to school would give us both a ride. After that, we both started driving and one of us could usually commandeer a family car. The last year, I had my own car and so did my friend and, of course, we each drove to school alone (or with whomever we picked up along the way).

I walked to school all 12 grades. In rain, snow, what ever Mom nature threw at us. It was a 1/2 mile walk, not nearly as long as a couple of my friends walked. Theirs was 1 1/4 mile walk, and a steep climb most of the way. We survived, and I strongly believe we were "richer" for it. At least I can look back thinking that way....then, probably not so much..

I'm pretty sure that the era of the SAHM is why it was safe for my friends and I to walk a mile to school. We went home and back over the lunch *hour*. We walked home after school. "Patrol Boys" manned the only corner with traffic. If it was extremely cold or raining buckets someone's mother would drive us.

I lived mid-point between the K - 6 school and the 7 - 8 junior high, and I walked to both. There were 'lunchrooms' at both schools with free milk, but almost no one 'brought lunch' until I was in 8th grade (mid-50's). Although my mother worked, my grandmother lived with us. Very few of my friends had mothers who worked outside the home, and there were few families of more than two or three kids. I knew only one girl whose parents were divorced, like mine.

I rode the bus to our township high school at first. My junior year the HS went on split shifts due to over-crowding. (Those darn Baby Boomers!) I would have needed to catch the bus before 6 a.m., but my father bought me a car.

My only memory of the school bus was that it was threadbare, with a harsh ride, and smelled of every lunch bag it had ever transported.

I only rode the bus regularly to kindergarten. The following year either bus service was discontinued or at least was unavailable. My mother drove me school and I also came home for lunch during the early grades. Carpooled with the neighbor. When I got older I sometimes rode my bike. School was under a mile away.

In junior high there was bus service but I seldom rode it unless I was going to a friend's house after school. I would meet my BF at the halfway point and we would walk to school together. I had to start there in sixth grade due to overcrowding at the elementary school. Mom drove me the first year. I bought my lunch so didn't come home. School was about 1.25 miles away.

Walked to my first 2 years of high school, sometimes got a ride. 1.5 miles. Never took the bus even thought there was one. Second high school was almost 3 miles away so I was driven, no bus to my area, no public buses.

I rode the bus for 4 years of high school. I lived 10 miles out in the farmland surrounding our small community HS and this school district covered a large area. It was served by 4 bus routes and mine was one of the longer ones. I think it was at least 36 miles long. The trip from school to home might take an hour, and for some years, that did not deliver me to our home. After drop off, I still had a mile to walk home. During the last half of the year, the bus traveled the route in reverse direction thus evening out the times of transit. A student at the beginning of the route got on the bus early and had a long ride to school. When the route reversed, that student had a long ride from school to home, and a short ride from home to school.

Most of the route was over graveled roads. The ride was most interesting after an ice storm. We never had a 'snow day' during my 4 years of HS. The bus ran every day irregardless of weather. However, southern Illinois is not noted for heavy snow falls. The largest might be 12 inches, and an average of 4 inches. Freezing rain is common, often at least one per winter.

During my junior and senior years, I worked at a Pure Oil service station for 3 hours after school, and 8 hours on Saturday. That station was in the same town as the school. I would service one the school buses on Saturday. This consisted of moving the bus over a pit and I would go underneath with a pressure nozzle to knock off the clay mud and gunk, and then, wash the body. While under the bus, I also gave it a chassis lub and checked stuff like the universal joints, and tested the parking brake. That brake cable had a habit of seizing from corrosion and frozen water that may have penetrated its protective shield. The interior was cleaned with a power vacuum and the seats cleaned.

It was a hard scrabble life in my neck of the woods. People who had a few dollars in their pockets got that cash by working hard for it. My school bus driver was a self trained mechanic and did most of the needed mechanical services on the engines of those 4 buses, or he deduced the problem and contracted for the repair. He drove the bus route 2 times per day and during the middle of the day, he also delivered mail on a rural mail route. On basketball game nights, he drove the team to the game location.

I rode the school bus from 1st thru half of 3rd grade when we moved. In our new town, my mother drove me for the rest of 3rd grade, and then a new school opened just a few blocks from our house and I walked or rode my bike through 6th grade. My mother took me in the AM to junior high and we all rode the city bus home and walked the rest of the way - our town did not HAVE school buses! In high school, I drove to school each day - could get a license at 14.

My local grandsons started riding the bus in middle school and have continued in high school. They walked to their elementary school. CT grandchildren used to ride the bus - not sure anymore.

I rode the bus for several years with a few gaps here and there. Kids mainly behaved better. We had a few kids from some homes that were pretty rough. They sometimes were mean. Our bus drivers were pretty strict. One kid started a physical fight with the bus driver one day and got kicked off the bus. I think we all clapped and cheered when we drove off with that kid on the side of the road.

Our bus drivers were usually dedicated drivers that had a farm or some other job and bus driving was only a part time job for them. After, I graduated, they started having a harder time finding drivers. My last two drivers died during my first two years of college. I know some of the college kids became drivers. They weren't as experienced and things got wilder then. One of my kids has a bus driver now that no one likes.

Our town school district struggled for funding, so there was no school bus service for our area. I walked to elementary school, and our neighborhood parents organized a car pool for the high school mornings only. I walked home a few miles in high school.

yes which i how I learned the words to every Eagles song and itsy bitsy yellow polka dot bikini- bus driver's favourite song

I lived in a large city back in the 60's and walked the 2 miles to school(in the a.m. as well as home for lunch and back after lunch)

Then,in 69 parents moved us up "north" to the cottage.(total country living)

There I took a bus for gr.7 and on thru to the end of gr.12.

Average mileage then was 30 or so one way-to school @ 730 a.m. and back home for 430 p.m.

Only lived a few blocks away, so usually walked, but once in awhile, rode the bus. I also rode my horse some times.

I lived probably about six miles from school so there was no walking there and my parents never ever took me as we did not have a vehicle until I was probably 17 years old. Only one time, did I not take the bus and it was the last day of school and we would only be there just long enough to get our report cards. That day I rode my spotted pony, Babe. Babe lived to be in her 30's. My youngest daughter, Amber got to have her picture taken on her back. I got Babe when I was 9 years old. She was just a year old when my Dad bought her for me.

Sue

In the mid '30s, walked less than half a mile from farm to one-room elementary school, about 25 - 30 kids, till age 9, when Dad got me a (used) bike.

I got a new bike as grad present, rode the mile more or less to 2-room secondary school in the village for three years and a part ...

... and when we moved to Saskatchewan we were four miles from the one-room high school, beside the one-room elementary school in our village. Small cars or horse-drawn vans brought the kids to school from various directions.

No kids in our direction before we arrived, I drove two brothers and me that four miles ...

... but the first winter there, the worst snowing and blowing in years made our road impossible, so Dad boarded us through the week with a family who had a high-school aged daughter in their small house in the village ... so our family's "school bus" was only a seasonal operation, that year!

When spring came and we all emerged from our holes and shook ourselves a bit, the neighbours said that they wouldn't be talking to us any more about the snowy winters ... as we'd been through the worst that almost any of them had ever seen!

ole joyfuelled ... who's had an interesting life ...

... so far!

Interesting, indeed! You were a child in a different time and though it sounds sweet to me, I know times could be tough (and cold!)

I took the school bus all through my school years. Though we were only about half a mile from the elementary school we would have had to cross a very busy, curvy road without sidewalks so they sent the bus to our neighborhood.

DH and I bought our first home two blocks from the quite new K - 5 school our DS would attend. However, the year he started Kindergarten, the school district enrollment shrank so much that they rented that nice school for a day care and some offices.

I cried to see my little Five and his neighborhood pals struggling to make that big step up onto a bus to ride a mile to school. It was also unfortunate that there were not enough kids to make more than one (overly large) class for Kindergarten. Worse, the teacher assigned was near retirement, crabby, and didn't like little boys (according to the neighborhood girls). Not the start we'd anticipated.

For grades 10 and 11, I did. We lived 10 miles past the city limits in Prince George BC. It made for a ridiculously long day for me. Walk the 1/4 mile to the bus stop (no big deal), take the bus into town to drop off all the elementary kids, then go back out taking a different route to pick up all the rest of the kids, and again drop off elementary kids, then junior high kids, then finally over to my high school. If the weather was good, I usually jumped off at the elementary school the first time and walked the rest of the way. it was a LONG walk....

Walked about 15 minutes to & from grade school. Walked to the same school to catch bus to high school. That bus took about 45 minutes to go a mere 6 miles because of all the stops. It did not wind in and out of neighborhoods, but traveled down fairly direct major streets. There were just a lot of pick-ups, traffic lights, and railroads to stop at.

Lived 3/4 mile from 2 of the schools and 1.25 miles from 2 of the others so we didn't live far enough away to ride the bus. Seems today if you're 100 feet from a school you have to have a bus or your parents give you a ride. The only time I rode the bus was after I had a broken hip and had the bus for a couple months while recovering.

The other interesting thing is when the weather was too bad for the buses to run, the kids who rode the bus would get a "snow day". Often, for the ones who walked, they would still be required to go in.

I'm trying to imagine those who rode a horse to school. What did you do with horse while you were there?

I grew up in Ohio with adult bus drivers. But here in NC, up until maybe 25 years ago, they had high school kids driving buses. It was a decent job for them, but holy cow! Now that I think about it, that's scary! Driving a school bus at 16? No wonder so many parents drove their kids to school.

Across from the school was a large slightly wooded area. I tied him to a tree on the perimeter of that. I lived in a very, very small town. Less than one hundred twenty students in grades one to twelve. All in one building. My last year, a new high school was built on the same grounds.

Regarding kids being bus drivers....I think kids were a lot more responsible back then. A lot of kids I went to school with, got up at 4 to milk cows on dairies before going to school.

I took a bus or walked K-12. Ole Joyful reminded me of a dear friend of my mother who was raised on a large, rural farm. All 6 children attended the 2 room school house through 6th grade. They all attended HS in the city, because their parents believed in education and could afford tuition since there was no HS in their School District. Attending HS, at least for my mother's friend entailed harnessing a single horse or team, depending on the weather, driving them, with her younger sister, to the street car line and leaving the horses at a near by stable, with appropriate feed and water for the day, then taking the street car to school. In the afternoon, they reversed the process to get home each evening. BTW, 5 of the children also graduated from college.

We moved quite a bit so my mode of transportation to get to school depended on where we lived at the time. I liked it best when school was close enough to walk.

In the small school district where I went to school, and many like it, the custodians drove the school buses, whether they wanted to or not. It was part of the job. The larger districts often contracted out the bus service. To drive a bus in MN you need a special license. I don't think a 16 yo would be able to get the license since to start with, they're provisional.

And boy, I don't know of anyone who would be riding a horse to school. The stories of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc, it would only be pretty well-to-do to have a horse to ride to school. Horses were the work animals and the kids would be walking to school, not riding horses. At least according to the stories I heard growing up, not everything was like Little House on the Prairie!

I went to a small public school in Cincinnati, Ohio, and walked to school most of the time throughout elementary school (which was 0.1 miles away) and high school (which was about 0.25 miles)

There were only 2 small areas of our town that were far enough that bus service was provided for elementary school. The high school combined our town with the next one over, so student from that other town all had to take the bus.

Mom dropped us off at the bus stop for a long ride to the university where we went to a school taught by professors and undergraduate students earning credits. The subjects changed depending on the undergraduates coming in and out. We even had a sweet guy named Venus who taught literature. I didnt know about being gay then, just thought Venus had interesting choice of colors in his wardrobe. We stayed overnight in the dorms and Rocky taught us to play his guitar a little. My friend stole beer out of his fridge and he had to endure 9 year old drunken humor all night. So we rode the bus with university students and talked politics, the environment and music.

8-9 grade I rode my bike. It wasn't a trendy bike so I quit riding it and walked unless the weather was bad. Those years were miserable. I couldn't understand why kids couldn't get along like we did at the university school. The teachers were grouchy and everything so regimented. I missed my friendly easygoing undergraduate teachers.

High school was far away so we took the bus. Most kids at that school were rich and had cars or they got rides from housekeepers, moms or friends. It put you in a certain category to stand in line to wait for that bus. My best friend finally found someone to drive her home in exchange for gossip and homework help.

I stayed late for after school programs a few times and had to walk 4 or 5 miles home. The shortest way was past some strawberry fields. The last time I walked home alone, a migrant picker chased after me and I ran into the nearest neighborhood and ran into the second house when I saw he was still following me. I didnt know anyone there. I just waited behind the front door scared and listened to the shower going in the next room. After a while I looked out and he was gone. I ran all the way home with a sick feeling in my stomach. After that I always took the bus and just missed special programs.

One time we came under attack by avocados. A few times some boys used to sit in the back and yell racist stuff at the people in the fields as we passed. One day as we passed some men ran up and threw unripe avocados at the bus and broke the windows. We had to wait for the supervisor, a new bus, the name taking, reports before we could go. My mom said, do you just want to ride your bike now but I was scared having been chased and I never said anything about it.

What a change from walking all around the university in grade school and never a thought of any harm. One time near the bus stop, I saw a rabbit killed by a coyote and got faint and fell. Students took me to the university clinic and got my scrapes cleaned. They took me to lunch at the cafe and gave me a ride back to school. Now parents are afraid to let kids out of sight.

I used google maps to determine the distance to the schools, and have just been using google street view to "drive" around the town. I found that at any given location you can select from the different times the google street view car was there. As I looked at our house, at different points in time, I saw my father standing in the kitchen looking out the door at the funny looking vehicle driving by.

I rode the bus for 4 years. We lived 18 miles from town. The bus never came to our place so my DD had to haul us 4 miles to his brothers place to get on the bus. I never did any after school activities, because I didn't want him to have to come to town to pick me up. The other reason was I had to get home to milk the cows.