The School Bus Ride I'll Never Forget

When I was five, we lived in Oakdale, Long Island, New York. Oakdale was a beautiful, artsy, historical town. The Vanderbilt family spent many summers there-- their estate was called Idle Hour. My elementary school was also named Idle Hour as a tribute to the Vanderbilts, I presume.

In kindergarten, I somehow ended up on a school bus. I never took the bus home. I was usually picked up by a babysitter. I think the story goes something like this. It was snowing and the school did an impromptu early dismissal. An unknowing aide ushered me onto the school bus. Too shocked and scared being on this bus I didn't belong on, I remember passing my house. The bus kept going... I saw my mom in front of our house. She was shoveling snow. She must have taken the day off. Mom worked as a city teacher in Queens and the commute was awful from Suffolk to Queens, especially on a snow day... and city schools never close.

I remember tapping on the window. My mom couldn't hear me. Nobody cared. I think I piped up, "That's my house! Stop." The bus didn't stop. Nobody heard me. I cried. A random little girl told me to come home with her--she must have been my classmate. I did what she told me to do. It just seemed like a more logical thing compared to being stuck back at the school, all alone on the back of a bus in a blizzard. Wouldn't my family wonder where I was? Would anyone know how to find me?

At her house, I remember her mom making us pasta from a can, Beefaroni perhaps?  My mom would never allow us packaged foods like SpaghettiOs, Shake 'N Bake, Hamburger Helper and Manwich (their 1970s commercials, fun jingles and slogans made me curious, so I tried them in adult-life, turned out I wasn't missing anything).

There are two things good Italian families from New York do not do. One: purchase canned pastas. Two: serve milk with marina sauce. This nice non-Italian American family did both and I refused to eat --something even as a kid I rarely did.

Long story short, as my memory is failing me a bit ... My family finally found me. I thought I'd be at this weirdo Beefaroni-eating family's house forever. I remember my mother saying that hours had passed and they had no idea where I was. I think the Beefaroni parents waited a while before finally calling my folks. I don't even know how they got their number since I'm sure at age five I was lucky if I knew how to spell my last name.

From that day on, I have this recurring dream that I'm on this school bus and I'm lost and sometimes I'm on Long Island. Sometimes I'm in New York City and sometimes I'm just in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if that incident has something to do with my dreams?!