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The School Bus
Ronda Rich
There is something about an old yellow school bus, with its heavy-sounding transmission shifts and sighs of air brakes, that warms my heart. Perhaps it is the familiarity and how it hearkens back to the happy days of my childhood and early schooling. School buses haven’t changed much in decades and in that, I suppose, lies the most enduring magic for me. I feel the same about vinyl records, radios with only an AM dial, and corded telephones. They’re making record players again, you know. A couple of years ago, I bought a red portable one from the Crosley company in Kentucky. I keep it in our cheerful little kitchen – the one decorated in various shades of yellow, green and red – and often, while cooking, I pull out a vinyl record and play it. These vinyl records, some from my years’ long collection and others bought on eBay, have the hisses and scratches of my childhood wonder: Elvis Presley singing “There Will Be Peace In The Valley” and Johnny Cash, with the Carter family and Statlers, harmonizing on “Daddy Sang Bass.”