The upside of small town - Weston, MA

Wait, it's September 28 and I haven't posted in two months? Yep, true story. I can't possibly catch up now except to say here is how August and September went: kids camp, New Hampshire, Maine, soccer, Brazil, more Maine, PTO chaos, back to school, back to activities, homework, superblood moon...and that brings you up to date. 

Back to school means that crazy morning breakfast, get changed, get your stuff, get out is in full swing. Our bus stop (as you have met before here) is about three houses away, and across a dead-end street that we share with the next town over. As in it's Weston for about five houses, then changes to Lincoln town. With a separate bus route, residents who I largely have not met and maybe nine more houses. Lincoln's total population (without chipmunks and deer): 5,000. With deer and chipmunks: 300,000. Weston's total population (without Audis): 12,000. With Audis: 250,000. We are talking small town and smaller town.

But, there are two little issues with us sharing a street with Lincoln. One is their bus, or specifically their bus driver, who likes to drive as if he is testing the large yellow bus for stability. At 40 mph around the blind corner that is right above our Weston bus stop. The other issue is a dark blue Acura MDX (whose plate I have memorized) with a Meadowbroook sticker (that's a private school here in Weston) which also seems to always be late to school at 7:35 when 10 kids from age 5-10 are at our bus stop. No nasty looks will stop this dad. 

So, you will ask me: why do I not confront this mad Acura driver? Because, dear readers, (if I still have any after two months away), I am a CHICKEN. The thought of ringing a doorbell and saying "dear neighbor, could you please slow down?" makes me a little woozy with fear. What if he slams the door in my face? What if we start an enmity that does not go away for the next decade I plan to spend in Weston? Yeah, chicken.

I did write an email to the Lincoln bus company to ask that bus driver be counseled to slow down. That felt right to do: in writing and not anonymous, but without a door slammed in my face. So far, the driver has not seen fit to run me down and stick me in the grille. In actuality, the Lincoln bus seems to have changed times or routes as I have not seen it in the last week. Uh oh. Hope I didn't kill off bus service for the neighborhood.

So what to do about Mr. MDX? This is what I did. I called the town manager. And the town manager said to send an email to the traffic@weston commission which is populated by the police captain, and several other important members of the community. And I thought, okay, I shall do that and then wait for their response.

I sent an email at 1:13 pm. At 4:25 pm, I got an email back from Police Chief Michael Goulding saying they would get signage and patrols to try to fix the issue. Later that evening, I told my neighbors that I had done this and got an email back from one saying a patrolman had already stopped by and hung up the sign you can see in the photo above. The "SLOW" changes to a lighted-up picture of kids on a see-saw. Three orange cones further draw attention--it's right on the blind curve above our bus stop.

I am so completely impressed. The upside of small town is things get done. Quickly. Now the downside will be if I am caught speeding elsewhere in town and my name gets picked up as someone who has complained about others speeding! Fortunately I am more likely to be ticketed for driving too slow (yep, one of those looly-loos enjoying the ride) than too fast. 

I sent a thank you note to the captain. What a town. Let's see what Mr. MDX does now...

Big Yellow Bus - Weston, MA

Photo from first day of school...remember wearing shorts? Me neither. Scott the friendly bus driver...

One of the reasons that I most wanted to move my kids to the US was giving them the chance to attend public school. Not because I didn't like their private school in Brazil--loved it--but because I am a product of the public school system and I've appreciated the greater diversity of many of these schools. Now of course when I mention that I attended New Canaan CT public schools, most folks roll their eyes. In order to attend public school in New Canaan, you must be able to afford to live there, which not everyone can. Frankly, Weston MA is much the same. But this educational diversity conundrum is for another day. Today I want to talk about the big yellow bus.

I love the big yellow bus. Instead of having to drive my kids to school each day, they get to take the big yellow bus. The BYB if you will. In our case, we live in a neighborhood of two dead-end streets, one of which I live on, and one of which I don't.  No, that's not my point--the second dead-end street is the one that comes from the main road and has only 5 Weston houses on it--after that you drive into Lincoln (or walk into their lovely conservation trails). So the Weston public school bus goes up the street four houses, stops twice (why we need two bus stops in 20 feet, I really don't know, but I'm not walking any further than I have to) and returns to the main road where it still has about half of its stops to do.  We walk about two houses down to the other road to catch the bus in our neighbor's driveway.

In addition to the main BYB for Weston, there are two other features to the dead-end road bus route. One: a minibus that comes by with all the kindergartners and a mix of kids from places that the BYB can't get down the street. There are about 10 kids on the mini-bus, and apparently in the depths of winter, kids at our stop used to get on it to stay warm waiting for the big bus. But now that has been ruled uncool by our first through fifth graders and they all hang out at the neighbor's driveway waiting for the bus.  The minibus pulls up across the street and waits, engine running, for the BYB.

There are routinely six kids at our bus stop--for a while they lined up with one kid always getting to be on the bus first on a given day of the week. Now they just run for it, slipping on ice and shoving other kids out of the way to get into the warmth.  The minibus kids troop nicely off the minibus, pause and watch our six kids like you would unclean zoo animals, and then nicely get on the big bus. Twice one of my kids has almost impaled himself on the little metal bar that comes out in front of the big bus (put there to get kids to walk farther out around the bus? Dunn). He can learn fractions, but he can't seem to remember the bar of doom.

The second feature which you have probably forgotten that I even mentioned, is the Lincoln school bus, aka Nutball on Wheels. There is a curve and a downhill right before our stop and he seems to like to see exactly how close he can come to rear-ending the minibus so that it will fly into the big bus. I keep telling myself that I have to call the Lincoln bus barn and complain about this lunatic but somehow I keep forgetting. I have priorities on my complaint list and right now Lincoln is safe. 

Okay so now you know the buses. And I love the bus. But this was not the point of this blog but since when have I written one without digressing? More than the bus, I love the bus stop. If you are so so lucky as I am to have a cool neighborhood bus stop, you will know what I mean. The kids all get along or well enough to not throw each other into the deepest snowdrifts. I love seeing which kids are exhausted and yawning, which forgot their backpacks and the parents have to fly home (oh, oops, usually that's me and mine), which kids want to show me what they're bringing to school. 

But the best part are the adults. The sleepy adults/neighbors/friends who wander out with coffee cups, wet hair (yes, even in winter, but with a pom-pom hat on top), pajama bottoms some days, dogs on leashes, dogs not on leashes, work trousers tucked into Bogs boots, it's hilarious.  And we talk about the weather, or after school plans or the latest babysitter traumas or nothing at all. I love the five-minute conversations of the bus stops that go until someone has to run off to get ready for work, and also the 40-minute ones like this morning where it wound up with me eating birthday cake at my friend's house because we weren't done yet with our conversation. The same friend who baked birthday muffins for my kids back in November and sang to them at the bus stop.

Then there are the dogs. The dogs play and jump and annoy each other and play again, and retrieve and knock down kids and avoid the Lincoln bus (so far). Coal the overgrown puppy and Finley the wonder dog leap through the three-foot snowbanks, dive into the snow in search of tennis balls, and run around like crazy while Haifa the 12 year old lab sits with her big ol tush in the snow and watches from cataract-blinded eyes.

And eventually we notice the time and rush off one by one back to our daily lives and stresses and shoveling (maybe that's just me). Life is better with the big yellow bus.