Face in the Window

I was about to leave the coffee shop this morning--was thinking about gathering up my stuff--jamming it into my backpack--when I looked outside the front window and saw a local school bus paused in the intersection, not fifty feet away from me, waiting to turn left.

It was a dreary morning--cloudy, chilly--and the sky couldn't seem to decide among rain or sleet or snow ... Which shall I spit upon these lowly humans today?

As most of us know, it's hard to divorce ourselves--our moods--from the weather. It's no coincidence that we have the expressions sunny day and sunny smile (or sunny disposition). And we also like to use cloud imagery to communicate our melancholy, storms our anger.

Anyway, the school bus ...

The passengers seemed to be very young kids--six? seven? younger? And the windows were somewhat steamy. I saw a young hand on one window, a hand wiping away the mist. And, the mist gone, I saw a little boy staring right at me.

The gloom upon his face told all: He didn't want to be on that bus; he didn't want to be going to school.

I empathized.

When I was that age (back in Enid, Okla.), school was about the last place I wanted to go, too. Why would I want to go sit in a row of desks in a dreary room and fill out worksheets? And take quizzes? And be quiet? And practice penmanship? And in the Weekly Reader read stories about things I didn't care about? And eat a sullen lunch with lukewarm milk? And avoid bullies on the playground? And stare at the same displays on the walls--the maps, the inspirational posters, the penmanship charts?

I didn't.

I'd rather be home, riding my bike, playing with friends (avoiding bullies), reading the funny pages, eating Cheerios, playing with Sooner (our dog), buying Snickers bars (5 cents) and orange Popsicles (6 cents) at the little local market, J & J Grocery, throwing rocks at my little brother. Maybe I'd take the bus to town (5 cents) and walk over to the Carnegie Library and find some books about cowboys and mountain men and the Alamo--or, at home, listen to some records (I had a great one called The Littlest Cowboy; I related).

Of course, this morning, I knew I was projecting onto that kid-in-the-bus my own boyhood feelings about going to school. It could be that he was perfectly happy--that he loved school--that the gloom on his face was due to a single cause: Through a  coffee shop window he could see some old guy sitting there, some old guy with a white beard, some old guy who was looking at a ... Is that a book? What a dreary sight on this fantastic morning!