Public Transportation

Because the City will be providing bus transportation for the students at the new East End Community School, my daughter--who also attends an out of district program--will be taking the school bus this year.

When she began school in Portland, I thought it strange that transportation is not provided for students (but I guess that the point of community schools is that kids tend to live close to the school they're attending).

Growing up in rural Maine, the bus was an inextricable part of my school experience: we caught the bus every day and rode for nearly an hour to and from school. It meant that, in the winter, we got on the bus in the dark and got off the bus in the dark. When I started high school, I had to catch the bus at 6:40 a.m.--which meant that I was up at 4:30 so that I could curl my hair to standard heavy-metal-chick height (that's 2 1/2 inches or more, for those of you who didn't live through those special days).

Our driveway was 1/3 of a mile long, so it was a long haul in the snow sometimes to stand out there for ten or fifteen minutes. And of course I was way too cool to wear a hat (and, of course, did't want to mess up that big mane of hair), so I was almost always freezing.

Now it seems like a novelty to have the bus actually come to my house to transport my daughter. Amazing! What will they think of next?