From the Wednesday, March 8, 2023 edition
One morning last week I was watching The Today Show and enjoying my breakfast. I heard someone on the show say that in a few minutes they were going to have a story about a school bus driver. I settled back in my chair and waited.
The story was about a school bus driver in New Jersey. He had been looking for something to do during the time between his morning and afternoon routes. He lived too far away to go home during those hours.
One day he heard a student talking with a teacher about learning to read better. He thought about this and soon he spoke to the school staff about the possibility of him helping young students to better their reading skills.
His name is Herman Cruse and he has been helping students with reading for quite a while. They interviewed a few of the students and their responses were beautiful. I remember hearing one student saying, “Mr. Herman is my very best friend”.
This took me back to the years that our dog Stuart and I worked with students at the Beech Grove City Schools. I was known as Mr. Fred and was a bus driver also. The program that Stuart and I did helped students that were a bit shy about reading out loud in class or to their teacher.
It was a very special program and I hope Simon and I get a chance to do it in the very near future.
A few days later, I was again watching The Today Show and having coffee when a segment was presented about two sisters that were born in 1955. They were conjoined and at that time very few separations had ever been successful. A very young doctor did a wonderful job separating them and later they both became teachers. The percentage that it would be a successful separation was about zero.
The girls, Lillian and Linda grew up in a big family with nine other siblings. Doctors told them they would never be able to have children of their own, but the twins — both retired teachers now — went on to have seven children and 16 grandchildren between them. I believe that one of them is now a great-grandmother.
It was amazing to watch them as they were being interviewed. They finished each other’s sentences. As they were showing things, their arms and hands intertwined successfully without contact. They even explained that they always position themselves exactly as they were before separation. Always the same sister on the left side of the other sister.
As I watched this segment of the show, I quickly remembered my year in the second grade. My class was the very first second grade class in the new James Whitcomb Riley School in Edgewood. Our classrooms had new-fangled desk tables that four students sat. Two across from the other two.
Each day, we walked to the school’s kitchen and picked up our food trays and returned to our classroom to have lunch. The young girl that sat beside me for that entire year was Barbara Carter. Barbara sat on my right side and we had lunch together that entire year.
Barbara has attended a couple of our class lunches in the past. On one occasion, she sat down beside me, but she was on my left side. I quickly explained that this was not going to work.
We quickly changed seats and I think we were both much more comfortable. Those thoughts came flying back to me when the sisters on the segment of The Today Show explained that they always sat together on the same side of their sister.
You can watch both of these segments by googling, School Bus Driver gives reading lessons and/or Conjoined twins from 1955.
Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.
One morning last week I was watching The Today Show and enjoying my breakfast. I heard someone on the show say that in a few minutes they were going to have a story about a school bus driver. I settled back in my chair and waited.
The story was about a school bus driver in New Jersey. He had been looking for something to do during the time between his morning and afternoon routes. He lived too far away to go home during those hours.
One day he heard a student talking with a teacher about learning to read better. He thought about this and soon he spoke to the school staff about the possibility of him helping young students to better their reading skills.
His name is Herman Cruse and he has been helping students with reading for quite a while. They interviewed a few of the students and their responses were beautiful. I remember hearing one student saying, “Mr. Herman is my very best friend”.
This took me back to the years that our dog Stuart and I worked with students at the Beech Grove City Schools. I was known as Mr. Fred and was a bus driver also. The program that Stuart and I did helped students that were a bit shy about reading out loud in class or to their teacher.
It was a very special program and I hope Simon and I get a chance to do it in the very near future.
A few days later, I was again watching The Today Show and having coffee when a segment was presented about two sisters that were born in 1955. They were conjoined and at that time very few separations had ever been successful. A very young doctor did a wonderful job separating them and later they both became teachers. The percentage that it would be a successful separation was about zero.
The girls, Lillian and Linda grew up in a big family with nine other siblings. Doctors told them they would never be able to have children of their own, but the twins — both retired teachers now — went on to have seven children and 16 grandchildren between them. I believe that one of them is now a great-grandmother.
It was amazing to watch them as they were being interviewed. They finished each other’s sentences. As they were showing things, their arms and hands intertwined successfully without contact. They even explained that they always position themselves exactly as they were before separation. Always the same sister on the left side of the other sister.
As I watched this segment of the show, I quickly remembered my year in the second grade. My class was the very first second grade class in the new James Whitcomb Riley School in Edgewood. Our classrooms had new-fangled desk tables that four students sat. Two across from the other two.
Each day, we walked to the school’s kitchen and picked up our food trays and returned to our classroom to have lunch. The young girl that sat beside me for that entire year was Barbara Carter. Barbara sat on my right side and we had lunch together that entire year.
Barbara has attended a couple of our class lunches in the past. On one occasion, she sat down beside me, but she was on my left side. I quickly explained that this was not going to work.
We quickly changed seats and I think we were both much more comfortable. Those thoughts came flying back to me when the sisters on the segment of The Today Show explained that they always sat together on the same side of their sister.
You can watch both of these segments by googling, School Bus Driver gives reading lessons and/or Conjoined twins from 1955.
Shonk is a 1960 graduate of Southport High School, a ’63 grad of Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis) and a retired bus driver from Beech Grove Schools. He can be reached through email at fdshonk@aol.com.
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