When I was in elementary school all the way up to the eight grade I had never ridden in a school bus. I went to catholic school (that one is a whole different blog post, maybe several) and we lived close so we walked to school. Our walk was to the top of our block a left turn and a walk through the orange groves past the public school across the street to our school. In the afternoons it was the same. Groups of us walked together back to our neighborhood each peeling off as we got to our homes. For those of you now horrified, this was normal behavior for kids back then. For those who think it wasn’t safe, I can tell you it wasn’t, but not for the reasons you may think. First was walking past the public school, sometimes rock throwing wars broke out until the playground monitors stopped it. Sometimes the older kids would hide in the orange grove and attack us with oranges, pelting us as we ran. Then there was the first house you came to which had the meanest dog you ever saw. This was before the days of pit bulls but it sure is a giant one in my memory. If the owners, who seemed like high school drop-outs, were out in the garage you knew the dog was out and he would run at us barking as we emerged from the grove. The owners always seemed slow to tell the dog to stop so there were always a few moments which we stood frozen awaiting our fate.
Today this would be someone’s horror story but it taught me how to deal with dogs, confrontation and bigger kids. I learned things don’t always go my way and I am ok with that. Sometimes life is going to hit you with a bunch of oranges. It doesn’t mean you won’t make it home you might just be really messy when you get there.