My parents still live in the same house in Fort Wayne in which they raised me. There is a familiarity to the house and the neighborhood, but everything else has changed.
Cornfields, pastures, and narrow country roads have given way to homes surrounded by cement roads, strip malls, bigger schools, parks, trails, stoplights, and churches. Peace Church, where I was confirmed and then married, used to be the only church in the area. Now, including Peace, there is a Lutheran church, a giant Catholic church with attached school, and three different Baptist churches all within two miles of each other. As I ran the path alongside the roads that I used to see outside the school bus window, I was struck by several things: some homes looked just the same in my memory; distances seemed far shorter, and many changes were marked by prosperity, Midwestern style. Big homes with three-car garages and lots of acreage.
Eggeman Road connects Covington Road with Aboite Center. When I used to ride the school bus (always known as Bus 10), it was marked by beat-up looking farmhouses and pastures marked by sagging fences. There was a girl who lived in a faded green house with dark green trim who always sat by herself. We refused to sit by her because she smelled as if she didn’t bathe regularly and disappeared into the special education classes once we got to the school. My feelings toward this girl were marked by disgust and fear. I dreaded when the bus was crowded and that she might sit in my seat—as if her smell or disability would rub off on me. As I think back on those times, it is her isolation, the turning her back on the rest of us and looking out the window, that stands out to me. And shame that I could be so mean.
Ironically, I often isolated during this time in my life as well. I enjoyed the bus ride to school, because I could often sit alone and look out the windows and dream. Who lived in those big houses in Covington Lakes? Did they have kids? Horses? Did they swim in the pond in the summer and skate on it in winter? How about the large house off Covington Road owned by a famous Fort Wayne family? Did they really have their own zoo? I judged myself on the axis of those whom I thought had it better, like these folks, and those who had it worse, like the kids who lived on narrow, graveled Eggeman Road.
Eggeman Road also provided moments of fear and hilarity. One time, George, our bus driver, got stuck in the snow by the green farmhouse. He couldn’t get us out at first so called for another bus. After waiting for about 30 minutes, the other bus pulled up just as George rocked us out of the ditch.
George was a retired farmer with a nimbus of white hair surrounding his bald head and old man’s potbelly. He wore a gray bus driver’s uniform and was not afraid to stop the bus and walk menacingly down the aisle if he sensed some misbehavior going on. I felt safe, cared for, and even a little afraid when he would threaten to throw a kid off the bus who was being mean to somebody else. He also cleaned up the bus when somebody got sick. On the way home one day, Jimmy Ayres threw up in the hump seat, or the seat fourth from the back that was directly over the wheel well. I was sitting across from him, and it was evident that Jimmy had had corn for lunch. George gently escorted Jimmy off the bus, cleaned him up, and brought out the ammonia solution with a distinct smell that I will forever associate with school restrooms and buses. Jimmy was still crying with the shame of it and we teased him for weeks after that (hiding it from George, of course). By mutual and unspoken consent, nobody sat in that seat for a long, long time, as it became known as the “throw up seat.”
George’s major claim to fame is that every Halloween he bought a box of giant Hershey bars and gave each of us one. It was a huge treat to swing off the bus, grab a bar, and say, “thanks, George.” It feels disrespectful to me now that we, even in kindergarten, called this man by his first name.
Somewhere around middle school, Bus 10 gave way to a bigger bus with a flat front and higher number that I could never remember. The route changed, and eventually I escaped the indignity of riding the bus and got rides from my neighbor Lisa, who drove a tiny Honda and was partial to Phil Collins and James Taylor on the tape deck.
Eggeman Road is now paved, and the green farmhouse where that girl lived is gone. As I ran by on the sidewalk that never existed before, I thought I saw the driveway going back into some gnarled brush, but am not sure. Eggeman has become an upscale address with stately brick homes sitting far back from the road, protected by iron gates. It is a different place. I no longer am envious of the people who live in those kinds of homes, and my wonderings have changed: what happened to the girl and her family? What is the significance of all these homes replacing fields and pastures? Why does southwest Allen County repel me as I run by the churches, showy homes, and endless pavement? Why does it attract me when I talk to the people who go to Peace and the Y?
If I could change anything at all about who I was then (and who I am now), it would be to appreciate what I have and not wish for something that seems to be better. Growing up in Bittersweet or Covington Lakes or Devil’s Hollow seemed romantic and exciting, but Covington Knolls provided nights sleeping in the backyard, neighborhood games of Kick of the Can, and playing in the cemetery across the street. Who could ask for anything more?
