school bus

last night at youth group chris and i were chatting and somehow got to the subject of school attendance. oh yeah, i remember - we were sharing prayer requests after our brief study of saul's conversion on the road to damascus and chris asked for a saul like transformation in his school attendance record. apparently, he, david and sharkie are teetering perilously close to expulsion from their continuation school for too many late days. the consequence of frequent tardiness, while normally benign in terms of punishment, in their case, is far more serious - they're at school as a apart of their terms for probation and if they violate probation, well, it's jail time.

now there's no way i'm going to allow these boys to end up in jail - after all, what would happen to tuesday night basketball with four less bodies? so i offered to take the boys to school in the morning and make sure that they get there on time. chris gladly accepted, almost in unbelief, but a deal had been struck. the more i thought about the boys' school situation though, the more it seems like they are set up for failure. seriously, how can you expect high school kids to take the metro through downtown los angeles and actually consistently arrive at school on time? even if they have no desire to play around (which, invariably there always is), they still have to get up at the crack of dawn to brave the many stops of the metro and the rush hour traffic of los angeles.

today was the first day, and to perfectly honest, i can't think of a better way to start of my day. as i pulled up to david's place on 30th, the three of them were waiting outside and when they saw my car, their faces literally lit up. it was as if they couldn't believe that i'd actually showed up to take them to school. if i had been a couple of minutes late, they probably would've just assumed that i wasn't coming and went ahead on the metro. no big deal. when they got in the car, it was high-fives all around and then, something fairly miraculous: while individually listening to cd players blasting some form of rap and r&b, the boys nonetheless chatted it up with me the whole way to school.

it was great. as i was driving, david, in his effusive, ghetto fabulous way, showed me all the "cuts" to school. we weaved through local streets to avoid streetlights and traffic, through warehouse districts east of downtown and at about 7:53, something dawned on them: they were going to set a new record. the previous benchmark for arriving at school was somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:05 (first period bell rings at 8:15). but thanks to david and all his "cuts" (or maybe it's "cutz") we got to school by 7:55. i'd also like to throw out that my aggressive (but safe) driving may or may not have been a factor in accomplishing said feat.

the comedic moment of the day came as we discussed how they had accumulated so many late days in the first place. most of the time, there's trouble with the bus. either it arrives late at jefferson or it takes a long time to transfer down by alameda. this puts them at school around 8:30 or 9:00. sometimes though, they get to school closer to 11:00. "11:00?" i said incredulously, "why so late?" i mean, it seems like they always get on the bus around 7:30 or 7:45, so a small delay due to the bus i can see...but 11:00? that's like major. was there a big car accident? someone have a heart attack? police pull over the bus driver?

"we go to eat." they go to eat. they get off the bus, stop at a diner and eat. can you believe that! haha. but it makes so much sense. if they're late 1 minute, it's the same has being late 4 hours - might as well get some scrambled eggs and hash browns if you're going to be late. smart kids.

anyhow, that's day one of the adventure, in the books. hopefully this'll be the first of several hundred consecutive school days of on-time arrivals and hopefully, it only ends when they graduate. pray my friends, please pray.