Life was good. It was Friday afternoon. There was no school homework for the weekend and hitching a ride on the school bus with a shotgun while heading to a duck shoot didn't send the sheriff or the board of education into a tizzy nor did it create newspaper headlines.

It was duck hunting season. Wayne at 15 years was not yet old enough to drive alone. So getting to the pond at Myrick's Mill for an evening of duck shooting was going to be a problem. Wayne's mother, Miss Madeline never learned to drive; so, she wasn't any help. The ducks would be coming in to roost by the time Mr. Grady arrived home from work; so, Dad wouldn't be any help either. No friends were close by to provide a ride. The 5 mile walk would take too long. How's a boy to shoot ducks if he can't get to the pond?

If Wayne stayed on the school bus instead of getting off the bus at his house, he could ride it on to Myrick's Mill. Then Mr. Grady could come to my house and get Wayne after we'd had supper. Getting to the pond was solved. Now, what about the shotgun, shells and other supplies? There was only one solution: take the shotgun on the school bus. If Wayne could persuade Miss Selma to let him take his shotgun to school, then there was the problem of storing it while at school. Mr. Fulbright, the school principal, was a pretty good fellow, but it was questionable whether he would be willing to store a shotgun in safekeeping until the end of the school day. There was really no concern with school violence in those days, but Wayne's shotgun was a prized possession and only the supervised and permitted could place their finger prints on it. For the shotguns sake, safekeeping was essential.

Wayne approached Miss Selma, our school bus driver. After a brief discussion Miss Selma not only helped with transporting Wayne to the pond on the bus, but helped with the shotgun problem as well.

The bus stopped at Wayne's house as usual on Friday afternoon, except this time Miss Selma waited while Wayne ran to the house and grabbed his shotgun, returned hurriedly down the driveway and hopped on the bus with shotgun, shells and warm clothes for the evening shoot. I don't know what the folks stopped on the highway behind and in front of the school bus thought but, Charlton Heston (The outstanding President of The National Rifle Association) would have been proud if he had seen Wayne step on Miss Selma's school bus that afternoon with his Remington 870 pump that his Uncle Charlie had given him for his 15th birthday. It wasn't an ordinary occurrence; but, it all seemed quite natural back then.

We could barely see the distant dim lights from the store and hear the rickety boards rattle as the occasional car or truck crossed the bridge at the spillway when the first ducks appeared. They began circling the pond scouting over their roost for the night when across the lake we heard Boom, Boom, Boo-boo-boom; Then in another direction, Boom, Boo-Boo-Boo- Boom. Wayne and I weren't alone on the lake. There were several other boats hidden in the cattails, trees and bushes, in addition to the single shooter in a boat out in the middle of the lake. There were enough hunters on the lake to keep the ducks flying, meaning better shooting for everyone. The guy in the middle of the lake would keep the ducks from settling in the middle of the lake away from the shooters. There's only one boat on the pond close to us. We had to be careful not to make low shots in the direction of the other boat. We also took a quick and out-of-range shot early on to let those guys know our location as well. I guess you'd call it unwritten rules and courtesy of the sport. There were plenty of ducks with wind whistling through their wings as they came fast and low from behind us. The evening was set for a good shoot.

It was well after dark when we arrived back at the dam and locked the boat to a tree. As we gathered our ducks from the bottom of the boat and started walking toward the house for supper, we didn't say much to each other, but each of us must have thought that the day was a complete success. We both had passed the pop-quiz that Mrs. Henderson threw at us in literature class and our biology teacher, Mr. Jessup, let us off without homework over the weekend. Then, Miss Selma let Wayne get his shotgun and ride the bus to the Mill. The duck shoot was successful and now Mamma has a hot supper ready. Mr. Martin from Macon will be coming down tomorrow with a pack of beagle hounds for a day of rabbit hunting.

Life was good. Life is still good; but, it's a darn shame that boys can't take their shotguns on the school bus these days.

©2003 - William C. Humphries, Jr.