Johnny Cash and the Science Team

A couple of months ago, I was chaperoning our high school science team to a meet in Lowell, MA. More recently, I spent a fair amount of time talking to our driver on a different bus ride about the other driver (for reasons that will soon become clear).  I'm going to go ahead and spoil the story by telling the best part first:  When I asked what the other driver's name was, my driver paused and said "Well, we don't know - we just call him Johnny - as in Johnny Cash on account of his being a professional Johnny Cash impersonator back in the day."

Intiguing, eh?  Who knew there was such a profession as a Johnny Cash impersonator?  The reason I asked was because of the Lowell trip incident: 

It was a dark, wet, trafficy night and I had in my charge nine (or was it eleven - who knows?) youths.  On the way back from Lowell,  the bus starts making funny noises.  At first it is a mild straining on the accelerations.  Then it is a major slowing on the uphills.  Then, eventually, in the middle lane, it is a complete engine failure.  The driver attempted to get into the breakdown lane, but a bus going uphill comes to a stop pretty fast after its motor dies and he only managed to straddle both the middle and slow lanes on I-495 during rush hour.  As cars start whipping around both sides of the bus (the fast lane on the left and the breakdown lane on the right), I start thinking "Hmmm, awkward time to be the responsible adult present" and "Hmmm, should I get the kids off the bus so they can stand on the side of the road - but, they might get killed crossing the breakdown lane with all those cars speeding around us."  Just as quick as these thoughts pop into my head, Johnny Cash gets the bus fired up again and we crawl up the hill safely.  We then spend almost 2 hours getting home at a top speed of about 35 MPH, but I am thankful to get all 9 (or was it 11?) kids safely back.

At the end of the ordeal, I ask the driver "Did you think the engine would start again" and he wisely replied "I was sure hoping so..."