Ringing bells, Clanging tracks, Bumping cars

           After visiting a pastor friend in Birmingham, I made a detour by our home in Chilton County.  I check on it from time to time with frequent trips there in the spring and summer to cut grass and do other chores of preventive maintenance.  Property unattended can become a jungle overnight.

I believe in what criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling call the Broken Window Theory.  The Broken Window Theory is if a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge.  Soon more windows are broken until the house is vandalized.   A house gives a license to neighborhood kids to destroy.  I try to make the home look as though someone is at home.

People usually inquire about the condition and the security of our home.  I tell them I have the best security system one could have.  I have relatives that watch my home and if a strange vehicle enters the drive, they check it out.  It is good when people watch out for you.

Turning at one of the two red lights in Jemison, I noticed that the railroad crossing bars descending and red lights blinking warning me to stop.  CSX tracks run North and South parallel to US Highway 31 separating old Main Street from most of busy Jemison.  Of course, I leave across the tracks west of Jemison.

Watching the blinking lights and listening to ringing bells, clanging tracks, bumping cars, my mind wondered back to a time more than forty years ago.  God was looking out for me that morning.  I, along with a busload of classmates, headed to school on old bus #34.  Bus 34 was an early fifties model and one of two of the oldest buses remaining active. All the other routes had new buses.  Remember we lived across the tracks.  The other old bus was too.

Riding the bus was fun.  The windows rattled as you bounced on the seats as the bus ran down red dirt roads.  A malfunction on the old bus rear end springs created a hole in the floorboard above the rear tires which red dust entered and red mud splattered.

When boys riding the bus were old and mature enough, they had the privilege of flagging the bus across the tracks.  Flagging the bus was an important responsibility.  The boy flagging the bus had the honor of standing on the steps, opening the bus doors, and running across the tracks.  Crossing the tracks the runner would look north, south, and north again, south again until reaching the other side.  All the time the runner would wave, or flag, the bus across the tracks.

One morning we had a substitute driver.  The flagman readied himself in the stairwell.  Approaching the tracks, the rails started their descent.  Lights were flashing, bells were sounding, and a long train with dozens of cars headed south.  The substitute driver did not stop.  The barrier rails landed on top of the bus trapping it and bringing it to a stop.

I remember looking out the left side windows.  A locomotive headed right at the center of the bus.  The substitute driver tried to go forward, but the bus was stuck.  He tried to go in reverse, but the bus would not move.  The locomotive’s light was revolving round and round, smoke from its engine was pouring out the top, and the engineer blew the horn over and over.  The light got brighter and the horn got louder.  Screams from a bus full of kids grew louder as girls began to cry.  The rear tires of the bus started to squeal and smoke as the substitute driver tried frantically to pull the bus from the jaws of death.  The pressure was so great that the guardrail bent the top of the bus.

Something happened that morning.  I am convinced that it was a miracle from God.  Just seconds and a few short steps from death, the bus escaped the barrier rail, the bus jumped forward, and the train screamed past the rear of the bus.

The substitute never substituted again.  Every day that bus 34 operated, riders were reminded of that almost horrific morning when we saw the huge dent on the left side of the bus.  Each new rider heard of the morning that a busload of kids almost made national headlines.  Some would say that wish they had been on it while were glad they were not.

As the guardrails lifted, I continued my journey home.  I thought how many warning signs and flagman, who watch out for us, we ignore.

Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me (Ezekiel 3:17 KJV).