The evening news has reported yet another predator trying to pick up a child walking home from school. This is occurring regularly. In the last month, two men actually got out of their vehicles and grabbed a child. Fortunately, both children got away and ran to safety.
In the forties, I stood beside a major US highway and waited for the school bus. I rode my bicycle and my horse (not at the same time) alongside that same highway. My friends who lived in town walked to school.
Ken was twelve years old in 1945 and living in McAlester, Oklahoma. A great-uncle was building a large refrigerated warehouse in Fresno, California, and was having difficulty finding workers. Ken’s grandfather agreed to help him and asked Ken to go with him. Ken had never ridden a bus and anticipated the adventure. They left in early June after school dismissed for the summer.
Military personnel had boarding priority on the buses. Others could only board after all the military had boarded. They slept in bus stations wherever they had to change buses in order to be near the front of the line after the military boarded. Ken remembers their longest wait was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They waited for about 18 hours to board a bus for Phoenix, their next change. He does not remember how many buses filled and left before they finally got to board. It took them five days to get to Fresno.
Ken’s grandfather returned to Oklahoma before the end of the summer. Ken stayed behind with his great-aunt and great-uncle. He stayed busy mowing lawns in their neighborhood and also picking fruit. There was a pick up point downtown for day laborers. His aunt would make a sack lunch for him, and he would go wait with other workers. When the truck came, he would hop on and go to the work site. He first picked apricots. This was a fruit new to him. He began to eat them. He would put a few in the bag, pick a particularly succulent looking one and eat it. This continued all day. He was very sick that night. Although he finished working in the harvest, he did not eat any more apricots. To this day, he will not eat an apricot. The next harvest to begin was grapes. He picked grapes but refrained from eating many. He worked all summer.
The end of summer came. His aunt and uncle put him on a bus in Fresno with a ticket to McAlester. His first bus change was in Los Angeles. He edged to the front of the line as the military personnel boarded. He worked his way up beside two soldiers. The bus driver told him to move back. To his surprise, one of the soldiers reached over and took him by the arm and said to the bus driver, “He is with us.” One of the soldiers told him they had brothers about his age back home. They were going to Kansas City. He sat with them, and they told him to stay with them every time they changed buses. He rode with them all the way to Oklahoma City. There he said goodbye and got on the next bus to McAlester. The return trip took two days.
Seventy years later parents can no longer feel safe letting their children walk to school alone. A child between 8 and 14 years of age has to have written permission and meet certain conditions to travel alone on a bus. They have to travel during daylight hours for no more than five hours. Train and airline travel also have restrictions.
ken at age 12
