The evening news has reported yet another predator trying to pick up a child walking home from school.\u00a0 This is occurring regularly.\u00a0 In the last month, two men actually got out of their vehicles and grabbed a child.\u00a0 Fortunately, both children got away and ran to safety.<\/p>\n
In the forties, I stood beside a major US highway and waited for the school bus.\u00a0 I rode my bicycle and my horse (not at the same time) alongside that same highway.\u00a0 My friends who lived in town walked to school.<\/p>\n
Ken was twelve years old in 1945 and living in McAlester, Oklahoma.\u00a0 A great-uncle was building a large refrigerated warehouse in Fresno, California, and was having difficulty finding workers.\u00a0 Ken\u2019s grandfather agreed to help him and asked Ken to go with him.\u00a0 Ken had never ridden a bus and anticipated the adventure.\u00a0 They left in early June after school dismissed for the summer.<\/p>\n
Military personnel had boarding priority on the buses.\u00a0 Others could only board after all the military had boarded.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Ken remembers their longest wait was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.\u00a0 They waited for about 18 hours to board a bus for Phoenix, their next change.\u00a0 He does not remember how many buses filled and left before they finally got to board.\u00a0 It took them five days to get to Fresno.<\/p>\n
Ken\u2019s grandfather returned to Oklahoma before the end of the summer.\u00a0 Ken stayed behind with his great-aunt and great-uncle.\u00a0 He stayed busy mowing lawns in their neighborhood and also picking fruit.\u00a0 There was a pick\u00a0up point downtown for day laborers.\u00a0 His aunt would make a sack lunch for him, and he would go wait with other workers.\u00a0 When the truck came, he would hop on and go to the work site.\u00a0 He first picked apricots.\u00a0 This was a fruit new to him.\u00a0 He began to eat them.\u00a0 He would put a few in the bag, pick a particularly succulent looking one and eat it.\u00a0 This continued all day.\u00a0 He was very sick that night. \u00a0Although he finished working in the harvest, he did not eat any more apricots.\u00a0 To this day, he will not eat an apricot.\u00a0 The next harvest to begin was grapes.\u00a0 He picked grapes but refrained from eating many.\u00a0 He worked all summer.<\/p>\n
The end of summer came.\u00a0 His aunt and uncle put him on a bus in Fresno with a ticket to McAlester.\u00a0 His first bus change was in Los Angeles.\u00a0 He edged to the front of the line as the military personnel boarded.\u00a0 He worked his way up beside two soldiers.\u00a0 The bus driver told him to move back.\u00a0 To his surprise, one of the soldiers reached over and took him by the arm and said to the bus driver, \u201cHe is with us.\u201d\u00a0 One of\u00a0the soldiers\u00a0told him they had brothers about his age\u00a0back home.\u00a0 They were going to Kansas City.\u00a0\u00a0He sat with them, and they\u00a0told him to stay with them every time they changed buses.\u00a0 He rode with them all the way to Oklahoma City.\u00a0 There he said goodbye and got on the next bus to McAlester.\u00a0 The return trip took two days.<\/p>\n
Seventy years later parents can no longer feel safe letting their children walk to school alone.\u00a0\u00a0A child between 8 and 14 years of age has to have written permission and meet certain conditions to travel alone on a bus.\u00a0 They have to travel during daylight hours for no more than five hours.\u00a0 Train and airline travel also have restrictions.<\/p>\n
![\"Ken](\"https:\/\/loosestringsfromthepast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Ken-school-1944-45.jpg\")
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