#Drive 6, Adventure Academy
“To let each moment teach us, we must allow ourselves to be at least slightly stunned by it until it draws us inward and upward, toward a subtle experience of wonder.” —Father Richard Rohr
It was pitch dark, but I knew that if I looked hard enough, squinting deep into the crack between the door and the frame, I could almost see the world on the other side. Cool outdoor air hit my nose as I pressed it firmly into the crack.
What was THAT?
I made an involuntary sound as I squirmed closer into the corner, obsessed. A pup sniffing remnants of popcorn between the cushions of a couch had nothing on me. Sliding carefully down into a squatting position without moving away from the corner, I traced the crack of light upward with an index finger.
“Kim-ber-ley Anne, standing in the corner isn’t a game!” Mom said. I heard her, but I was engrossed with whatever was on The Other Side of the crack and didn’t abandon my exploration.
“Kim!” from Dad jolted me to attention. I banged my nose on the lower door hinge, lost my balance, and sprawled in a tangle on the floor that would do Larry, Moe and Curly proud. “If I see you playing again, you’ll be there another 5 minutes…”
I solemnly nodded and sighed. Back on my feet and facing the corner, I immediately squeezed my left eye shut to find the light. The room faded once again from my attention as I regained the sweet spot.
Who knows how many of my dinners grew cold as I explored that beam of light?
After six months of separation, the sale of our house provided some financial breathing room, as I figured out what to do long term. Judy had coached me that most parents move too quickly after divorce or separation, trying to cut their losses, make a clean break.
This works in the short run for the parent, but causes longer-term consequences for the kids. Consequences that can take as many as two years to show up, depending on the age. (Archibald Hart agreed, “Go slow.”)
Some days, renting a gutted house from my parents was torture—no one dreams of “moving home, separated, with two children.” Other days, I was so numb brushing my teeth was a struggle.
Although there wasn’t much gentleness or connection in my marriage, I had lost my husband, again. The moments that had been good before the separation were all I could remember when the kids and I were in our owns beds and the house was dark.
I refused to cry or be sad in front of them, although I couldn’t stop the tears of fear and loneliness that spilled over as I slowly painted the rooms of the house over that summer. When tears caught me off guard, I’d dash to the bathroom and turn on a fan. You might call that dishonest, but while the kids were so small, I thought they needed reasons to believe we were OK.
When I filed for child support, I was assessed as having the same income as their dad, i.e. 50/50 shared financial responsibility for the kids. The wild part about that was that I had only worked upwards of 10 hours a week at $12 an hour for the last two years.
At the time of the hearing, my W-2 pay stubs “equaled” his self-reported, self-employment income as an $50-$75 an hour electrician. I had worked closer to 40 hours a week during the two-week pay period before the hearing. The department secretary had quit and moved on and I thought that jumping in to help was a win-win for everyone.
I didn’t know I needed a lawyer at the hearing to lean on the judge about that decision. I wasn’t looking for a divorce (yet), still (naively) hoping that time and distance would heal their dad’s mind (and temper).
I still largely blamed the coma for his behavior. And, I figured the church would hire me for the full-time position and, after planned a good cry on the drive home, accepted the verdict as just one more thing.
But still, the money got tighter and tighter.
At one point, I considered going on welfare and even filled out an application, but never followed up for the interview. We were poverty level the first year, even with my half of profit from the house, but as long as we had a roof over our heads, things to donate or share, I decided to stay off of it.
So when the full-time position was awarded to someone else, I knew it was time to look for other ways to supplement our income.
In the meantime, I wrote out a passionate manifesto for our school, unanimously dubbed Adventure Academy, and kicked off Josh‘s kindergarten year using The Weaver, Volume One, as planned. I used a companion planner which clarified each day’s steps in greater detail. Their writing supplement explained the philosophy of teaching him to read and laid out goals for writing.
Teaching Josh to read really worried me, so we got started on that immediately. The kids’ programs I led were on summer break, except for prepping for the following year, so we had time.
When primers like A Pig Can Jig didn’t click, I jumped on the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons bandwagon that home school friends, former public school teachers with older kids recommended. This phonetics program seemed silly, almost too easy to work: matching single letters with sounds, multiple sounds as words, and words in sentences.
Josh enunciated each and every (painful) sy-l-la-b-ull, taking a long time to ignore silent “e”s, but understood spelling rules with ease. Ally seemed to intuitively or visually discern the words and read the sentences, as if she was barely looking at them. But she had no idea what the words meant and struggled with spelling through elementary school.
But for the rest of it? I was bored stiff with The Weaver by mid-October. It didn’t feel like we were learning anything. Plus, I was cleaning two or three houses a week and working the 10 hours at the church by now. So, I abandoned it for my own modified approach based on their plan. We’d do reading and math, Monday through Friday, as many field trips as we could with the church group, plus plenty of park dates and play dates.
Having the freedom to turn chores into playtime or jump in the car for an outing instead of being tied to “a school day” was pure gold and drove my desire to homeschool more than any other factor.
No matter how badly I wanted our family back together, there was no hope of a reunion if his memory and awareness didn’t heal. We were five years out from his coma, but he wasn’t the person I’d married. Superficially, his favorite color had changed, Mr. GQ now rarely cut his hair, and the clean-shaven bright-eyed groom grew a beard because he’d “always had one.” These are small things, but the lack of recognition in his eyes, like he was looking right through me, and his constant irritation wasn’t.
If encouraging the kids to play developed their resilience, I would lead the way. I needed it, too.
We’d bust out the pots and pans and wooden spoons for a kitchen band parade around the house, singing along with a CD at the top of our lungs. We’d ditch learning to read or tell time to read a favorite book out loud while they colored. If it was raining, they ran outside and stomped in puddles (hopefully in boots or old shoes).
I painted their bathroom to look like an underwater scene, complete with a whale, a shark and little Nemo staring at them just above the toilet paper holder.
In Ally’s room, I hand-painted daisies and other whimsical flowers that were as tall or taller than she was. A tree painted near a window supported a birdhouse and two Precious Moments bluebirds.
When Ally showed me multi-colored dots and random lines that she had drawn on her walls, “Flowers, just like you did, Momma. See?” I couldn’t fault her and left the wall as it was (But I was more careful about where I left markers).
In Josh’s room, I extended his matchbox car rug and roads another two feet on each side by painting his wooden floor. He played for hours on those roads, alone and with friends, using Legos to create buildings and bridges.
Disney’s Family Fun magazine was required reading in my home. At Halloween, it showed us how to slice hot dogs lengthwise to fry as “worms” and serve them coated with ketchup “blood” on hamburger rolls with mud soda. At Thanksgiving we created turkeys out of Nutter Butter cookies with mini-chocolate chip eyes, fruit chews and toothpicks became tail feathers like their models. At Christmas, we decorated gingerbread men and cut out cookies.
Judy assured me these diversions were different from dissociating because we chose to let go of thinking about the bad times to create good times. We weren’t pretending the bad didn’t happen, as much as practicing getting on with life as long as I swung back to affirm hearts or settle any hurts at the end of each day. In that way, the games and fun protected my sanity as much as theirs.
While the kids were still unaware of brand names and video games were on a distant horizon, the Colfax family was my model for a simpler, productive life. And if Waldorf kids could play outside two hours a day, mine would be just fine. Our landline allowed for dial up internet so I had email and internet, but we didn’t have cable TV. Facebook was still a few years from hitting the mainstream, so I had little competition to hold their attention.
We never missed out on lunches and playdates at Bell Tavern, West Goshen, or Coopersmith Park with one friend and her sons. Her step-dad had died from a brain tumor, and experienced a lot of the same personality changes I’d witnessed in their dad’s behavior.
Another friend had a son and daughter slightly older than Josh and Ally. Their lightly worn, exceptional hand-me-downs kept my kids clothed long before the clothes they were wearing ran out.
A friend from staff with a daughter just younger than Ally often had us over for lunch—she used tricks for an organized kitchen that still dazzle me—and once dropped off $1,000 in cash without knowing we had just run out, completed.
And that wasn’t the only time—one longtime friend gave us a card with $700 while I was between jobs. A group of young married couples at church, friends of a girl I’d only known for three months had provided meals for us for weeks, filling our freezer the months my husband was in the hospital and rehab.
They were the worst and best of times. So many unexpected, unrequested gifts and support buoyed my faith that holding the family together was worth it. We were worth it.
I never asked why he had gotten sick, why it had happened to him, to us. It never occurred to me. Perhaps that’s where being so inexperienced with kids was a benefit—I was so focused on what do I do now that I didn’t have time to question our fate.
While the kids were still boosting their reading skills, a very natural next step was regular migrations to the library. Every week, they checked out 10 picture books, lap books, or chapter books. Our reading history shows an average of 265 books checked out each year through the county library system—five books a week when averaged between the three of us. If only I had pictures of my little bookworms carrying their stacks to the car.
Some weeks, we drove to two or more libraries in the county to browse their children’s sections and make our selections. We’d pack water or juice, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers, Snyder’s pretzels, or good ol’ PBJ to eat in the car. Eventually, we grew became familiar with the library’s curated collections and the interests of the various librarians.
We learned that Tom Knecht, Director of the Parkesburg Library (retired in 2023), and his wife took Downingtown School District to court in the late 80s for the legal right to homeschool. So, we claimed Parkesburg as our home library and happily paid all of our fines there. I figured a $10 fee and renting our DVDs there was the least I could do.
Besides, I had always enjoyed driving, so visiting the libraries was an inexpensive rain or shine diversion.
As it turned out, driving was the highest paying work that allowed me to spend the bulk of the day with the kids. Cleaning houses paid roughly the same, but since the kids needed someone to keep an eye on them or a sitter, the going was slow and annoying. I really didn’t like cleaning tubs and showers.
I could pay the bills with driving instead. I would just need to drive a school bus. The kids would be contained in their own seat, right behind me. Plenty of drivers brought their kids with them. Why not me? I figured that if I could drive some field trips, all the better.
Passing the three computer-driven exams for a CDL Class B license with Passenger and Air Brake endorsements was anticlimactic. Except for the rules about crossing railroad tracks and warnings about tail swing, classroom safety training was what you’d expect. It all seemed pretty basic, until the first time I climbed onto a bus to drive it.
“Go ahead, climb in, and grab a seat!” the spunky trainer said. Roughly my height, with long blond hair that was as gray as it was blond, B. moved with confidence and authority. I wasn’t surprised that she was one of the in-house State Driver Testing Instructors.
That first day, my legs and knees barely felt strong enough to climb the three dirty, rubber-coated steps of the dayglow orange structure that loomed in front of me. As I pulled myself up each step and into a dank interior that smelled more like a locker room than a vehicle, a quaking filled the cavity I usually filled with food. I gratefully sat in the first row before I lost all strength.
The early December air was chilly and damp as a winter rain fell, but my face was flushed, my throat dry. An itchy wool sweater? Dumb move.
I didn’t want to drive something drivable on a day like this, never mind driving something that seemed too large for the road. What could we possibly do for three hours?
I needed a drink—maybe more than water by the time this ride was over—although I hadn’t had alcohol in years. I was about to drive a school bus down the road. At 39 feet long, 10-1/2 feet high, it was longer and taller than the first floor of my raised ranch home.
B.’s chatty preamble was background noise, like a test of the emergency broadcast system, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. If I was being warned away, why did I obediently move into the driver’s seat, carefully avoiding flip switches, toggle switches, switch arms and a bright yellow push knob that read “BRAKE.”
I choked back some giggles. Nerves.
After seeing this instrument panel, I was fairly sure I’d never want to be a pilot. As B. rambled on, aI glanced over the steering wheel and out the windshield. Well, at least I could see over the steering wheel.
At 5’3”, 125 pounds, this observation wasn’t completely unwarranted. I giggled again.
OK, must stop giggling. This woman is going to –how long is she going to talk?
Wait, she paused for a first action item: sign forms; lots and lots of forms. Really should have listened to her instead of gazing at gauges, buttons and knobs like I was choosing new pair of earrings. If I wreck this thing I’ll wish I had read them.
An hour later, all the papers are finally signed, B.’s chatting has stopped, deluge has stopped.
Next item: Learn to pre-trip the bus. Seventy-five hundred thousand points (give or take) to memorize, and check, prior to operating a commercial passenger vehicle.
Every time.
Check them each time I drive a different vehicle, in fact, should that happen on the same day. This insures that brakes, fuel and general condition of the bus are safe to operate for our precious cargo. They must be joking! That’s on me?
Nope. And now you know why a CDL license costs more than $300 and there are no seat belts on a school bus. A company provides the bus, but the driver is basically an independent operator in event of an accident. Not to worry, keep tight records on your inspections and report every little thing. “CYA is the name of this game, my friend,” B. said and chuckled.
Really should have paid closer attention to those forms.
Next, I discovered that I couldn’t reach the accelerator or foot brake while sitting properly in the seat with the strap buckled.
So, now I learn to adjust a cranky seat with a rusty knob that can only be reached by kneeling on the gross rubber floor and reaching way back under the seat without bumping aforementioned scary yellow knob that can now be identified as the “brake release.”
We switched busses in the end, because the rusty seat knob never did cooperate. The trainer duly made notes on my lack of progress. Then, what did we do?
You’ve got it: we pre-tripped the new bus (checking the seat and floor pedals for fit before launching into the exhaustive pre-trip).
You have got to be kidding. Maybe I’ll never drive. Maybe I QUIT, I screamed inside my head. With only 10 minutes left in my first 3-hour training, this seemed a logical step.
B. was almost charming with forms and pretrip behind us, “But I want you to drive a little,” she gushed.
Rain pounded the tin roof of this house-on-wheels again. I could barely hear her between the rain and the thumping in my ears. “Let’s at least pull forward and back her up so you can get a feel of the engine.”
She had my full attention now. Did she just say I’ll start with backing up?