by Jan Backes
I'd spent six months inpatient at Eagleville rehab and six months in their halfway house program beginning April 19, 1982. I was twenty four.
I'd lost my CDL as a school bus driver and was sent to rehab because I'd admitted to another driver that I was smoking weed between runs. Deep down I knew that the driver I'd told would tell our manager.
Being in rehab was like being in prison but not behind bars. We were on a campus. I could have walked away. Only, I had no where to go. I'd left Bucks County behind and landed in Montco. I knew nothing about the area; I knew no one.
Somehow, in spite of myself, I had gotten sober and stayed in shape for the year and decided to go back and get my CDL. I was re-instated as a school bus driver and started my new life in Montco.
It was June, 1983, the end of the school year, and I had a field trip to the Devon Horse Show. I'd dropped off the last of the students and was driving back to the bus garage. As I approached an intersection with a convenience store on one corner, I noticed a young girl waiting for the light to change.
As it happens, she crossed on the red in direct line of my bus and I could not avoid hitting her. Luckily, she was not seriously injured. Because I had seen her. Because I knew that she might not see me. Mostly, because I was sober.
0 comments:
Post a Comment