School bus driver says it’s time to slow down.
By: Steve Rauscher
MONTGOMERY After 55 years as a township school bus driver, Walter Raymond says what he will miss the most is the phone call at 5:30 a.m.
"I’m awake by a quarter after five now, anyway," said the 76-year-old, reclining on the beige sofa in his Orchard Road home. "Whenever they needed me, they’d call me at 5:30 in the morning. You get used to that after a while."
A lifelong Montgomery resident, Mr. Raymond started driving buses in 1947, when the township was a few farms, a few roads and few families. More than five decades later, the farms have, for the most part, been replaced by cul-de-sacs and colonials, and Mr. Raymond has decided to call it a career.
"I just figured, with my age and everything, it was time to slow down a bit," he said.
In addition to his gig as a substitute bus driver, Mr. Raymond worked at the Somerset County Mosquito Commission, and has been a farmer all his life. He still takes care of a small herd of Angus cows in the township, he said. This year, he also retired from the Planning Board, having been a member since 1959.
"I guess I had a hand in a lot of these changes," he said. "But Montgomery has done very well compared to a lot of towns. I think we’ve kept it looking good, and I have no problems with it."
The most marked change, he said, rather than the disappearance of the farms and proliferation of new homes, is the presence of the people who live in those homes.
"There are a lot more people," he said. "I’m a farm boy. I’m not used to it. I liked it better with more open spaces."
Over the years, Mr. Raymond has watched many of those people grow up, one of the things he liked best about driving a school bus.
"You get to watch the kids start off in kindergarten and then graduate from high school," he said. "You get to see how they’ve matured, how they’ve grown."
He liked driving elementary school students the best, he said.
"They’re much better behaved," he said. "If you say something to them, they listen, the majority of them. Your worst grades are your middle school kids. By high school, they’ve mostly calmed down."
But imparting discipline in general, Mr. Raymond said, has become more difficult over time.
"Years ago, it was much better for bus drivers," he said. "Because when you told the parents that the kids were doing something wrong, they would believe you and take action. Now it’s like the child is right and the driver is wrong, because people just don’t have the discipline for the kids they had years ago."
Keeping one eye on the students and one eye on the road could sometimes be difficult, Mr. Raymond said, even after they introduced seat belts and video cameras into the buses in the 1990s.
"You’ve got so many things to watch," he said. "The cars, the kids. … It’s not just yourself."
After 55 years of driving, Mr. Raymond’s colleagues in the district transportation office presented him with a parting gift, a wooden mailbox painted dark yellow and black to look like what else? a school bus.
"They tell me not to put it up, because some kids will come by and just beat on it," he said.
But he might just do it anyway.