Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

The old bus pictured here was the type we took back in the day. Riding to the high school in the late 60’s and early 70’s was a lot of fun. Remember the plush leather seats?

We would catch the bus at the corner of Bay State Avenue and Broadway near Ball Square in the morning. In the afternoon the bus would be waiting at the corner of School Street and Medford Street. The fare was a dime. I don’t even know how much the bus costs today since I haven’t taken one in years.

We had a lot of fun on the bus, especially on the way back from school, because it was all kids. On the way to school, we had to share the bus with people going to work, etc.

 At 2:30 we would walk down the street to the waiting bus. It was pretty loud and rowdy. We were a bunch of kids that just got out of school for seven hours and we were pretty amped up. The bus was packed with kids.

When we headed home, we would line up kids on each side of the bus. Then we would start to rock the bus back and forth as the bus driver yelled at us. He actually would pull the bus over and get out until we calmed down. So, as we headed to Ball Square we started chanting, DO IT ON THE BRIDGE! DO IT ON THE BRIDGE! We started rocking the bus around Trum Field and when we went over the Ball Square bridge we were a rocking and a rolling. The poor bus driver.

If I had to go to the high school today, I could walk to Davis Square, switch to the Green Line at Park St. and grab the train to the High School’s Gilman Square stop. How cool is that?