Half a century behind the wheel

FAIRFIELD - For the first day of school in 1968, 16-year-old Joe Fritz drove the sweetest ride in the county: a giant yellow school bus. For more than 50 years he has continued to drive for the Fairfield Community School District and said he'll drive for as many more as he is able.

Fritz said it all started on a whim. He was working for a farmer when the transportation director for the Fairfield Community School District approached him and said he needed a driver. Fritz said he didn't think the man was serious until he came back a few weeks later to see if he'd taken the test yet. He hadn't, but he decided to after the second conversation.

'I did and I'm still driving today,” he said.

Fritz said at the time, it was not unusual for him to be driving so young because as a farm kid, he'd been driving tractors since he was five. While in high school, Fritz was a football player, which meant he could only drive the morning bus route and not the evening. However, he could drive the activities bus home after practice and dropped all his teammates off before heading home himself.

To become a driver today, drivers are required to complete a 12 hour program, certification and an Iowa Department of Transportation physical. When he first started out, it was much simpler.

'It's much more thorough than when I started. Then it was just get your chauffeur's license, take the driving test in the bus and you were eligible to drive,” he said.

The classes to become a driver are not the only things that have changed, he said. The busses themselves are much different. Fritz said when he first started, the busses ran on gas, had manual transmissions, did not have windshield wipers and had terrible heaters.

'On very cold winter days you had ice on the floors in the bus,” he said.

The worst winter he remembers driving through was in 1978 when the snow was three feet deep for long stretches. He said the county hired a private contractor to come in with bulldozers to remove the snow. It was piled up so high along the gravel roads, it was taller than the bus. He said it felt like he was driving through a tunnel.

Everything is much different now, he said, with todays busses running on diesel, having automatic transmissions and power steering, windshield wipers and improved heating systems.

Although modern conveniences have made his life much easier, Fritz said one of his favorite memories of driving was on a manual bus during his first year of driving. With five students left to drop off before he was done for the day, Fritz said he decided to take a dirt road that was a shortcut.

After driving for about half a mile, he said he started to get concerned after seeing the bigger hills were wet from rain earlier in the day. He tried to turn the bus around the corner, but it would not turn.

So, all five kids piled out of the bus and pushed as hard as they could while Fritz slipped the clutch.

'It worked. Their shoes got muddy (and) their pants were muddy (but) they felt like heroes that they helped turn the bus,” he said. 'They felt good about it and they laughed about it. I had to clean a bunch of mud from the bus, but I did not have to call and get assistance from the school.”

Nowadays, safety precautions are much more plentiful, he said. The bus still has the same basic flashers it did when he first started driving but the door and stop signs are both automatic now. Especially with this being National School Bus Safety Week, he said safety still is a big concern and most commonly with drivers who are not aware they need to stop while traveling in rural areas.

'It's not uncommon to have drivers not respect and obey the stop arm,” he said.

Fritz said if the student has to cross the street for the bus, he makes sure to motion them over before letting them cross. He said behavior on the bus has changed as well.

Fritz said he has noticed a diminishing respect for adults over the years, which he attributes to the lack of a nuclear family structure. However, it will not stop him from driving.

'I think working with young people helps keep you young,” he said.

For the past 30 years, Fritz has been driving a very specific group of young people: kids with special needs. Fritz said the environment is very different because there are less discipline issues, but he loves the kids as if they were his own, he said.

'I feel very fortunate that I have these kids and its very easy to get attached to them,” he said.

Over the past 50 years, the school district has become attached to Fritz, too. On Friday, Oct. 18, he was recognized for his many years of service during halftime of the Fairfield Community High School football game. He said he was overwhelmed by the gesture but made sure it was clear this was only a recognition, not a retirement party.

'I have no intention of retiring. I don't even think about that. I'm going to continue to drive as long as I enjoy it,” he said.