Back in the 1980s, one of my textbooks had a story that involved a
city bus driver and passengers boarding his bus. There was a kid with
a boombox, an old lady, a plumber..well the group you would typically expect
to find on a city bus in that era (no vomiting homeless people or Karens
with racist outbursts).

Anyway, the story was rather mundane until the passengers noticed that the driver was missing stops, and when someone rang the bell for his upcoming stop, the driver skipped that one too. This is when the story took on a dark and frightening tone. The
driver had a maniacal expression on his face, he was punching and elbowing the passengers who tried to stop him, and it seemed like he was intent on committing a mass murder/suicide. Eventually the bus crashed causing deaths and/or injuries (going on a
40 year old memory here).

This seemed to be a very dark subject for a child's textbook, and this kind of thing would not be a common fixture in the news for decades to come. I'm wondering what the writer/publisher was thinking putting that story in the book? Maybe a lesson on "
watch your surroundings/observe other people's behavior." but this was a bit extreme for the time.

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On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 8:56:45 PM UTC-8, plateshutoverlock wrote:

Back in the 1980s, one of my textbooks had a story that involved a
city bus driver and passengers boarding his bus. There was a kid with
a boombox, an old lady, a plumber..well the group you would typically expect to find on a city bus in that era (no vomiting homeless people or Karens with racist outbursts).

Anyway, the story was rather mundane until the passengers noticed that the driver was missing stops, and when someone rang the bell for his upcoming stop, the driver skipped that one too. This is when the story took on a dark and frightening tone. The

driver had a maniacal expression on his face, he was punching and elbowing the passengers who tried to stop him, and it seemed like he was intent on committing a mass murder/suicide. Eventually the bus crashed causing deaths and/or injuries (going on a
40 year old memory here).

This seemed to be a very dark subject for a child's textbook, and this kind of thing would not be a common fixture in the news for decades to come. I'm wondering what the writer/publisher was thinking putting that story in the book? Maybe a lesson on "

watch your surroundings/observe other people's behavior." but this was a bit extreme for the time.

The story was told by the kid's perspective, the one with the boom box.

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plateshutoverlock <blinkingblythe01@gmail.com> wrote:

Anyway, the story was rather mundane until the passengers noticed that the= driver was missing stops, and when someone rang the bell for his upcoming =
stop, the driver skipped that one too. This is when the story took on a dar= >k and frightening tone. The driver had a maniacal expression on his face, h= >e was punching and elbowing the passengers who tried to stop him, and it se= >emed like he was intent on committing a mass murder/suicide. Eventually the=
bus crashed causing deaths and/or injuries (going on a 40 year old memory =
here).

This sounds like a modern update of the story "The Crazy Engineer" which appeared in a number of newspapers in the mid-19th century and later was
picked up by McGuffey's Reader. Author unknown. Adapted into a song by
Hank Snow but with substantial changes.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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