Forced bussed

---by Dave Buhlman

First, please keep our leader and chief guide, Ron Dupuis, in your thoughts and prayers as he continues to recover from surgery. May he be back on line soon with a vengeance!

Forced bussed is the term generated in the 1970's in Boston when a federal judge decided single handedly to take over the Boston Public School system and determine where all students in the system should go to to school. Judge schoolmarm had kids on buses going from one side of the city to the other based on one characteristic - race. He did this to help reduce alleged racial bias in the school system. And I guess it worked, at least by liberal interventionist rules and measures. The school system went from about 70 percent white to about 10 percent white - and dropping. Many white families voted with their feet, as has been done throughout history to avoid oppressive regimes.

Judge schoolmarm lived in the very upscale town of Wellesley ("Wealthly", we used to call it growing up in the Roslindale section of Boston), so his kids were never in danger of being forced bussed. Do as I say, etc.

But the forced bussing I'm now referring to is not exactly forced but, given traffic conditions and the price of gas, it certainly beats driving from New Hampshire to my job in Boston. My fellow travelers (literally, not like Hillary, Bill and Lenin) are pretty much like me. Headed to and fro to jobs they may love or hate, but have to have to survive. So it's the 6:20 AM out of Londonderry, or maybe the 6:40, if that's your pleasure. The service is good and the professional drivers can get through traffic jams better than most of us.

These people represent the core of what keeps America going. They travel to jobs, pay a load of taxes, take little in government giveaways, and die quietly in the manner of ITS Eliot's "J. Alfred Prufrock". For these quiet lives they are rewarded with the gratitude of congressmen, the French, villagers in Zimbabwe, delegates to the United Nations, Haliburton executives, and all those south of the Rio Grande. Thank you, Citizens!

Dave Buhlman is a former two-term NH State Representative and published author.