School bells ring in tropical places like they do everywhere else. I didn't particularly care about going to school, but I had no choice. I had to ride the school bus to and from school because the school was on another naval base. This base was an air station. It was exciting to see the aircraft taking off and landing. The bus ride itself could also be adventuresome. The bus was driven by a sailor who was stationed at the base where I lived. He was a slightly rotund man who had been in the Navy a long time. He was about to retire. He spoke a lot about when he could go back to Kansas and live on a farm. To help occupy the time spent going to and from school, the bus driver would lead singing songs. These songs were probably not the songs elementary school students should be singing. As I recall, the most popular one was about having 100 bottles of beer on the wall, taking one down and passing it around. Some equally bawdy and some lewd songs were sung by one and all. Other ways of occupying time included sleeping and talking. Frequently there was a fight that had to be broken up. I had a few of those.
A milestone of a military brat is when he turns old enough to have his own identification card. The day I got mine turned into a disaster. I was so proud of that little piece of plastic and paper that I had to show it off on the bus. It was a pleasure to show it to the younger kids and gloat about it. Right about the time I was going to put it back into my wallet, the bus hit a bump. My hand flew up into the air, coming down on the head of the fellow in front of me. He didn’t like that I hit him in the head, though it was an accident. He flew out of his seat, with one thing on his mind. He wanted to destroy someone or something. His hand shot out like a whip and caught mine. It was the one that was clutching desperately to the I.D. card to keep .it under control. The card was knocked out of my hand and disappeared into the crack between the window and the frame of the bus. I was horrified! That card meant that I could go, by myself, to the exchange and make my own purchases. Without the card, I was just another common little brat who had to depend on others. I was devastated! How could I tell my parents? They hadn’t wanted me to take the card to school in the first place. I had no idea what I was going to say, but I had the whole day to figure out a story. I could tell the truth and accept what came. I couldn’t concentrate very well in school that day. It didn’t really matter to me what the teacher was saying anyway. I dreaded that evening after dinner. My family was going to the movies to celebrate my I.D. card. To get into the movie, you had to show your I.D. card, provided you were old enough to have one. If you didn't have one, the only way you could get in was with your parents. This was to be the first time I used it to get into the movies. There was no way to get around that I no longer had mine.
On the bus ride home, I was never quieter. I never participated less in the activities on the bus. I wanted the long ride to be even longer. I didn't care if we fell into a large hole.
"MOM! I'm home!" I yelled as soon as I came up the porch steps.
"Mom?" Good! There was no answer. Mom wasn't home. I could avoid the inevitable a little while longer. I knew I would still have to tell her about the lost I.D. card. I went to my room and immediately started to do my homework.
"Mike? Where are you?" Mom came home from next door. "Mike, what are you doing?"
She came into my room and saw that I was doing my homework.
"Don't you feel well?" She asked. Moms get suspicious whenever I did something out of the ordinary, like homework.
"No, Mom, I feel fine. I just wanted to get this done before dinner."
"What's wrong? What kind of trouble are you in?"
"It's really nothing, Mom. I just had a fight on the bus this morning."
"Oh, is that all? I thought there was something really wrong. Who did you fight with this time? Never mind. I don't want to know. Are you excited about the movie tonight?"
"Uh, yea, Mom, excited. I can't wait."
"Well, that's good. Now, get washed up so you can help me get dinner ready. You know how your father likes to have dinner as soon as he gets home."
"OK, Mom."
I walked sullenly into the bathroom where I began to play in the sink instead of washing my hands. I filled the sink with water and floated the soap in the water.
I pretended that the toothbrushes were dive bombers, trying to sink the soap.
"Fire one! Fire two! Fire three! Fire four!" I dropped all of our toothbrushes onto the soap. Dad's and Karl's brushes got their bristles stuck in the soap.
"Mike, where are you? When are you going to help me?" Mom yelled.
"I’m coming. I’ll be right there. I hurriedly cleaned up the mess but left the soap on the two brushes that had gotten stuck in the soap.
"Mom, do I have to go to the movies?" I asked.
"I knew it! You are sick! I’m going to ask your father to take you to the dispensary when he gets home."
"Mom, I’m not sick! I just don’t want to go to the movie tonight, that’s all."
"Hmmm, I don’t know. You were doing homework when I got home and now you don’t want to go to the movie. There must be something wrong. I want to know what's bothering you. Now, young man."
"You'll kill me.
"No, I won’t. Now tell me.
"Promise you won’t kill me?"
"I promise.
"All right. I lost my I.D. card this morning on the bus. It was because of the fight."
"What!?! What do you mean you lost it?"
"I lost it when Bobby hit my hand this morning on the bus."
"How did you lose it on the bus?"
"I told you, during the fight."
"Where did you lose it."
"On the bus, I told you." Boy, parents could be dense sometimes, I thought.
"Where on the bus?"
"Between the window and the side."
"Just wait until your father finds out!"
"Gosh, Mom, do we have to tell him?"
"How do you think you can get into the movie without it? Oh, I see why you didn’t want to go out tonight. No, young man, you are going to have to tell him yourself."
"Me? Why me?"
"Because you are the one who lost his I.D. card. I’m sure you were doing something you weren’t supposed to. That’s what caused the fight, isn’t it? You were doing something wrong. Can’t you ever behave yourself? If you hadn't taken the card with you this morning, you wouldn't have lost it."
Moms can be totally unreasonable at times. I was really in trouble now. If Mom had taken care of it, I would have gotten off lightly. Now, Dad would think of some brutal punishment.
Dad finally got home. Tension filled the air. I was quiet so I wouldn't bring attention to myself. What a mistake!
"Mike, what’s wrong with you?" Dad asked. "You have been so quiet; I thought maybe there was something you wanted to talk to me about."
"Nothing, Dad. I just didn't want to bother you after a hard day at work."
"I'm not going to buy that one. What's the problem? Did you have another fight at school?"
"No, I didn't have a fight at school."
"Then, what is it?"
"You will probably kill me. I had a fight on the school bus this morning.
"I knew you were quiet for some reason. What else?"
"What do you mean, Dad?"
"You know what I mean. What else is on your mind?"
"I lost my I.D. card."
"You what!?!"
"I lost my I.D. card."
"That's what I thought you said. What are you going to do now?"
"What do you mean?"
"What are you going to do for the next few months until you get another I.D. card?"
"You mean I can't get one right away?"
"That's right. You can't get another one until I think you have shown enough responsibility to deserve another one. You'll have to do without one."
"But, Dad, the kids will laugh at me for not having one now.
"You should have thought about that before you started to show off," he said.
"Dad, you knew about this, didn't you?"
"Yes, Son, I did. Your bus driver told me about it after he got back from taking you kids to school. He said it really wasn't your fault, but I think you need to learn a lesson. Maybe you'll be more careful next time."
I got along without an I.D. card for a few months with only a little teasing. In fact, most of the kids forgot about the incident shortly after it happened. We had too many other interesting things to think about.