MAGIC BUS

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” – Arthur C. Clarke, writer,  futurist

I’ve enjoyed almost 70 years of conscious existence on this small blue marble. Among the most important was 1970, when I was a high school Freshman taking a course in Senior-level Cultural Anthropology at La Puente High School. 

I’ve mentioned this class, and the first day of it, in a previous story. Please humor me.

On the first day of school, I entered that classroom and saw a large pile of desks in the middle of the room, with other students sitting or standing along the walls. The bell rang, but no teacher was in sight.

After a few uneasy minutes, I began pulling desks off the pile and setting them upright. Some of the other guys began to do the same, and soon all the desks were facing the chalkboard, with everyone seated. 

As if on cue, teacher Alan Eggleston walked in with his signature giant toothy grin and ‘mocked’ us for being programmed by society to set up the room in a culturally- acceptable schoolroom format. That first day of class set the tone for the next two semesters of serious, mind-expanding education.

This story is about a very special day in Alan Eggleston’s Cultural Anthropology class in September of 1970.

We’d been discussing the concept of human culture, how mankind developed it, and why certain benchmarks of that development were so vital. In preparation for an upcoming class project, Mr. E announced a field trip we’d soon be taking for a hands-on experiment. Very early one Saturday morning, we piled into a school bus and made the long drive East on the San Bernardino Freeway and into the desert, somewhere between Cabazon and Palm Springs.

Our driver slowed down, crossed the freeway’s dirt median (1970, remember?) and parked the bus alongside the Westbound side of the road. We got off the bus and  trekked up the gentle slope of the alluvial plain that stretched in front of us. We hiked about a half mile, far enough away that we couldn’t hear the few cars cruising on the freeway below us. The bus, parked by the freeway, seemed small and insignificant.

We stopped walking, surrounded by rocks and scrub. After a few quiet moments, Mr. E addressed us as a group, his words muted by the vastness around us:

“OK, you know we’ve been learning about how early man struggled every day to survive and thrive, which required him to fashion the tools to meet that need. We’ve also studied how he learned to make them out of the natural environment he lived in.”

He raised and outstretched his arms to the desert around us.

“This… is the kind of place where ancient stone tools have been found. I want you to make your own stone tool using anything you can find that's a part of this environment. Take your time, consider the tool, how you’ll use it, and let’s get started!”

The search began for each of us to find an appropriate type of stone that would flake off when struck by a harder hammerstone. We formed search groups, and within 30 minutes everyone had the materials needed to start fabricating their tool. I chose to make a large cutting tool for skinning prey, which needed a sharpened side to slice and a rounded side for my hand to grip.

We started working away, sitting on large rocks or clearing a place on the ground. There were a few banged fingers and rocks that shattered on first strike. We talked and laughed and made comments about each other’s poor rock-chipping method. Eventually, the talk and laughter stopped, and the only sound was that of many humans, chipping on stones.

Mr. E walked among the group, watching us chip away, quietly suggesting better ways to use the hammerstone, gently assisting those who were struggling.

 I was making progress and my cutting tool was taking shape. Suddenly, I had a strange feeling... almost an epiphany. I stopped, raised my head, looked around and listened to the sound of humans sitting in the desert, chipping on rocks. It was an ancient, primeval sound. I was time-traveling, thinking this is what it sounded like twenty-thousand years ago, when the Chemehuevi or Serrano or Mohave or Cahuilla or Tongva people were inhabiting these desert places.

                          

I felt a connection to those ancient people across time and space; people I would never know, but whom had suddenly come alive in my hands and mind and heart. I got a little emotional thinking those deep thoughts, and it took me a few moments to re-focus.

I will never forget that feeling.

Alan Eggleston knew exactly what I was experiencing: a psychic, visceral pull across two hundred centuries. That’s why we were here. That’s why this trip to the desert, and his class, mattered.

I worked on a cutting tool that would slice the fur off a desert hare or groundhog. My Boy Scout experience helped me understand the task and how to achieve it. 

Eventually, the morning waned and the heat rose, so Mr. E called time on our work. We gathered around, discussing and comparing our tools and their uses, with surprisingly good results for a bunch of teenagers. We headed back down to the freeway, ate box lunches in the shade of the bus, then boarded and began the drive back to La Puente. 

There were other class projects during those two semesters that dragged us back and forth in time, connecting to a shared humanity and opening our minds to new ways of thinking. I feel so lucky that Alan Eggleston was a guide in my Freshman journey, and he remained a valued mentor through my high school years. 

Several Junior and High School teachers were critical to my formation into a thinking, questioning and understanding human. Without them, I could easily have veered off in another direction. I owe so much to Ruth Pechota and Scott Mitchell (Willow Junior High School), Alan Eggleston, Jim Ellis, and Carlos Magallanes (La Puente High School). It’s almost impossible to imagine my education without them.

Education is the Magic Bus that takes us to places we can’t get to on our own. Teachers are the Magicians that guide us along the way. They're far more important than any politician, corporate oligarch or religious leader. Look to the teachers for the way forward.

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch, Greek philosopher and biographer

“I can make you the hamburger, but I can’t eat it for you. You’ve got to eat the hamburger for yourself!” – Ruth Pechota, Social Studies educator

Bus, alluvial plain and ancient peoples images, Gracias de Google images; Educator images, Muchisimas Gracias de Willow Junior High School and La Puente High School Yearbooks.