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Betsy's Destiny

by Richard F. Bernard

87 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-2151; ISBN 1-4251-0394-4; US$11.50, C$13.00, EUR8.95, £5.95

The adventures of Betsy, a USA school bus, born with spirit and grit, as she matures, enjoys life, endures tragedies,and finally emerges in a triumphant climax in remote Mexico.

About the Book

A spirited school bus with impish instincts arrives at a small school district outside El Paso and finds herself under the guidance of a driver called Marge-the-Sarge by her bus passengers. She's a divorced mother of two grown girls, who needs the job and finds ways to 'handle' Betsy, whom she names after her father's WWII bomber.

After a decade of daily travel and a few adventures on long trips, Betsy is sold to a dealer across the Rio Grande in Cuidad Juarez. She is sold and resold, deep down into Mexico. In Morelia, while racing to get customers , she is wrecked in a collision and is sold to the brothers Carlos and Pedro Rodriguez who haul her off to their in-the-street- repair facility in Mexico City. After much work the brothers rebuild Betsy into a bizarre-looking bus , painted the colors of Mexico: green, red and white. She's named "The Patriotic Bus' and gets some notoriety before being sold again to a big farming operation outside Oaxaca. There, life slows down as she trudges from field to field transporting farm workers. Embroiled in a farm worker demand for better wages, she is torched, and left to rust. She is finally rescued by a poor church in need of a 'platform ' to be their entry in the Christmas parade around the zocolo in Oaxaca. How she encounters Marge at the height of the parade is the climax of a charming cross-cultural story of triumph over odds and a victory for the downtrodden everywhere.

About the Author

WWII veteran; born in Pittsfield, Mass., , educated in Long Island schools (Islip), then Franklin & Marshall College, in PA; Lt. (j.g.) in USNR in Pacific; teacher/administrator in Los Angeles (two HS and a community college) 1947-79. Fulbright teacher in Holland 1959-60, MS in Ed at USC (1950), has travelled around the US (all 50 states) and much of western Europe. Has written stories for teens; countless letters-to-the-editor. Has a grown son in CA (an outstanding environmentalist). His wife, Kathy has three grown children, two in CA and one in NH; between them they have five grandchildren. Both Dick and Kathy are actively involved in civic affairs in South Portland.

Excerpts