• Bus drivers are among the unsung heroes who help our school systems operate, safely getting students to and from school on a daily basis, transporting athletic teams to road games and taking bus loads of enthusiastic youngsters to field trip locations.

They often go out of their way to be helpful, with little fanfare.

But one recent gesture of goodwill by Gustine Unified School District drivers will not go unnoticed.

Rural Gustine resident Flora Zamora recently shared with us the story of how the drivers banded together to help her struggling family at the holidays.

Zamora said her husband was laid off from his construction job shortly after the family moved to Gustine last April, one of the casualties of the plummeting industry.

Tough times persisted, and as the holidays approached the family thought Christmas was beyond its reach – until the bus drivers intervened.

The Zamoras arrived home the Friday before Christmas to discover that a mini-bus load of gifts (literally) had been delivered to the residence, tucked away in a pantry for safekeeping.

Turns out the drivers had come up with the idea of adopting a family, and had heard of the plight facing the Zamoras, whose two children attend Romero School.

“We went a little crazy,” conceded transportation manager Cheryl Pometta. But, she added, the drivers had a great time putting together the surprise Christmas and will likely “adopt” a family to help again next year.

As for the deeply appreciative Zamora, she was still overwhelmed when describing the act of generosity three weeks after the fact and expressing her heartfelt thanks.

The family still faces a tough road, she said, but was deeply touched and heartened by the kindness of the bus drivers.

Without the help of the drivers, the family would have gone without Christmas.

“How do you tell your kids that Santa is going to miss your house?” she asked. “What do you do? They just came through for us. It was the best Christmas we ever had.”

And hopefully, it was also the start of good things for a family that has endured hard times but is determined to persevere.

• A preliminary proposal by San Jose Tallow Company to establish a transfer station near a meat processing plant on Santa Fe Grade Road  has the attention of neighboring landowners.

A company representative confirmed those plans recently, saying the firm is seeking a permit from Merced County for the transfer station. He stressed that San Jose Tallow has no plans for anything other than a transfer station at the location at this time, but did not absolutely rule out the possibility of seeking permission to build a tallow processing plant at some point in the future.

The adjacent Newman Land and Cattle Company, a 1,700-acre duck club, has voiced its opposition to the proposal, which remains in the very preliminary stages of the application process and will undergo a months-long environmental review process before public hearings are held.

Tallow companies certainly provide a vital service, but for obvious reasons are not typically welcomed with open arms.

The concern of the duck club owners is quite understandable. One of their fears is that an application to build a processing plant will soon follow a transfer station (where materials are consolidated from small truckloads to larger truckloads and sent on their way to plants for processing).

I can’t say that I would like the idea of having a tallow facility (whether a transfer station or a plant) as a neighbor and don’t think anybody honestly could.

For the record, we have no reason to believe that San Jose Tallow is anything other than an upstanding company which meets the highest operating standards, or that the company would not be capable of meeting its stated promise of operating odor-free and with no threat of water running off onto adjacent properties.

But we also have endured the presence of a previous industry which did not fulfill its promises and generated a stench which covered Newman and the surrounding West Side areas, the now-defunct Tartaric plant.

From that experience we have learned that we cannot take applications at face value; nor can we hesitate to protect our own personal or community interests or count on regulatory agencies to move swiftly in correcting problems after the fact.

This project merits extremely close review, and if it moves forward must satisfy not only Merced County but the concerns of all those who might be impacted locally.

• The budget proposal unveiled last week by Gov. Schwarzenegger, as expected, called for drastic and painful measures to resolve the state’s budget crisis.

The proposed cutbacks would heavily impact local education, particularly in districts with declining enrollments such as Gustine Unified. School leaders are still trying to sort out just what the ramifications may be and how it all pencils out close to home. Superintendents of the Gustine and Newman-Crows Landing districts were to attend budget meetings earlier this week to hear more detailed information.

We hope to share that information with our readers next week, but it’s safe to say that local schools - like so many other agencies and programs impacted by the budget crisis - are going to face some difficult times and even more difficult choices.

• From the email bin comes a sampling of bumper stickers you might find on the cars of retired folks.....

“I was at the beauty shop for two hours. That was only for the estimate.”

“That snap, crackle, pop in the morning ain’t my Rice Krispies.”

“You know you’re getting old when you throw a wild party and the neighbors don’t even realize it.”

“Some days I wake up grumpy....and some days I let him sleep.”

“Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.”

“The only trouble with retirement....you never get a day off.”

And, my favorite, “Never do anything you wouldn’t want to explain to the paramedics.”

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