Bus driver H. Ranford Allen is 84 years old, but he isn’t slowing down for anyone.
The Pinetown resident has been a survivor most of his life, enduring the disintegration of his neighborhood into a cesspool of drugs and poverty, the death of his wife due to diabetes nine years ago and his own recent health problems.
Allen’s difficult recent years are reflected in his gravelly and distinctive voice. It’s a voice that conveys a hard-won dignity, despite its age. After overcoming some health issues in the past two years, Allen passed a physical so he can continue working and doing what he loves: imparting his wisdom to young kids.
He said his late wife got him into driving the bus for Cape Henlopen School District.
“I’m driving the bus because of her,” Allen said, “She said, ‘You’ll only be gone two hours. I’m in good shape for two hours.’ I said, ‘Why do you want me out?’ She said, ‘Cause I’m tired of you being around the house all the time.’”
“So, in the morning, I take the kids to school, come back and be with her the rest of the day until I had go pick them up,” he said.
Allen has been a resident of Pinetown for 14 years and has been one of the community’s most active members. He is involved in a Neighborhood Watch program and helped found a community center to give kids a place to go after school.
On the Neighborhood Watch program Allen said, “They cannot do any drug dealing or anything from where I live to four houses down. But I can’t control from there all the rest of the way down because the ones selling drugs, their relatives live down there. They give them a place to stay.”
Allen said much of the dealing goes on right out in the open.
“What bothers me so much, is that a couple of them are travelling with their kids in the car,” he said.
Keeping kids away from drugs is the main reason he helped found the community center in Pinetown.
“We’re running the center there and the after-school program trying to get as many of those children as we can away from there,” Allen said.
The program tries to teach kids life, educational and computer skills.
“It’s more than one thing they learn how to do there. But the main thing is for them not to be crack and dope dealers. That’s all I can pray for,” he said.
Despite the dangers, he doesn’t fear confronting the drug dealers.
“I’m not afraid to go down there,” he said. “You’d think they’d beat me up or whatever? Not at all. But they are going to keep on doing their business.”
Besides taking pride in his community, he was just as vigilant when it came to caring for his wife as her diabetes worsened.
“People used say, ‘Boy, you really take care of your wife.’ Well, why shouldn’t I? I married her,” he said. “It might be a problem to somebody else but it was no problem to me.”
He still gets emotional when discussing the last day he spent with his wife nine years ago. They went out to a church function in Pennsylvania, hoping to meet up with his daughter-in-law. However, he said, she never did come and Allen’s wife wanted to go home.
After they arrived back home, Allen’s wife climbed into bed while he made her soup.
“Then the phone rang and I answered it and it was my daughter,” Allen said. “She said, ‘Daddy, where’s mom?’ I said, ‘Home and in bed.’ She said ‘Can I talk to her?’ And I said, ‘Why didn’t you come then? You only had to come seven miles, we had to drive 132.’”
His daughter explained to him that she thought they had come and gone. She then went to her uncle’s house and her parents were not there either.
“She said, ‘Can I talk to mom?’ So I took the phone in there and said, ‘Roxanne wants to talk to you, do you want to talk to her?’ You know what she said? No,” Allen said.
“So I told Roxanne and she said, ‘I’ll be there in the morning.’ But, morning was too late. After I finished eating I went into the room to check on her and the television is still on,” he said. “I looked at her and said ‘Something’s not right.’ She never slept at all with her mouth closed, she always breathed through her mouth and not through her nose. I went in there and her mouth was closed.”
“So that relationship ended and I lost a good woman,” he said.
Still, despite all the struggles, Allen maintains a positive look on life.
“I’ve led a pretty good life,” he said.
Contact Ryan Mavity at ryanm@capegazette.com
