The Bus Driver

Sharing Stories

March 25, 2022 at 2:31 p.m.

A bus can be a wonderful place!

...by Ariele M. Huff

The Bus Driver

It was always such a pleasure to ride on his bus. A warm event. Ten years ago, when I was in school and making an eight ‘o’ clock class, I rode with him daily.
I don’t remember his name now. Mac or Jim or some other short but friendly name.

I do remember that I’d only ridden with him three times when he began calling me “Carrot Top.” My hair isn’t red, but he said that when the light caught it a certain way….

Mac or Jim or whoever knew everybody’s stop and never made you ring the bell or let you sleep past your street. Nobody ever had to run after Mac’s bus, pounding on windows, trying to get him to open the door.

He probably would have been fired if it had gotten back to his supervisor that he let people on in the middle of blocks, at intersections, and sometimes let them off right at their own doorways.

Jim was built nicely for his age. (He was somewhere between 35 and 50, I guess. I was 17 then and didn’t have a too discerning eye as concerned the finer details of adult aging.)

But he was built well, with sandy hair, and I had a crush on him. Something between appreciation and a real crush.

Mac greeted each person as they boarded and kept a running conversation going most of the time. He knew everyone’s business and never forgot whose niece had broken her leg, whose kids had the measles or who was putting in a new lawn.

Sometimes, Jim began to sing, bursting into the middle of a song…but gently. Sometimes, he spoke to the bus in general as an orator on a subject like love, or marriage, or happiness. Never anything that would bother anyone or stir up controversy. He was a gentle man.

Mac loved his wife. She was his second one, and he said, “She’s a real sweetie.” You knew he meant it.

I often wondered how Jim maintained his invariably sunshiny smile and placid line of chat. I never saw it fail under the grimmest of skies or dourest of treatment. Never once in the two years I rode with him daily—Monday through Friday.

I always sat as close to him as possible to feel the warm, yellow waves of affection that swirled on and off the bus at each stop. When there was a ten-minute hold-over, I eagerly engaged him in conversation.

Mac was dramatic and had a flair for getting people’s attention. He sang out the street names in an operatic falsetto or an exaggerated monotone. Occasionally, there was running rhetoric about the area we were passing. Funny stuff like, “On your left, you’ll observe scenic Ballard. On your right is the rest of Ballard.”

When I rode on Jim’s bus, I had a feeling of belonging to some strangely fluctuating little society. Like a messenger of goodwill, this glowing little bus traveled from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Mac helped old ladies with their packages and young mothers with their strollers. He was a sweet man, a Libra. Librans are often sweet, but I used to think, there must be other Libran bus drivers and none of them are like Jim (or Mac or whoever). You’d hear about that type of person on TV or in the newspaper…or somewhere.

Watching the faces of passengers who were new to this unique Mac, didn’t know his style, was fascinating.

The tired face waiting for the door to open, then Jim’s voice booming, “All aboard. Loading fore and aft.”

At first, some people thought he as crazy or kidding them, and they’d look pretty cautious. Skeptical. Even angry.

Then, as we rode along, and they could see he was for real, there’d be this sudden dawning. Like a light going on, and the person’s whole face relaxed…and there was this incredulous smile.

Ariele Huff, lifelong Washington resident, wrote this piece 55 years ago…and still remembers and reveres Mac/Jim/whoever as a person who affected so many people so positively.

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