Now this Is My Kind of Bus Driver

Last Thursday, John Lohan, who has driven a bus for the Massachusetts Transportation Authority for nearly 20 years, asked his passengers if they would mind if he stopped his bus at a kid’s lemonade stand.

When none of the passengers expressed any concern, John pulled his bus over and bought everyone on the bus a cup of lemonade.

“My only thinking was that it’d be a thrill for the children where they’d have a great story to tell for the rest of their lives,” Lohan told ABC News.

I’m sure it was a memorable experience for the kids. As one of the four young girls running the stand said, “Our faces like dropped, it was awesome. The lemonade only costs 50 cents and he bought seven of them and he gave us 10 bucks, so he’s awesome.”

But is wasn’t just the lemonade stand owners who came away impressed. According to Lohan, all of the passengers were “grinning from ear to ear. They all said thank you and a variation of ‘you made my day’ when they got off at each of their stops.”

It was a simple gesture, but look at the positive effects it had on everyone involved. I’m sure all those people told someone else about what happened, and the word spread and eventually the story made the national news.

I’m also sure that many of the individuals directly involved in this act of kindness made a pledge to themselves to somehow pay it forward, to brighten up someone else’s day, just like the bus driver did for them.

I’m a big fan of lemonade stands, and I’ve written before about the promise my wife and I made to ourselves to stop at every lemonade stand we encounter, and we’ve held true to that promise for over 33 years.

So I think of myself and John Lohan as kindred spirits; I’m sure he got as much of a thrill out of his actions as I do when I stop at a lemonade stand.

The story also got me thinking about what I might want to do when I retire from teaching; maybe I can become the next Ralph Cramden and make lemonade stands part of my daily route.