"Nice to see you again!" "How are you doing today?" "Great to see you, have a nice day!"
I 1 my book and looked around in my seat, watching the driver 2 passengers. I'd never heard a more cheerful bus driver.
At each stop, the bus driver flashed a wide 3 , nodding his head at familiar faces and greeting people onto his lowly bus.
I was just watching the flow of the bus, and the bus driver's air of pleasant calm, like nothing could go wrong. It 4 me a bit. Most bus drivers I'd met are not so cheery. They're always swimming up against a long list of complaints, communicating with nameless busy riders, and constantly racing the clock so as not to run late though it's never so easy to control. This bus driver completely 5 my sense of what it means to drive a bus. It almost brought me back to my pre-school days, when we'd sing, "The wheels on the bus go round and round," to images of smiling bus drivers greeting their 6 and serving society with each shinning spin of their wheel or honk of their horn.
I completely put my books away, 7 there in awe. A thought 8 my head that I should tell the driver how much I appreciated seeing all the small, bold, courageous moments of his 9 I'd run into in this bus.
10 the bus approached my stop, I walked to the front of the bus.
"Thank you so much for your kindness to passengers. It's really nice to see you," I offered.
"Aw, that's really glad to hear. Thank you so much! It's nice to know that someone 11." the bus driver said.
"Well, I really appreciate seeing it. It is 12 and makes my day," I told him with a smile.
"Thank you!" he 13 with an ever-shining bright smile.
We talked a little more, and any wave of doubt completely 14.
Stepping 15 the bus a little lighter, I remembered a quote: "Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."
