Our school bus driver was named Harold. I know because the older kids used to yell it at him.

“Did you like that Harold? What’s the matter Harold? What are you going to do about it Harold?”

My memories of riding the bus have largely deteriorated over time, but I remember a few things.

I remember flashing teeth.

Passing through the inward-outward door of the school bus was like walking into a kennel. Except, it was more brutal than a kennel because dogs have limits. When a dog yelps, the attacker knows to stop.

The older boys might as well have been adults to me. Their behavior illustrated the very worst aspects of human nature. And yet, within that harsh environment I learned a lesson about kindness which I would never forget.

The cruelty of boys

I used to have to find my resolve to go up the bus steps. I know now that I should have refused. I should have just walked home, or not gone home at all. Instead, I submitted to those greasy steps wet with mud and dirt and refuse.

Somebody’s prized art project would be crumpled up in a wad. One of the older boys would have taken it and laughed and stomped it into the floor. There would be a girl silently crying because it was her project and she’d been excited about showing it to her mom.

That was the school bus.

The retired farmer who wanted to be useful

I remember looking up at Harold for the first time. He wore dark blue jeans and a plaid shirt. The shirt was dark blue and red. He wore a baseball cap. He was ancient and I was too young to understand.

There was an enormous mirror over the driver’s seat. Mostly, I remember Harold’s reflection peering back at us. It was always the “stop what you’re doing” look, but I can’t remember him yelling. If he did, I expect it was little more than a disappointed, “Hey.”

Back then, I evaluated things on how fast I thought they could move. If I felt confident I could run away from something, then I didn’t perceive it as a threat.

Human beings go through stages just like creatures of the forest. You might find a newborn fawn in the woods that’s too young to know it should be afraid. It will only sit there and look at you with its large, innocent eyes.

If you stumble across something like this when you’re an adult, and you’re decent, you might find yourself brought to tears. Why is it that such precious things must be perpetually surrounded by danger?

Charon take me home

Harold moved deliberately. I imagined him crawling out of the school bus at the end of the day, and climbing onto a tractor. Perhaps he was driving bus because farm work had become too difficult. He carried with him the weight of time.

Maybe he drove bus because he was lonely and wanted to be around kids?

The roads were not good then and the suspension didn’t help. We felt like a giant’s collection stored in a tin can. Every now and then the giant would lift the can and rattle it just to hear the noise we made.

Papers would go flying. I didn’t mind the papers. It was the spit I didn’t like. Those older boys with their flashing teeth and their Peter Pan hair sure did love to spit.

They needed a target for their abuse, and it became Harold. The concept of justice was a luxury I didn’t have. That comes after survival, and for me, survival was very much in doubt.

Don’t torment the ferryman

The older boys would scream things at Harold. Harold would look up at them with an expression of silent irritation, but that would be the end of it. He didn’t really communicate with us. Our bus driver was like a non-person with one foot already in the next world.

The things that mattered to us didn’t matter to him. We thought of homework, and cartoons, and toys. Harold thought of cultivating the Earth, and planting seeds, and doing his job, and maybe dying. There was no bridge across the chasm that divided our perceptions of life.

One day I witnessed a boy cut the Vinyl on the back of one of the seats. Did he have a knife? I can’t remember but it wouldn’t have surprised me. He might have cut it with a pen, stabbing the fabric and ripping it open like gutting an animal.

Then he looked inside in a pantomime of scientific inquiry, as if he wished to suggest that there was a logical reason for his act of wanton destruction.

I think he’d suffered a spark of insight that warned him this action might be egregious enough to warrant consequences. He tried to push the hanging flap back into place, but it was worthless. The cut was so deep it couldn’t be hidden.

The next day we climbed onboard to find the cut had been stitched and then covered up with Vinyl tape. Harold said nothing.

The unexpected surprise

On the last day of school, Harold took a detour. The older kids, who paid attention to the route, began making noise. “Hey Harold, what are you doing? This isn’t the way. Have you gone senile?”

They always had to ride him.

But Harold ignored them, and drove the bus downtown. It was a small town. We didn’t even have a traffic light.

Harold parked the bus in front of the Dairy Queen. We all thought, “This is odd. What’s he going to do? Get himself a treat?”

But then Harold surprised us. He left the bus running, but climbed down through the inward-outward doors. A moment later he came back bearing two large white paper bags. Next, he started making his way down the aisle distributing ice cream bars as he went.

At first I was stunned.

Then I was shamed.

He handed me a bar and I offered a whispered, “Thank you.”

I hadn’t earned this

I rather hoped that Harold would get to the back where the big kids were, smile and say, “Oh well, they’re all out. I guess you don’t get any.” But he didn’t. He gave ice cream to everybody.

For the first and maybe only time, the bus was silent. Even after the kids finished their ice cream, they were silent. I’d half expected them to start throwing the wrappers at Harold. I wished they wouldn’t and they didn’t.

I remember finishing my bar and feeling as if it was a treat I hadn’t deserved. The feeling wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t pleasant, and it has lingered.

Mr. Mustache takes over the route

Harold wasn’t our bus driver the next year. We had a younger man who was closer to the world of the older kids. I thought of him as my parent’s age, but he was probably in his 20s.

“This guy’s cool, not like Harold,” the older kids said from the back of the bus.

But things weren’t better with the new bus driver. He was cruel. He’d slam on the brakes just to watch us get slammed into the seat in front. Then he’d laugh in the mirror. We got up more beat up and abused than before.

The empty magnetism of awful people

Oddly, the older kids seemed to take him as a role model. They wanted to be like him. They liked the way he flirted with the girls. They envied his mustache.

The school year went by, and on the last day we climbed on the bus with eagerness. It was ice cream day! The day when we’d get our ice cream bars for the ride home!

The engine roared to life and Mr. Mustache headed out on his route. He came to the intersection that went to Dairy Queen, but made his normal turn just like it was any other day.

“Hey! Wait a minute!” screamed one of the older kids. “You’re going the wrong way!”

Mr. Mustache looked into the mirror with his customary rage face. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s the last day of school, you have to take us to Dairy Queen!”

We learned we were not “entitled” to ice cream

For a moment, Mr. Mustache looked confused. Then he started laughing. “I’m not taking you to Dairy Queen!”

“But Harold took us to Dairy Queen!”

“Harold?” Mr. Mustache said in confusion. Then realization descended. “You mean that old guy who had this route last year? If he took you to Dairy Queen then it was his business. That’s not my job, and I’m not spending my money on a pack of little brats like you!”

Only then, a year later, did we understand what Harold had done for us. Getting ice cream on the last day of school wasn’t a “thing.” It had been a gift from a kindly old man.

Like the year before, the ride on the last day of school fell into silence.

What did it mean?

This isn’t a story of comeuppance. This isn’t a story where the townsfolk recognized their evil ways and changed. In fact, I expect most of the other kids had forgotten all about the incident by the time they were dropped off that afternoon.

They felt they’d been “robbed” of their treat just as they’d had to suffer an infinite number of injustices going back to the beginning of their lives.

But I remember it.

I remember it because I’m ashamed to admit that I tried to fit in with the older kids. I laughed when they insulted Harold. I shouted out abuses of my own. I did these things not because I wanted to, but because I felt an impulse to fit in.

Then Harold handed me an ice cream bar and I realized I’d picked the wrong side.

Planting seeds in the hope of a better future

This is something I think about as I continue through the journey of my life. It’s amazing how small acts of kindness resonate in time.

I don’t remember the faces of the bullies who tormented me. I don’t remember Mr. Mustache’s face. But I remember Harold. I remember him even though we never had a conversation. I remember him even though the gap between us was like the distance between the front and back cover of a book.

Though he didn’t know anything about me, Harold did know something about seeds. He was a farmer before he became a bus driver. When he walked down the aisle of the bus handing out ice cream, it was like pressing seeds into the ground. He’d been so long committe...