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Moses was called to his greatest service in the last third of his life..

Posts tagged with "bus"

The Impeccable Gentleman

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There is an older man who rides the bus in my neighbourhood. He always rides alone. He looks to be in his early 80’s. He is well dressed every time I see him. He wears a nice suit with a white shirt and tie. He has dress socks with well-kept dress shoes. His hair is well combed and sharply edged at the back and sides by a barber. I’m sure he doesn’t live too far away since the end of the line for the route is only 5 minutes from my apartment.

He doesn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular. He just rides the bus to do simple errands or spend a few hours somewhere. I would suspect he was in sales most of his life—and was probably pretty good at it. He exudes an aura of trust and knowledge. Any time I see him, I just want to walk up and say, “Hello, how are you today?”

One day I will do that, and ask about his life.

Update from August 22: I was riding the bus home today when I saw The Impeccable Gentleman on the bus - with a lady friend beside him who seemed to be about 10 years younger. It all looked sweet and innocent enough until he began French kissing her in front of everyone! :eyes: Eewww...:yuck: His lady friend got off a few stops before me, but I'm sorta rethinking this interview thing...:right:

Thank you God – for Todd

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A few of you out there in Operaland have been praying for me regarding work (to get a “legitimate” job instead of working through a temp agency; that has been an experience in itself, let me tell you).

I came very close to that goal just last month, but then my car died. The out-of-town job had to be dropped (which was a disappointment to the area supervisor of the plant who called the agency back to see if there was any way I could get back there). I had to accept another job on the whole other end of town because it was on a bus route. It takes about 1.5 hours to get there and 1 hour coming home (a kind co-worker drops me off at a major terminal on her way home).

But today’s post is about a regular kind of hero…

In Canada, the first Monday of August is celebrated as a Civic Holiday. Most people don’t work that day, but there was an opportunity to garner some extra money to pay rent. The buses stop running way out where I work around 6pm on holidays. What to do at 11pm when I go home? Calling the city’s transit office revealed that the nearest stop would be a 5.5km walk (no one from work was going that way and my regular ride wasn’t working the holiday). So after 8 hours of being on my feet, it was another 45 minutes of fast paced walking to make the last bus at 12:08am.

I thought there was a final connection to get to my end of Hamilton. The bus driver informed me I was mistaken, and upon rechecking my schedule, he was correct.

Sigh…

The bus driver asked me where I lived and it seems he lives right in the same neighbourhood!

“Tell you what,” he says, “just stay on the bus. We will head downtown; then I go back to the yard and I’ll take you home in my car.”

“Really? You would do that?” I asked incredulously. :eyes:

“Sure; I do it a lot. The transit service really sucks because a lot of the last buses have no connections. I see people like you getting left in the lurch all the time.”

He was true to his word and I finally got home around 1:15am – without having to walk any additional kilometres. We exchanged names as he dropped me off and I told him (again) how grateful I was for his generosity.

Thank you God – for Todd. A top-drawer bus driver who excels at customer service. :yes:
December 2009
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