The School Bus Driver

My Most Poignant Lesson of Kindness

Dear Substack Readers,

Let's journey back to 1963 in Bellwood, a suburb of Chicago where my family lived for several years, where the actions of a school bus driver have stuck with me for decades.

As a second-grader at St. Simeon's Elementary School, I’d head to the bus stop at the end of the block carrying my mom's carefully packed lunch – usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with an apple.

One day, I left my lunch at the bus stop, realizing it only when we reached school. I began to cry, and the bus driver noticed. He comforted me and promised a solution.

[Note: “The School Bus Driver” was originally published in Heroic Stories in 2002. In 2016, HS created a podcast of the story.]