I used to think that bus drivers were the grumpiest people in the world. Every morning at 7:15, I took the number 26 bus to school, and every morning the driver, a large man with a gray beard, looked at me as if I had done something wrong. He never said good morning. He never smiled. My friends called him "The Bear."
One rainy morning in January, I got on the bus, touched my card on the machine and heard an ugly beep. My card was empty. I had forgotten to load it. I searched my bag for money, but I knew it was useless, because the buses no longer take cash. I stood there, wet and embarrassed, while a line of people waited behind me.
The Bear looked at me for a long moment. Then he waved his hand toward the seats. "Sit," he said. "Load it today." That was all.
That afternoon I loaded my card, and the next morning I did something I had never done before. I said, "Good morning, and thank you for yesterday." He nodded, and for the first time I saw something like a smile under the beard.
After that, we said good morning every day. Sometimes he told me about the weather, or about his granddaughter, who was learning to play the violin. In June, on my last day of ninth grade, I gave him a card that my whole class had signed. He read it slowly, put it in his shirt pocket and said, "Good luck in high school."
I learned something that year. People are often not what they seem. Sometimes a person who looks cold is simply tired, or shy, or waiting for someone else to say hello first.