Kickin' The Tires

In 1956, I was 12, and enjoyed working in downtown Dallas with my Dad, who, at that time was a professional photographer. His office was on the 2nd floor of a building that housed the Melba Theater. It was located near Titche's Department Store. We could look out the windows and see all the traffic and people right out our window. I loved being near so much commotion. I also loved helping with the photographic process, helping Dad with his large porcelain pans of developer and fixative. I enjoyed working in the darkroom, and seeing images come to life in the red-light of the darkroom. I enjoyed making copies on dad's machine that was one of the forerunners of copy machines. I was just a kid, and of limited usefulness to Dad, but there were things that I could do to make his life a little easier. I often rode home from work in the evening on a city bus, and enjoyed all the sights and smells and all the people who rode the bus daily from downtown Dallas to Oak Cliff where we lived.

One day, I saw a huge black woman board the bus and, after dropping her change into the box by the bus driver, I saw her painfully make her way to the back of the bus, where black people were required to sit (or stand, if no seats were available at the back of the bus). I was sitting near the back of the bus, at the rear of the seating area where non-blacks were allowed to sit. The bus was full, and there were no available seats for this woman. I was only 12 years old, but I knew enough to know that blacks were treated differently than were whites...they could only drink from 'colored' drinking fountains in the department stores and other public buildings. They had to use restrooms that were for blacks only. They could not eat in restaurants frequented by whites. They had to go around to the back of restaurants and pay for and receive food via the back door, where all the trash cans and restaurant filth were to be found. I knew they were treated differently, and I had never known a black person in school or the neighborhoods where we lived. Yet, they seemed like anybody else to me.

I saw the woman, standing there, hanging on to the 'grab bars' overhead, and saw how miserable she was from pain. I then did what I had been taught all my life to do...I stood up and offered her my seat. She gratefully took my seat and I stood there in the aisle, holding on to the grab bar as the bus continued on toward Oak Cliff. A couple of white men cursed me for giving her my seat, and called me names that I won't repeat here. I would have been afraid, had I not been on a city bus.

The white bus driver noticed that I had given my seat to the black woman. He didn't say anything while he continued driving, but when I got near my destination, and walked to the front of the bus to exit at my bus stop, he quietly thanked me for my kindness. That made me feel good inside. I knew I had done the right thing, and now an older adult told me so.

Not long after this incident, while riding home on the bus another day, with the same bus driver driving us all home, I noticed another large black woman, at a bus stop in downtown Dallas, having trouble boarding, due to some physical problem. I was a little surprised, but happy, to see the bus driver put the bus in park, open the door and then leave the bus to help the old black woman board the bus.

The next day, I wrote a letter to the Dallas Transportation Authority, praising the kind bus driver. I knew his name, and I told them the route that he drove and described what he had done.

I received a response from his supervisor, who told me that this bus driver had been given a commendation and a raise, for what he had done.

I felt good about that, and realized that there are a lot of nice people in the world, who do the right thing when they have the opportunity. That made my heart sing! My heart still sings when I do something that I know is the right thing...even when it is often inconvenient or costly in some way. It delights me when I catch others doing 'the right thing'.

I've told stories before about my Mom, or my wife, or my kids ---doing the right thing. I'm grateful to Jesus, for His influence in our lives....for making us want to 'get out of ourselves' and do things for others. I believe that it's not so much our sitting in a pew at church that honors God, but rather, living for Him by doing for others....what we do, not just at a building on Sunday, but what we do and who we are 24/7/365. How about you?...what makes your heart sing?