Bus Driver Brings Cheer to Passengers and Lemonade Kids

A little bit of unexpected kindness can be quite refreshing, as the passengers of this bus found out one hot summer afternoon.

John Lohan is an MBTA bus driver, and has been at his job for almost 19 years. One day, he looked back at a handful of his passengers and chirped an unexpected question: Who wants to stop at the child-run lemonade stand on the side of the street? His treat.

“I said to them, ‘If any of you are in a hurry or need to make a connection, I’ll keep going,’” he shares with Boston.Com.

None of his passengers raised any objections, and true enough, he stopped right in front of a kid-run lemonade stand, bringing a host of happy customers to the surprise of the young entrepreneurs.

“I thought it would take 90 seconds, tops,” he said. “Which is about what it was. … I wait at red lights longer than that.”

This happy little circumstance was actually more than just a spur-of-the-moment decision. Lohan’s daily route takes him from the Forest Hills Orange Line station to Dedham. He’d spotted the lemonade stand a few hours during his shift, and thought, if the everything fell into place, why not make that stop?

And fall into place things did. the passengers, just a handful or so, all consented. It was around 2:30pm, which was just right for not being a rush-hour peak of his trip. Lastly, the lemonade stand was situated towards the end of his route, and it was easier to pull over since it was just a stones-throw away from a bus stop.

“All the stars were aligned,” he said. “The conditions were just right. … Ninety percent of the time, you can’t do that on the job.”

The kids sold each cup at 50 cents. Lohan was quite pleased, noting that at least lemonade was still protected from inflation. “I was surprised by that,” he said. “Decades ago, it was 50 cents. I thought it was a good deal.”