The “Campus Circulation” bus parks in front of the Student Recreational Center a little before 7 p.m. A girl who has been waiting for longer than 10 minutes for a bus, shyly approaches the front door as it opens.

“Do you go to the dorms?”

“No, I go up on campus and then Spencer.” Keith McDougale, a bus driver from Oakland, Calif., pauses for a second as he moves his hand away from the steering wheel and reaches for a “KU on Wheels” bus schedule.

“Do you have one of these?”

The girl doesn’t. McDougale hands her a schedule as he tells her to wait for the night bus that should be there in a few minutes.

McDougale closes the door and waits for a few minutes eating a peach he takes from his red lunch box.

“I love being a bus driver because I’m a people person. I just have the gift of gab.”

It is true. McDougale talks to me for about 10 minutes without me having to say a word.

The new bus driving company, MV, brought him to Kansas from Oakland, for two weeks while they hire drivers from Kansas.

His three grandkids, wife and daughters live in Oakland. McDougale talks to his wife twice a day, never saying “goodbye” when the call ends, he doesn’t like goodbyes. Instead they say “see you later.”

The bus goes down Sunnyside Avenue, taking a right on Illinois Street, down 18th Street, taking a right on Indiana to go up to campus.

The sun is setting and the bus looks dark and lonely with me as the only passenger.

McDougale doesn’t like it when there are no passengers on the bus. He says that the only time he gets bored doing his job is when he doesn’t have anybody to talk to.

Those times he wishes he could park and watch TV. But he can’t. In stead he remembers stories that riders have told him in the past.

Today, for example, a guy told him the problems that he had last year as a University student.

“Just to see the smile he had on his face when he was telling me that made me feel good.” McDougale says, smiling and turning toward me. “It’s the good stories that you hear that could get you through a boring day.”

He has the philosophy that “the greatest book is another human being.” So he talks to anyone who will listen until their stop comes.

Back at the recreation center bus stop, two guys get on the bus and complain about the new bus routes that they have not learned yet.

McDougale explains win great detail that KU has hired a new company to run the buses, tells his passengers where he is going, some information about the night bus, and hands them bus schedules.

He says he talks so much because in his 52 years he has learned that “just because somebody is not a professor, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from them.”

McDougale says that a lot of students see him as inferior because he is a bus driver and not somebody getting a degree.

He says most students who ride the bus rarely acknowledge the driver. People come in, sit and listening to their Ipods without once making any kind of contact with the driver.

Three times in his two weeks in Lawrence, students have treated him with what he describes as “arrogance.”

Joshua Edwards, Lawrence sophomore, says he has seen students yell at bus drivers because they are late.

“The conflict is not initiated by the bus driver,” Edwards says “They are just providing a service.”

Keith says he understands because he used to do immature things when he was young.

He went to Delaware State from 1974 to 1975, attempting to get his degree in business, but quit college to start a business on his own as the owner of his numerous hot dog stands in California.

After that, he worked for the railroad for some years until his wife suggested he worked as a bus driver.

“After all these years doing different things, I finally found what I love to do; drive a bus.”

He stops himself and tells me that he realizes that sounds weird to some people but that is what makes him happy.

His favorite part about the job is not having anyone constantly supervising him and still getting paid the same regardless of the number of passengers.

“I’m the captain of this ship.”

It is close to 9 p.m. and there is little light coming into the bus, because the lights on the bus are broken.

I have heard nine people ask the is-this-bus-going-to- question without once hearing a yes, I have seen the same buildings over and over and campus with fewer and fewer people.

I get off the bus in front of Bailey Hall and the bus is empty. I wonder if Keith will be bored.