From Metro with love: A bus driver’s graffiti messages

As bus driver Kathy Maddux was rolling along her route in Seattle, a man ran to her from the back of the bus in a rush of excitement over graffiti written on a window.

“A little old man came running from the back of the bus and he was all excited, saying ‘I know what that means, I know what that means!’” Maddux said.

The graffiti was in another language.

“I said, ‘How do you know what that means?’” she said. “He said, ‘That’s my native tongue … that’s Swahili!’” He knew exactly what it was.”

Related: Don faces Seattle permitting challenge

It was just one interaction prompted by Maddux’s recent habit of writing messages on the bus she drives. She handles route 372 in North Seattle and has driven for King County Metro for 17 years. In late 2016, she started doing something different along her route. She started using washable markers to write messages on the windows of her buses — some for passengers, and others for those on the outside of the bus. Before every shift, she writes a message. When her day is done, she washes it off. The messages are all positive, aimed at brightening someone’s day.

“I kind of graffiti up my own windows,” Maddux told KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don. “I write goofy little messages to people. I started out writing things in different languages. I did a different language every day for the month of January.”

The languages range from Arabic to Japanese.

“I have a lot of students on the bus that come from other countries,” she said. “I try to give them a lot of little things, like the way I raised my kids – laugh at least 10 times everyday, even if it’s at yourself and by yourself.”

“One of the things I taught my kids is that you try to do a good deed for someone else, every day,” Maddux said. “And the best thing is when they don’t know you are doing a good deed for them.”

The messages are an extension of that. And often, riders don’t know she’s the author. Other messages include: You are warm-hearted; You will always be enough; Your smile warms the hearts of others; Take a few minutes to pamper yourself every day, you deserve it.

Other messages are more goofy, such as, “Freckles are outstanding,” or “Giraffes need love, too.”

But aside from a little positive nudge on a ride to school or work, Maddux has noticed an unexpected side effect — people are talking to each other. Instead of the usual get-on, get-off routine, people have started chatting about the graffiti, and getting to know one another.

“It gives people something to look at; it gives people something to talk about,” Maddux said. “People put their cell phones down, they laugh, they smile, they feel good about it.”

“It’s building a little community out there,” she said. “It’s really kind of cool.”

Follow @https://twitter.com/DyerOxley