While boarding the school bus the morning of May 5, a fourth-grade student at Schuylkill Haven Area Elementary School read one of the numerous inspirational quotes taped above the windows.
"Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. And dreams are forever."
"The one I like the best is that one," said the student, Nicholas Straub.
It was penned by Walt Disney, but the bus driver, Lou Anne Eiler, 53, of Schuylkill Haven, learned of it at Dunkin' Donuts, Route 61, Pottsville.
"He was telling me why he liked that one. He was talking about how he has dreams when he reads books or anything like that, and how you can go anywhere if you imagine it," Eiler said of Straub.
In 2009, Jason Bower, co-owner of the Dunkin' Donuts shop, acquired a red and white note clip with a stand. He put notes on index cards in it for the store's staff.
Eventually, he and Dottie Buchanan, Pottsville, the store's hospitality coach, started writing inspirational quotes on it to entertain customers in line at the front counter. It's become a tradition at this Dunkin' Donuts location and they've kept it going with at least one entry a week. "I try to post new ones on Mondays and Thursdays. If it doesn't change every couple of days, customers start asking about it," Buchanan said last week.
For the most part, they're inspirational quotes Buchanan and Bower find on the Internet. "I don't just put anything up. I don't want something that's too political or too religious. It has to be for everyone and something that means something," Buchanan said.
In 2010, Eiler started to take notice.
"I think the first one I saw was 'Temper gets you into trouble. Pride keeps you there,' " she said.
The author of that quote is unknown.
"It struck me. It made me stop and think," she said.
And she wanted to share those doses of wisdom with the children on the bus she drives.
"I thought of the kids on the bus, and how they see so many negative things in the world. So I thought I should repost them, hoping that maybe if one of them is having a bad morning or a bad day, maybe it will stick with them, give them something positive to consider," Eiler said.
"So every time I come into Dunkin' Donuts, I look to see what they put up. I bring note cards from home, copy them and post them in my bus," said Eiler, who drives the Schuylkill Haven No. 3 bus, owned by R&J Transportation, Cressona.
Last week, there were more than 15 quotes taped to the sides of the bus just above the windows.
"When the students get on the bus, they're looking to see what I've got up there. I drive students from kindergarten age through high school. The kindergartners and first graders sit up front. They'll read them out loud to me sometimes. In fact, some will say 'Can I have this one on my side?' They understand what they mean," Eiler said.
Last week's entry at Dunkin' Donuts was: "Men are made stronger on the realization that the helping hand they need is at the end of their own arm."
The author is Sidney J. Phillips, according to quotegarden.com.
"It's interesting," John Sullivan, 66, of Pottsville, said when he saw that quote May 1. He's known to many in the community as entertainer "Splash the Clown."
Sullivan said he enjoys reading the bits of wisdom Bower and his staff serve up. "It gives you food for thought, and that's a good thing. Today we're letting the computers do a lot of the thinking," Sullivan said.
On May 5, Bower posted a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."
"One of my kindergartners said the one he likes best is this one," Eiler said, pointing to a phrase written in green crayon: "To belittle is to be little."