Two years ago I was catching the bus from Kitchener to Toronto. I gave the driver my ticket at the Charles Street terminal. When I handed him my ticket, I announced my destination. “Toronto,” I said and climbed up the stairs onto the bus and took a seat.

The bus stopped in Guelph and people got off. In fact everyone else got off.

The driver told me to get off the bus. I told him I was going to Toronto. He said the route stopped here. I told him that I had told him I was going to Toronto when I got on. We argued but soon settled down. He was driving the bus to Toronto anyway. He would take me with him.

It was all right. I told him where I was from and he told me about growing up and how he wanted to move out west when he stopped working. His name was Joe.

We stopped along highway 6 before we got on the Mac-Cart freeway and crossed the street to the Tim Hortons. I thought it was funny to see a highway coach bus stopped on the gravel with the two lanes on one side and trees on the other.

He got a coffee and I got a hot chocolate. We continued on to the city. He told me about what it was like to be a bus driver. He told me that given when he started bus driving with his birthday he would be forced to retire a few weeks before he would qualify for a full pension.

Starting tomorrow mandatory retirement at 65 will end in Ontario. Now, Joe is going to get his pension.

• Mandatory retirement disappears tomorrow for Ontario workers The Rec 11 Dec 2006