He was No. 4 in the FBI. Now he drives a school bus

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It was the early spring of 2021, mid-pandemic by the way we track time now. Michael Mason, recently retired, was at his home outside Richmond, Virginia, on the phone with his cousin, Ralph. The television was on, tuned to the local news and Mason was gazing at while talking to Ralph. A story came about the loss of school bus drivers when local schools in Chesterfield County had been closed the year before. The schools had since reopened, but dozens of drivers had not returned. Now there was a dire need for school bus drivers.

Mason had served as an executive assistant director at the FBI, the No. 4 official in the bureau at the time, one of only four Blacks ever to hold that rank in its history. From there, he had been a senior vice president and chief security officer at Verizon until he retired in late 2020. Now, he watched the story about the school bus driver and told his cousin, "That's what I'm going to do. He (Ralph) said, 'What are you talking about, man?' I said, 'Drive a bus.' He said, 'Man, you aren't going to drive a bus.' I said, 'Yes, I am.'"

To begin to understand Mike Mason, you need to start with what he'll be the first to tell you. That he's been blessed with good fortune in his life.

"I've lived a very lucky life," he told me. He credits his father and a succession of teachers, neighbors, bosses, colleagues, friends who mentored him -- the proverbial village that it takes to raise a child. When he was a sophomore in college, he once decided to write one personal thank you letter a week to each of the many people who had, as he puts it, "touched" him growing up. He ended up penning 62 letters.

Mason's mother died when he was an infant, so he was raised mostly by his father, a truck driver, on the south side of Chicago. The neighborhood was predominantly African-American largely made up of first-time home owners with, he recalled, a very strong work ethic. It was the kind of neighborhood where neighbors looked out for each other and each others' kids.

When he was very young, he said, one of them took him by the arm and told him, "Boy, you're going to be something someday. You're going to be different from a lot of these kids in this neighborhood. I didn't know what made him say that and I didn't really know how to respond to it."

At nine, he started working part-time jobs, One of his first jobs was cleaning the house of a neighbor named Audrey. Sometimes, he would accompany her on her route as she sold World Book Encyclopedias door to door.

"Audrey didn't sell encyclopedias," he said. "She was making an educational transaction. When people would say, 'I just don't think I can afford it,' she would give off this incredulous look like, 'You've got to be kidding me.' She didn't see it as a product. She saw it as an investment."

Later, he stocked shelves at a local grocery. One day, his manager asked to see his report card. He showed it to him. The manager said, "There's more to you than stocking frozen food. If I think this job is a distraction from your studies, then you can't work for me."

When he was a freshman at a local Catholic high school, a teacher called him up to discuss the grade he was giving him in English. He had on his desk three sheets of paper, one with "A" written on it, one with "B," and one with "C."

Mason said, "He said, 'I can give you this and sleep well.' He pointed to the C. Then he pointed to the B and said, 'But you're razor close to this and I'm going to give you this.' Then he pointed to the A and he said, 'But this is what you're capable of earning the next three semesters.' He said, 'Don't be a clown like some of the kids in this class. You are better than that. Now go it down.'"

From then on, he got A's.

As a child, Mason knew what he wanted to be an FBI agent. He became hooked on the idea watching the popular 1970s TV show. When he went to Illinois Wesleyan University, he majored in accounting because he somehow got the idea that you needed an accounting degree to become an FBI agent. He was undeterred by the FBI's reputation as a difficult place for Blacks to get in or fit in.

But when he graduated, he was commissioned as an officer in the Marine Corps. Five years later, he left the Marines and applied for a job with the FBI. He got it.

Over the next 23 years, Mason climbed the ranks of the Bureau until only three officials were higher than him.

"I loved it," he told me. "I had a great career."

When he was 50 years old, with two sons to put through college, he decided it was time to do something else, something more financially rewarding. He went to work for Verizon. He was there 13 years, finally retiring at the age of 63 to try his hand at public speaking and to write a book. He did both. His book, Working in America: Spectator or Gladiator. You Decide was recently published.

At 60, Mason had resolved that he would retire at age 63. He chose to live in the Richmond area because he had family nearby and his ex-wife, who he gets along with, lives in the area.

"I don't know if we connect retirement with our mortality or what, but a lot of people, I've got friends who I think are actually afraid of retiring," he said. "Not me, man, I was ready for the next adventure. I was looking forward to retirement, but being actively engaged in retirement."

An obsessive planner, he even prepared an eight-page powerpoint presentation outlining his retirement.

"I planned for the next step," he said. "My brother teases me. He says, 'You always have to have every i dotted, every t crossed well in advance. Well, I think for retirement, that is important. I've seen too many of my friends retire and they were just aimless in terms of what they were going to do next. They didn't really think about it. A lot of people think about that day (that they retire). But you'd be shocked to find out how (few) think about the day after that day."

Driving a school bus was, of course, unplanned. But he prepared for it with his customary thoroughness, getting a commercial drivers license and applying for the job. When one of the people hiring saw his resume, they were a little incredulous. He got the job. He started driving a school bus, picking up special ed students, in April 2021.

Each weekday morning, he rises around 3:45 a.m., works out for an hour plus, then goes to get his bus around 5:15 a.m. and performs the required daily pre-inspection of the vehicle. He goes to meet the aide who will be on the bus (his students are special ed). He picks up his first student around 6:45 a.m., and then makes his rounds, delivers them to school and is done with the morning, as he put it, "around 9:13." In the afternoon, he does two routes. He's home by 6 p.m.

Early on, the school district asked him to appear in a promotional video to help attract more bus drivers. It somehow ended up on YouTube where it caught the attention of the media. That led to articles about him in newspapers, including the Washington Post, and profiles on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

I caught up with him by phone last week. Here's some of our exchange (edited):

RC: Why would Michael Mason, former high ranking official in the FBI, want to drive a school bus?

MM:I thought, how can I contribute to getting kids back in the classroom becau, especially for folks who look like us,.. I just thought everything I am today I owe to the education system of Chicago, my Catholic high school, my university and I thought: that's the great equalizer. Education is the great equalizer. I don't have a teaching certificate, don't want to teach, so I thought this was what I can do. As soon as I saw it, I was attracted to it instantly. I never looked back. Plus, to be honest with you, I thought it would be fun to drive a bus.

RC: Is it?

MM: I love it. I genuinely enjoy driving the bus, taking care of it, and more than anything I enjoy the children.

RC: What's the kick?

MM: First of all, I think I'm doing something good. I picked up a kid the other say (who) really looks up to me in terms of the things I've done and just helping them. It's payback. It's payback time. I think about all my neighbors and the village that raised me and I think about how many of those people touched me.

He's certainly not in it for the money, which isn't a lot. In any case, he has donated everything he's earned to various charities.

"This is an important job," he said. "I told one reporter, 'After all, I deliver people, not packages.' People give me their most prized asset in the world every morning and expect me to pick them up every afternoon and do that safely. How can that be an unimportant job?"

But his bus driving post-career career is coming to an end soon. He plans to stop at the end of this current school year.

"l have other things to do," he said. "I never planned to have a third career as a bus driver. I really planned to do this to alleviate the shortage and when that abated, it was always part of my plan to move on. And I know where every porta-potty is in Chesterfield County and I'm tired of that too."

What's next? For once, the planner doesn't have a firm plan.

"I don't want to be a tumbleweed," he said. "I never want to be just blown about by the wind. Now my plan is much looser for the remainder of 2022. I want to see how things unfold. I'm happy being in that spot. I don't know what's going to happen in October."

I protested. "But now you're a tumbleweed!"

"Yeah," he said. "But by design."

Whatever it is, I suspect Michael Mason is going to have a terrific third act. And fourth. And maybe more.

"What a biscuit is to that last gravy on a plate, I try to be the biscuit to my own life," he said. "I want to sop up every bit of it that I possibly can."