Yesterday marked the first day of classes at the UW School of Dentistry, and with it, this man’s return to the bus:

My youngest brother Joel, a brilliant, handsome, six-foot-four inch, iron-pumping, soccer-playing, second-year dental student, is also a bus rider. (Yes, I do know all the good-looking dentists–and dentists to be–in Seattle.) Joel’s not a full-time bus nerd or (necessarily) a transit advocate, but he is smart enough to know a good deal when he sees one. Instead of fighting traffic from West Seattle to the U District and paying for gas and parking, he pays a small fee ($44 per semester) for a U-PASS and leaves the driving to Metro. On his rides, he studies, naps, or catches up with people he doesn’t have time to talk to in the course of his busy-dental-student days.

The future Dr. Saulter, with denture-shaped salt and pepper shakers

Fellow bus chicks: If you want to catch a glimpse of this handsome rider, hop on the eastbound 55, or any of the northbound 70-somethings (he takes whichever one comes first) at the crack of dawn or the same routes (going south and west) late in the evening. You might even see him sporting one of those sexy bus rider t-shirts we talked about in the spring. When I finally get them printed, he’s agreed to be one of my models.