Ted

Today (Friday, 4/7), while running errands, I’m pretty sure I saw Ted.
Years ago, like back in the middle-to-late ‘80s, when I drove 1703, Ted was a regular passenger.
1703 was kind of a monster, but a nice ride. It made three long trips to Pittsford, a very old and classy suburb southeast of Rochester. (Three trips is one too many.) It was also hooked up with a trip downtown from a middle-school.
It pulled out about 1:50, and I think the first Pittsford-trip (from downtown) was at 3:25. I did the middle-school trip first, but it only took 15-20 minutes. Then I could kill time until that 3:25 trip.
What I’d do is park in a safe spot, and then nap over the idling motor. (Paid to nap.) I’d set my alarm-watch.
Ted rode my second trip, about 4:30, also my busiest. That trip I took home all the stolid honkies that worked downtown and lived in Pittsford. Ted was one of my many regulars who would hold court in the back (noisy, animated discussion of politics and religion).
Ted was a big man; over six feet. He had worked at Lincoln-bank all his life; first Lincoln-Alliance, then Lincoln-Rochester (where I once worked), then Lincoln-First.
I think he retired about the time Chase bought Lincoln-First. (Lincoln-First was a statewide bank holding company.) But they hired him back as a consultant.
So even though he was retired, he continued riding my bus. The only time he didn’t was when Transit had a free-fare promotion for a Pittsford Park-and-Ride.
Ted was along when I totaled the Citation. He was worried I might get fired — he was aware of Transit’s penchant for firing anyone involved in an accident, their fault or not. (A cinder-block delivery driver saved my job.)
Ted was a railroad buff of sorts; but mainly a history buff. He lived outside Pittsford on a single-lane paved road that had once been the roadbed of a long-abandoned trolley-line (actually interurban).
Two railroads and one-or-two trolley-lines traversed Pittsford, as did the Erie Canal. One railroad was New York Central’s “Auburn Road,” the first railroad across the state to Rochester. It had a station; since converted to the “Depot Motel” and restaurant.
The second railroad was the old West Shore, now used by CSX as its Rochester Bypass. That bypass is about the only segment of the West Shore in western New York that wasn’t abandoned.
Since it bypassed downtown Rochester, NYC kept it active, as did Penn-Central and Conrail.
(The bypass leapt over everything in Pittsford on bridges; it didn’t connect.)
One time as Ted was about to get off, I asked him if he knew where the trolley crossed the street I was on: East Ave.
It crossed in about the same place as the Auburn. The Auburn is long-abandoned. Finger Lakes Railway, a shortline, operates a segment east of Canandaigua, but the line to Rochester is gone.
Ted was totally turned on by my interest. He thereafter tried mightily to get me to be a volunteer firefighter, probably because he was one out of Pittsford, and therefore familiar with how hard it is to get firefighter volunteers. (At that time, we were living in Rochester — which had full-time paid firefighters.)
Ted became my friend. He told me everything — like that his son was attending Purdue. He also told me about the surgical-strike he made for the bank one day to New York city and back in five hours. —As a courier; I guess he rode to work on the bus that morning and then home on my bus, like nothing had happened. “Drop everything!”
Ted looked haggard and down-in-the-dumps. He’s still a big man, but probably in his early 80s. Ted was in poor shape when he rode my bus — he’s in worse shape now: stooped at the neck.
He was walking to the glitzy new Pittsford library. His car, a dark-green Camry, was parked in a handicap spot. It had a volunteer firefighter tag.