Mongolian George

Linda apparently rode the bus out Monroe Avenue from Rochester with Mongolian George.
Mongolian George — AKA Attila the Hun, The Mongol Warrior, Genghis Khan — actual name “George Weber,” is probably the most famous bus-driver in RTS history.
Years ago, when I was an outpatient at Rochester Rehab, a lowly assistant, the girl who probably did more for my recovery than anyone, mainly because she could parry a smarty-pants, knew Mongolian George.
It’s amazing to think 13+ years after I left Mongolian George is still driving bus.
I always thought Mongolian George was older than me.
Mongolian George was an ex-boxer, heavily into the macho gig.
He was a friend of Ronnie Culp, also an RTS-employee, and also heavily into the macho gig.
I met Ronnie Culp awaiting a Porta-John at last March’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in Rochester. He was swilling a giant tankard of ale, foaming loudly at all-and-sundry, threatening to unload right there in the street.
Culp is retired, but I guess Mongolian George isn’t.
Culp and Mongolian George worked as bar-bouncers. They loved it. They could beat people to a pulp and get away with it.
As such, Mongolian George is somewhat of a thug.
Unlike “Big Dude” at the mighty Mezz, who despite his intimidating presence is the nicest guy in the world, Mongolian George was into mayhem and violence.
He also thought of himself as a ladies’ man, although he never married. (Culp was divorced.)
I suppose the challenge to ladies was to think they could control him.
I don’t know. All his girlfriends seemed to be beer-sodden floozies.
It’s not surprising to see Mongolian George driving the 700-line.
By now he should be at the top of the seniority-list; maybe even #1.
He had a three-number badge; e.g. 432. All those that started long before me had three-number badges.
Mine, 1763, was four-number; the four-numbers started about 2-3 years before me.
Even 1763 was pretty high on the seniority-list. Within a few years they were into the 2000s and 2100s.
By now they’re probably over 3000.
Old heads like George (and me) liked the 700 because it had a lot of slop in it.
The headways were about 40 minutes, but that wasn’t enough time to get to the end-of-the-line and back.
As such, two buses were required on the south end, and you might sit 15-25 minutes at the layover (end-of-line).
Other lines were like that, but most weren’t. Blast through the layover and change the sign on-the-fly.
Preferred were the Park-and-Ride layovers out in the sticks where you could take a nap because no one was on the bus.
But Park-and-Rides usually got hooked up with spread-runs; where, for example, you might do a short trip to a technical high-school in the early morning, and your long Park-and-Ride in the late afternoon. (You were off-duty five hours.)
George is doing city-work: a regularly-scheduled city-bus in the early morning, and then another regularly-scheduled city-bus until about 2:30 (maybe a straight-eight on the 700).
That was the kind of work I started doing after we moved out to West Bloomfield; 35+ minutes from the barns instead of five.
I drove the 700 one summer, and got a lot of reading (and writing for the dreaded 282-News) done.