zealots
During my long 16&1/2-year tenure driving buses for Regional Transit Service, I developed quite a few friendships, three of whom were zealots.
One was Chip Walker (Charles), a born-again Christian.
Another was Dominic Zarcone (“Zarr-CONE”) a charismatic Catholic.
The third was Gary Harriman, a Mormon.
-Chip was also a railfan. He’d take lunch from Transit and watch my train-tapes at our house.
Chip worked in management, starting shortly before me as a lowly transfer-clerk at the drivers’ window.
But he soon transferred to Scheduling in the White Tower, because the head of Scheduling was also a railfan — head of the Nickel Plate Historical Society.
Schedule-head had photos of smoky Nickel Plate Berks all over his office. He also had a “NYCSTL” license-plate on his red classic ‘61 Ford convertible, and was amazed I knew what it stood for (long before Google).
I’d run into Chip chasing 611, and we went to a Genesee & Wyoming railfan day.
When Chip found out I had graduated Houghton, the frenzied fishing began. Befuddled by my lack of zealotry, he started preaching at me.
Chip came to visit after my stroke; and Linda says it was one of the few times I talked like the person I was before. —We were jawing about 765 in New River Gorge.
I also visited Chip at Transit after I was discharged, but it was crazy.
Chip had no idea how to deal with a stroke-victim, so acted like I was normal despite my crying.
We used to exchange Christmas-cards, and Chip’s always had the self-congratulatory Christmas Annual so characteristic of tub-thumpers.
I sent him train-cards up until last year. Recently, no response — I think I’ll pass this year.
By now he’s probably retired — he also moved out of the city. One of his annuals mentioned his father losing both legs to diabetes. His father also had Parkinson’s.
-Zarcone, like me, was a bus-driver, and lived in the urban house he grew up in in Rochester with his mother.
I visited once, and it was all agitated yelling and screaming in Italian.
Despite his college-education (Notre Dame), I guess that was what he was used to and preferred.
Our friendship started when he loudly declared his first marriage wasn’t a real marriage.
“What?” I said. “That’s balderdash! You can’t say marriage #1 wasn’t a marriage.”
Thus began a frenzied argument about Godliness; how he felt he had been “saved” from his first marriage.
At first he was a Bible-thumping Christian, but he came from a Catholic background; so eventually “came home.”
But his stridency continued with his return to Catholicism.
Zarcone also visited after my stroke; and left me with an inspirational tape by infamous Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz.
He got it from the Library, along with the machine that played it. Unbeknownst to him, the challenge for a stroke-victim was to be able to play it at all. I played it a few times, but was bored by it.
Zarcone took me to a union-meeting soon after my discharge. My being there was more a statement than attending a union-meeting.
I attended union-meetings faithfully after that, and once in a while Zarcone would show up.
Members were discussing whether to arbitrate over the Company not following its drug-policy.
Zarcone was there, and ardently weighed in. The accused needed to repent — Zarcone knew all about repentance.
The Union-honchos had to shut him down. We weren’t discussing the guilt of the person charged, but whether the Company had followed its drug-policy.
I gave up sending Christmas-cards to Zarcone too. What I’d get in return was a spastic hand-scrawl about prayer that looked like it had been done by Hunter Thompson’s cartoonist.
Zarcone moved to the suburbs too; but I think he took his mother along.
-Gary Harriman wasn’t as strident as Chip or Zarcone. But he was always trying to convert me.
Finally one afternoon, while he was trying to get me to attend the Morman Pageant, a giant annual shindig where the Angel Maroni gets hoisted above the stage with a cable (“ascending into Heaven”), I asked why he was trying to convert me.
“Why not Ronnie Culp or Attila the Hun” (two thugs that worked at Transit)?
“Because it’s you I care about,” he answered.
“Why not them?” I asked. “They’re gonna roast in flames too — for which you would be held to account.”
My point was he was trying to convert me because A) I would give him an argument; and B) I wasn’t a macho threat like the thugs.
Thugs wouldn’t give him the time of day.
-Chip was also a railfan. He’d take lunch from Transit and watch my train-tapes at our house.
Chip worked in management, starting shortly before me as a lowly transfer-clerk at the drivers’ window.
But he soon transferred to Scheduling in the White Tower, because the head of Scheduling was also a railfan — head of the Nickel Plate Historical Society.
Schedule-head had photos of smoky Nickel Plate Berks all over his office. He also had a “NYCSTL” license-plate on his red classic ‘61 Ford convertible, and was amazed I knew what it stood for (long before Google).
I’d run into Chip chasing 611, and we went to a Genesee & Wyoming railfan day.
When Chip found out I had graduated Houghton, the frenzied fishing began. Befuddled by my lack of zealotry, he started preaching at me.
Chip came to visit after my stroke; and Linda says it was one of the few times I talked like the person I was before. —We were jawing about 765 in New River Gorge.
I also visited Chip at Transit after I was discharged, but it was crazy.
Chip had no idea how to deal with a stroke-victim, so acted like I was normal despite my crying.
We used to exchange Christmas-cards, and Chip’s always had the self-congratulatory Christmas Annual so characteristic of tub-thumpers.
I sent him train-cards up until last year. Recently, no response — I think I’ll pass this year.
By now he’s probably retired — he also moved out of the city. One of his annuals mentioned his father losing both legs to diabetes. His father also had Parkinson’s.
-Zarcone, like me, was a bus-driver, and lived in the urban house he grew up in in Rochester with his mother.
I visited once, and it was all agitated yelling and screaming in Italian.
Despite his college-education (Notre Dame), I guess that was what he was used to and preferred.
Our friendship started when he loudly declared his first marriage wasn’t a real marriage.
“What?” I said. “That’s balderdash! You can’t say marriage #1 wasn’t a marriage.”
Thus began a frenzied argument about Godliness; how he felt he had been “saved” from his first marriage.
At first he was a Bible-thumping Christian, but he came from a Catholic background; so eventually “came home.”
But his stridency continued with his return to Catholicism.
Zarcone also visited after my stroke; and left me with an inspirational tape by infamous Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz.
He got it from the Library, along with the machine that played it. Unbeknownst to him, the challenge for a stroke-victim was to be able to play it at all. I played it a few times, but was bored by it.
Zarcone took me to a union-meeting soon after my discharge. My being there was more a statement than attending a union-meeting.
I attended union-meetings faithfully after that, and once in a while Zarcone would show up.
Members were discussing whether to arbitrate over the Company not following its drug-policy.
Zarcone was there, and ardently weighed in. The accused needed to repent — Zarcone knew all about repentance.
The Union-honchos had to shut him down. We weren’t discussing the guilt of the person charged, but whether the Company had followed its drug-policy.
I gave up sending Christmas-cards to Zarcone too. What I’d get in return was a spastic hand-scrawl about prayer that looked like it had been done by Hunter Thompson’s cartoonist.
Zarcone moved to the suburbs too; but I think he took his mother along.
-Gary Harriman wasn’t as strident as Chip or Zarcone. But he was always trying to convert me.
Finally one afternoon, while he was trying to get me to attend the Morman Pageant, a giant annual shindig where the Angel Maroni gets hoisted above the stage with a cable (“ascending into Heaven”), I asked why he was trying to convert me.
“Why not Ronnie Culp or Attila the Hun” (two thugs that worked at Transit)?
“Because it’s you I care about,” he answered.
“Why not them?” I asked. “They’re gonna roast in flames too — for which you would be held to account.”
My point was he was trying to convert me because A) I would give him an argument; and B) I wasn’t a macho threat like the thugs.
Thugs wouldn’t give him the time of day.
posted by BobbaLew at 6:34 PM
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