Gathering of Transit retirees

Oh, the humanity! (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100 with flash.)

The other day (Wednesday, March 18, 2009) another gathering of Transit retirees at the storied “Cartwright’s Maple Tree Inn” occurred.
All are like me ex bus-drivers from Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY; all a bunch of no-good, ne’er-do-well do-nothing lazy layabouts who managed to make retirement without getting shot or fired.
Maple Tree Inn is only open 10 weeks a year, when the maple-sap runs. It’s all-you-can-eat buckwheat pancakes with homemade maple syrup — and way out in the middle of nowhere.
It’s not far from Short Tract; which isn’t far from Houghton. But up on the eastern hillside of the vast Genesee valley.
Apparently it has a world-wide reputation.
The Cartwright family opened Maple Tree Inn in 1963; an alternative to selling maple syrup in bulk.
The syrup operation goes clear back to about 1850; when sugar was not that available locally.
The farm, and sugar-bush, was producing sugar it sold in nearby towns.
The Cartwrights bought the farm from the heirs of the original sugar-bush, and continued the syrup operation.
I was picked up by Michael Herne, an ex bus-driver that started a few months after me (I’m May 20, 1977). I am 1763 badge, and he is 1842 badge.
Michael didn’t look bad, just vastly overweight, and outta shape.
He’s 67; two years older than me.
Michael has diabetes, like most Transit retirees, but not me.
His teeth are also rotting out. (Mine aren’t.)
He’s about the same height as me, but about 250 pounds. I weigh 194 — which to me is 50 pounds overweight. Years ago, when I was running, I weighed 130+; ideal weight is 140. —Try as I might, it never seems to go below 193 or so.
Michael apparently calls square-dancing, a gig he used to do on-the-side while driving bus, and still does, although even more. “Usually seven gigs per week,” he said.
We had directions and Google-maps, and could have found it on our own; but were stopping at the Mt. Morris Mickey D’s, to convoy from there.
“Twang-BOOM-chicka; twang-BOOM-chicka; twang-BOOM-chicka.” Michael’s cellphone. (“My ringtone is George Strait.”)
It was Ron Palermo (“puh-LAIR-mo”), in his minivan behind us.
“No Ron, YOU have the red van; look for the silver Explorer,” Michael said.
Within minutes Palermo and another were pulling into Mickey-D’s.
Wise-cracks and snide remarks were loudly exchanged, and off we went into the deepest boondocks.
“I think this is it,” I said.
“Must be,” Michael said. 250 cars parked out in the middle of nowhere.
Palermo, etc. pulled into the Handicap zone of the parking-lot up ahead, although Palermo had yet to pull into a slot.
“Not us,” I said to Michael. “We can walk across the lot.”
“Who are we extricating from Ron’s minivan?” someone asked as we approached the restaurant.
Gwindell (“GWIN-dull;” as in “get”) Bradley was trying to get out of Palermo’s minivan.
He was stuck at the exit.
He’s probably in his 70s, and almost crippled.
“The walking wounded,” Michael observed.
“It gets worse inside,” I said. “89 bazilyun walkers and wheelchairs and oxygen rigs.”
We walked inside and were led to a big table — it seated 14.
“Dora and I will be your servers; first we’ll take your orders for drinks.” (We had two waitresses — I was tempted to make my remark about ‘pyooter-servers, but didn’t.)
The great glomming wars began; last year Gary Colvin (“COAL-vin”) ate 14 pancakes, but this year also ate eggs, so couldn’t whomp Tony Coia (“COY-yuh”).

Collection buckets in the sugar-bush. (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

I made it a point to not eat breakfast, so I could eat pancakes and sausage. Last year I ate breakfast, and could only do about two pancakes. —This year was six.
After awhile, Mongolian-George and Ronnie Culp strode in. Both six-foot 250-pound macho brawlers — they’d sideline as barroom bouncers; great fun. Get paid to beat up people.
“Mongolian-George” (George Weber) drove bus almost 40 years. I called him “Mongolian-George” because he always tried to affect a Mongol warrior look, Atilla the Hun. Shaved head, macho goatee, an ex boxer. Always: “He-yah; he-yah; he-yah.”
Coulda played Wide-Wide-Wide-Wide-Wide-Wide-Wide-World-of-Wrestling.
“First ya gotta catch me,” I’d tell him.
Culp was another 250-pound bruiser, but mostly did management at Transit, although he had also driven bus. It was he that loudly claimed he could drive a bus 50 mph over the pits.
The pits were about four feet deep, and were for servicing the underneath of the buses without jacking.
Every time Ronnie was over the pits, the mechanics ran for cover.
The only other guy there who had been management was Gary Coleman (“COAL-min”), another stroke-survivor.
He had started out driving bus, but ended up being a road-supervisor, and maybe even a radio-dispatcher.
But then he had multiple strokes, that I guess like me ended his Transit career.
Sadly, he seemed a little worse than last year, although maybe not. I noticed his left side didn’t work too well — in fact, not much at all.
But he does fairly well; he’s not a vegetable.
His talking is a little stunted like me, enough for me to recognize; but he seems normal to other persons.
His speech is recognizable as stroke-effected because it’s stunted like me.
Like me he can get by — but it’s obvious to me he’s had a stroke.
Of all those there I probably had the least service-years; only 16&1/2. The average was 27 years.
But by 16 years I’d grown tired of the job, so that my stroke was an escape of sorts.
It led to my employ at the mighty Mezz, the best job I ever had.
The pay there was peanuts, I told Michael, but it sure beat working for jerks, and our clientele at Transit.
At first I enjoyed maneuvering large equipment (buses), and doing it correctly required consummate skill.
Lose your concentration and you could clip a lightpole, or sideswipe a car. You also were covering for the mistakes of other drivers.
But after 16 years I had driven all the alternatives, and living out here in West Bloomfield 45 minutes from the barns, negated driving school-work, which was off when school was off.
In West Bloomfield I had to switch to regular city runs; eight hours a day, with no school-off breaks.
I also found much more fun doing my union newsletter; a word-function, much like the mighty Mezz.
Right before my stroke, I had a straight-eight on the 800 line, a killer. That’s eight straight hours (paid eight guaranteed), from 5:05 a.m. until 1 p.m., get relieved in front of the bus-barns, which meant I could walk direckly to my car in the parking-lot — which was why I picked it.
Straight-eights were not the norm. The Union had negotiated a break of at least 40 minutes between halves, but allowed three straight-eights (out of hundreds of runs) because there were a couple drivers that preferred them.
Two were on the killer 800 line, which was the main drag through the city; but relieved right in front of the barns.
My straight-eight was 12 hours portal-to-portal — a run with two halves on two different lines with a 40-minute break was almost 13 hours portal-to-portal.
And I’d still get paid the guaranteed eight; which was a cut in pay from when I did school work.
In them, the two halves might have a five-hour break between halves, when I’d run; and the last half paid the overtime rate if ya were working eight hours past when ya pulled out. (E.g. start at 6:15 a.m. or so; pull in at 7:30 p.m. or so. —Anything after 4:15 p.m. was time-and-half.) —That was usually an hour-and-a-half or more: maximum pay for eight hours of actual driving.
But that was only possible when we lived on Winton Road; five minutes from the barns. 45 minutes from the barns in West Bloomfield was no longer possible.
I’m always kind of a misfit at these shindigs; the college graduate among many who never finished school.
There was one other guy there who like me is a misfit with little to say.
His name is Mark Sciera (“see-AIR-uh”), who ended up driving bus all his life like his father.
Michael is another who didn’t plan to be a bus-driver, and like me was only going to do it a couple years.
But the pay was pretty good (Thank ya, 282), so he ended up doing it all his life.
Our only connection to these noisy shindigs is that we all drove bus, which means we shared the same irksome clientele, and the jerks in management.
The offset was that as drivers, we were pretty much on-our-own. —As opposed to being constantly “on-the-property” like the poor harried mechanics.
The only time we ever encountered the jerks in management were -a) when we were assigned a bus to pull out; and/or -b) when we were called on-the-carpet, which was fairly often, although we could have union-representation.
Two examples of the madness we were dealing with:
—1) Michael told me about the time he was called at home on vacation, and was pulled-outta-service (no work = no pay).
“I want you in my office tomorrow morning, and you better have union representation,” the boss ordered.
Michael showed up the next morning, and let the boss detail the charge, something about a racial slur.
“Are you prepared to pay him for showing up?” the Union-rep asked.
So signed.
Finally after an hour of noisy bellowing by the boss, Michael allowed he had been on vacation at the time of the incident.
“I suggest you find the correct person to charge,” the union-rep said.
—2) One time I was called on-the-carpet for flicking a spent cigarette butt on a freshly mowed lawn.
“Steve, I don’t even smoke!” I said.
“Well, if you say so — we’ll record your response, but the charge remains in your record.”
I had to go inside the nursing-home where I laid over, and harass their poor receptionist to find the lawn-maintenance person that blew me in.
I wasn’t leaving until they did.
“Not him,” the lawn-guy said.
“Okay, can you call up Transit and get me off the hook?”
The lawn-guy later fingered the actual perpetrator.
After finishing, a great verbal donnybrook broke out about how much each individual should pay.
I contributed 10 smackaroos, probably way more than my actual bill — they had billed separately, then added all the bills together.
“So what is it with you guys?” the waitress asked. “We noticed all your wisecracks and sense of humor.”
“All these guys are retired bus-drivers,” someone said.
“The job made us like that,” I added. “Ornery!”

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.

RE: “No-good, ne’er-do-well do-nothing lazy layabouts......” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, noisily claims that all transit bus-drivers, especially me, are “no-good, ne’er-do-well do-nothing lazy layabouts.”

RE: “Who managed to make retirement without getting shot or fired.......” —Regional Transit Service fired people willy-nilly. Our clientele (the bus-riders) were often a threat to our safety.

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.

The “Genesee valley” is the valley of the Genesee river, a south-to-north river that flows across Western New York, and empties into Lake Ontario at Rochester. The Genesee valley was the nation’s first breadbasket, primarily because of the Erie Canal, which flowed through Rochester, and a small feeder canal down the valley. Rochester was at first a flour milling town.

“1763 badge” is my old Regional Transit badge number. My “badge-number” was my employee-number.

RE: “When I was running.....” —During the ‘80s, I ran distance races, five kilometers (3.1 miles), five miles, and 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).

“Mickey D’s” is McDonalds; Mt. Morris a fairly large rural town south of Rochester.

RE: “Remark about ‘pyooter-servers.......” —When a waitress says she will be our “server,” I always recall the Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, kept its computer servers upstairs in a computer room. (“‘pyooter” equals computer.)

I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it ended my employ driving bus.

A “road-supervisor” was a non-revenue employee for -a) managing the bus-drivers on the road; and -b) intervening in customer disputes.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over three years ago. Best job I ever had.

RE: “My union newsletter......” —During my final year at Transit I did a voluntary union newsletter called the “282-News” that caused weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among Transit management. It was great fun; and I did it with Microsoft Word — although it required a lot of time. (Local 282 is the Rochester division of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union, our union at the bus-company.)

The “bus-barns” are the large buildings buses could be stored inside of. The “barns” was also the location of Transit offices, and from where buses were dispatched. The 800-line (Main St.) ran by the barns.

“Halves” were two segments of a run; a “half” comprising one full stint driving bus; sometimes as many as three full trips over a line. Often a “half” was pulled out, and then back in. An all-day bus might be relieved after a while; also a “half.” Some runs had three small pull-outs — usually school-work. That’s three “halves.”

“Portal-to-portal” is departure from my garage to return.

In Rochester we lived on “Winton Road.” We now live in West Bloomfield, a small rural town in Western NY.

RE: “Thank ya, 282.....” —All my siblings are anti-union.