“Crankcase”

“Crankcase.”

That’s what my wife and I called Walter Cronkite: “Crankcase.”
So here I am years ago driving the south end of the good old 500-line in a Flxible-Flyer bus.
Flxible-Flyers were always my favorite; I suppose because they were fairly reliable.
As I recall a GM bus would cripple at the slightest malfunction. An errant sensor might erroneously decide your oil was low, and shut off the engine smack in the middle of an intersection.
There you are with a bus-load of angry passengers incensed you could not get them home.
No AC in summer, no heat in winter, and they can’t get off because it’s unsafe.
Hope your radio works so you can call for mechanical help — or a change-off.
A Flxible-Flyer never did that.
That errant sensor might throw up a red low-oil light, but the engine kept running.
“Keep that motor turnin’, baby; this bus will take me home!”
Buses were like that. No matter what the sign said, the bus was supposed to take you home.
The 500-line was a pleasant ride, especially the north end, which went all the way up to the lake on the east side of the Genesee River.
The south end hit three hospitals, although two were at the ends, and service alternated during the day.
It also hit Monroe County Welfare — known as “WAY-fuh,” on Westfall Road.
Westfall was also mispronounced “WAY-fuh,” so I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to ask if the questioner meant “Welfare.”
The south end of the 500-line also accessed senior-citizen apartments, and I got bopped over the head with an umbrella for enforcing the “proof-of-age” rule — a Medicare card.
That was the last time I enforced that rule.
Just showing up for work was more important.
The north end of the 500-line was so long it required multiple buses.
They tried one hour out-and-back, but it failed.
The trip was too long.
As I recall, they even tried scheduling a longer north-end trip timewise with a later arrival downtown, but that meant the passengers missed their transfers.
Angry passengers. The bus-company had to schedule multiple buses on the north end; two on Sunday.
It meant laying over 30-40 minutes at the lake. That’s 30-40 minutes of sitting with no passengers. —Paid to read.
The outbound bus passed as you started inbound.
So here I am heading out the south end of the 500-line, and Granny is in the back seat holding court.
“We never went to no moon,” she declared. “That was just Walter Cronkite.”
And now Cronkite (“Crankcase”) is gone; replaced by those who followed in his footsteps.
“They better give him coverage equal to Michael Jackson,” my wife said.
I switched off our video-recorder, back to live TV.
WipeOut!

• My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.” Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. A “change-off” is a replacement bus.
• A “Flxible-Flyer” is a transit bus made by Flxible. (Flxible no longer exists.)
• “GM” is of course General Motors. They manufactured transit buses.
• “AC” is air-conditioning — cooling.
• Lake Ontario. The Genesee (“Jen-uh-SEE”) river ran south-to-north across NY state, and through Rochester into Lake Ontario.