Good ole 1703

Yesterday (Wednesday, October 21, 2009) was a regular quarterly meeting of the dreaded 282 Alumni.
“Dreaded” because all my siblings are flagrantly anti-union, and my all-knowing blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, declares all bus-drivers are no-good, do-nothing, lazy layabouts who just sit on their cans all day.
My brother collects a six-figure salary for policing Porta-Johns at an electric-power generating station.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees (Local 282, the Rochester local of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union) of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, N.Y. (For 16&1/2 years [1977-1993] I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service [RTS], the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.) The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union. Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years. My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join.
Of interest to me was the appearance of two retired bus-drivers.
—1) Bobby McAuliff (“Mick-ALL-iff”), a white guy who was once the president of the 15/25-year Club; and
—2) Eugene Muhammad (“Muh-HUM-med”), a black guy who drove bus 20 years, and then went to the Rochester City School-District.
“Who’s that guy standing next to Broadhurst?” someone asked.
That’s Gene Muhammad,” someone answered.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “That’s Gene. It’s him, only his hair is white now.”
Eugene eventually sat across from me.
“Okay Gene,” I said. “Here we go.
You drove 1703 a long time, and then switched off it.
After you, I drove it a long time; at least three years.
It was the nicest ride I ever had.”
“And after you, Hazel drove it for a while,” someone piped up.
“Hazel had more seniority than me,” I said. “I don’t remember her driving 1703. 1701 and 1702. She always gravitated toward the 17.”
“But they broke up the run she’d been driving, so she switched to 1703.”
“The only thing wrong with it,” I said; “was three trips, which is one too many.
Plus ya got Fred at Nazareth College. Fred was always in your face. He even sent me a Christmas-card.
Plus it got done at 7:30.”
“I remember Fred,” Eugene said. “7:30 too.
Plus they started pulling into every college while I drove it; St. John Fisher, Nazareth — all the way out to that high-school.”
“No high-school when I drove it. By then that was the 700-line. I looped in the old Pittsford loop.”
“That high-school was impossible,” Gene said. “Not enough time.”
“Probably timed with a supervisor-car on a Sunday morning,” I said.
Muhammad is not a member of the Alumni, so was being plied by Alumni Vice-President Frank Randisi (“ran-DEE-zee;” as in “Anne”).
The whole point of this program was a presentation by Rochester Optical to solicit the business of us retirees.
Big deal! All I can see is their couponing my co-pay. My healthcare insurance pays for eye exams — I might have to co-pay $10.
Rochester Optical would use my insurance, but pay my co-pay.
I can afford $10 for -A) an optical shop nearby and more convenient, and -B) my vision being cared for by competent people, including a Houghton-grad.
“Anything from you, Frank?” asked Randisi of Frank Falzone (“Foul-ZONE”), the Business-Agent of Local 282 of our old bus-union.
“They’re messin’ with us,” Frank said, referring to a letter to all 282 members from the International President Warren George in Washington D.C. threatening to trustee our union.
“They wanna compress our union leadership into one full-time person. Most locals our size have only one full-timer.”
(We currently have two full-timers.)
“But we’ll be all right — we always are........”
Frank is 61; the union-prez is over 65 — retirement age.
I think they are both too old to be running a union, against a massive forest of publicly-funded young lackeys.
It’s us retirees they represent — not the current employees.
“Have the Army remove them,” Eugene said.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “1700”-line and “700”-line are two different bus-routes, but both end up in Pittsford (an old suburb southeast of Rochester). —Pittsford was a rich suburb, so many of our passengers on the 17 were domestic help. The Pittsford loop was an old trolley-loop in Pittsford — tracks long-gone and paved. The high-school (Pittsford-Mendon; Mendon being an adjacent town) was far past it.
• RE: “Supervisor-car.......” —Road-supervisors (supervised bus operations by radio from the administrative offices), used company cars. They were marked as supervisor-cars, and had a flashing yellow beacon.
• “Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. —Every Houghton-grad I’ve met had their feet on the ground.
• RE: “Trustee our union......” is to administer it from Washington D.C., no longer locally. There are two questions at issue: —1) we have too much debt, and —2) no contract has been agreed to for over three years. —Our union’s response is that this is because our bosses are stonewalling. Debt is mainly legal fees — we have to arbitrate every grievance, and there are over 400 pending. Lawyers aren’t paid until the case is settled.