This morning’s dream

Fishbowl. (Not RTS.)

This morning’s dream (August 31, 2010) was about driving transit bus for the first time in 17 years.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs.
My stroke was almost 17 years ago. It ended my career driving bus.
It was fun at first, but I was tiring of it.
I could minimize my driving hours, and thereby minimize exposure to the clientele.
The clientele was the worst part. They could be rancorous and cantankerous.
The job was always a bucking bronco to avoid getting mugged.
And Transit management was always complicit. If you got mugged, it was your fault.
Assistance was always too many minutes away, and Transit wanted to keep out the Police.
And placate the miscreants.
Too far to counter a mugging.
I had a passenger try to strangle me; and I had a lady bop me over the head with her umbrella.
We bus-drivers had a rule management never heard about, although I’m sure they were aware of it.
It was DON’T GET SHOT!
We probably collected less in valid fares because of that, but management seemed to go along with that.
Spies would blow us in for accepting an invalid fare, we’d get called on the carpet, but nothing came of it.
What mattered was not rocking the boat.
Avoid violence, which would involve (GASP) calling in management.
It was possible to avoid this by picking Park-and-Rides; express runs from suburbs, or the hinterlands.
It avoided the city, where the rancorous clientele was prevalent.
The clientele was better on Park-and-Rides; working stiffs avoiding an auto commute.
And avoiding parking in the city, which was expensive.
Driving bus also involved skill — they were large vehicles.
I remember stroking the brake-pedal to get braking action.
On top of that was defensive driving; avoiding accidents.
You always found yourself cutting slack for the Mario Andretti wannabees.
And the NASCAR wannabees.
You were always driving the back end, which was 33 feet behind.
It followed inside of where the front-end went. You had to put a swing on all turns to make sure the back end didn’t clip things; e.g. cars, curbs, and telephone poles.
It’s not like that with a car, which is short enough to not pay attention to the rear.
This all came back, even 17 years later.
I was driving one of our old 600-series fish-bowls (pictured above), a bus RTS no longer has.
They were scrapped years ago, I think during my employ.
The Yard was more challenging than I remember it.
The Barns were being expanded, and concrete pilings were in the way.
I had to drive around the pilings, which included 90 degree turns.
The Yard was also snow-covered, and massively drifted in.
But a bus could drive through most anything; it was all that motor-weight over the drive-wheels.
I arrowed my bus into a three-foot drift, and drove right through it.
You could never do that with a car.
In the morning when we pulled in, we’d stop next to the Wash-Building, where a “bus-placer” would tell us where to park.
I had written the bus up for some minor thing, so was told to park on Lane Six.
I drove behind the Barns, but into a barricade.
They were building something, so Lane Six was inaccessible.
I managed to get turned around without backing, and stopped at the bus-placer again.
“Lane Two or Three,” I was told.
“Can’t do it,” I said.
As usual the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. (The barricade was not visible to the bus-placer.)
“Okay, Lane 13 or 14,” he said.
Which meant my write-up wouldn’t get looked into.
It was only a “check” anyway.
13 and 14 weren’t mechanic lanes.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “Park-and-Rides” were trips from suburban end-points, usually through Park-and-Ride parking-lots, where passengers would park their cars, for a bus-ride to work in Rochester.
• “The Yard” was a large paved area outside where buses congregated before leaving, or could be parked.
• “The Barns” are at 1372 East Main St. in Rochester, somewhat from downtown. The Barns were large sheds the buses were parked inside. Regional Transit’s operations were conducted in buildings adjacent to the Barns.