My last bus-story........

....for the time-being.

Shortly after my stroke I discovered the muse was still there.
A stroke destroys brain-tissue; in my case it was a blood-clot, same kind of stroke New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi (“brew-skee”) had.
My stroke was October 26, 1993, and a lot was messed up.
Speech was a mess at first, and my whole left side was useless.
All of that eventually came back. —What brain-tissue was left had taken over.
My speech is still slightly compromised — difficulty finding words and assembling them for speech.
I can’t jabber like those radio advertising guys, and I can’t argue.
But I can pass as normal.
In high-school my 12th-grade English teacher told me I could sling words together extraordinarily well.
I thought him crazy, but I guess I can.
I been doin’ it since college.
I fell into motorsports coverage for a weekly newspaper in the early ‘70s in Rochester, and started a union newsletter at Transit in 1992.
I was the newsletter’s sole editor and producer; a volunteer — I used Word.
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 ended that.
The bus-driving job was supposed to be temporary, but I stayed with it because it was okay.
It also paid pretty well.
It was that union newsletter where I found my voice.
I didn’t have time for self-editing; just pick up the shovel, and start shoveling.
I could depend on the muse; the talent to sling words together pretty well.
I’d use it to tell stories, which people loved to read.
This story was bouncing around before the stroke, and I found it still bouncing around immediately after my stroke.
Writing was impossible — too messy — so my wife tried to take dictation in my hospital-room.
When I finally returned home I found the muse was still cookin’.
It was like finding the old me.
This story has never been written, so has been kicking around almost 17 years.
I was driving an afternoon Park-and-Ride to East Rochester and Fairport, suburbs east of Rochester.
I had 417 bus, on the Eastern Expressway, Interstate-490.
I had shot The Can, and was headed for the Fairport Road exit.
It was snowing, and roads were icy. —I had to go slowly.
I angled onto the Fairport Road exit, about 20-30 mph.
UH-OH! All four corners are sliding.
Here we go! A bouncing roller-coaster ride across the frozen tundra. Thank goodness it was open with no ditches.
I sawed furiously at the wheel correcting slides, but a big hand came down from the sky, and directed 417 back onto the cloverleaf.
The ramp straightened, but there was another curve ahead.
More wheel-sawing; again, all four corners were sliding.
But again a big hand dropped from the sky, and directed 417 toward Fairport Road.
“Whew!” I said.
“What was that all about?” asked my regular riding shotgun.
“I didn’t notice anything.”

• “Muse” defined: “a woman, or a force personified as a woman, who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.”
• The “weekly newspaper” was City/East (now just “City”).
• Microsoft’s word-processor computer software is “Word.”
• “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.
• “417” was a Park-and-Ride bus, a “fishbowl,” but with a large V8 engine and a three-speed transmission. Some could go quite fast.
• The “Eastern Expressway, Interstate-490” is the main connector into Rochester from the east to the NY State Thruway, Interstate-90.
• RE: “The Can.....” —The Can-of-Worms (so-called) was an old expressway interchange southeast of Rochester, built in the ‘60s. It was difficult to get through. The “Can” was reconfigured a while ago (Old Can and New Can), taking out little-used railroad trackage, making it much easier to negotiate. There were various tricks to “shooting the Can” with a bus. Most difficult was a lane change smack in the middle of the Old Can.