Geezer meeting

Norb Dynski at left, Ron Palermo next to him, Vince Arena at right; all retired bus-drivers. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The other day (Thursday, July 28, 2011) was a brunch meeting of the Transit retirees group, which I call the Transit geezers club.
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 October 26, 1993 ended that.
Our group is ad hoc; that is, it’s not official.
It’s comprised of both hourlies and management, although it’s low-line management, not the White-Tower elitists.
In fact, one guy isn’t retired. He still works at Transit as management, a radio-controller.
The radio guys kept in contact with bus-drivers, etc via radio, more-or-less dispatching operations.
Nevertheless that guy is from our time; he’s worked at Transit 38 years.
I remember working with him. His feet were squarely on the ground.
Radio-controllers, and bus-drivers, could be jerks.
But we weren’t.
On my end, it was a reflection of the fact I had once been a bus-passenger myself.
On-time performance, and the bus better not cripple. Plus the shortest detours I could find time-wise.
We got those people to work on time, or else I’m losing passengers.
No excuses, no “not my fault.”
The bus-union would have been mad at me.
I carried my own tools.
I wasn’t waitin’ no 35 minutes for a mechanic to tighten a floppy mirror. —Nor floppy windshield-wipers.
I preferred our Flxible (“flix-ible”) buses. They’d run even with the “hot-engine” or “lo-oil” trouble-lights — unlike our GM buses, which shut down.
Nine times out of 10 a sensor was haywire.
We’re gettin’ them passengers home. I ain’t stickin’ ‘em.
I always feel a little out-of-it at these shindigs; like I’m not really one of them.
But I am; and they make really great friends.
Driving bus was dangerous; dealing with psychos.
You could get shot.
And upper management seemed more in it to just collect their bloated paychecks.
It seemed upper management wanted to insulate themselves from the world we dealt with.
Plus upper management and my bus-union were always at war.
The world we dealt with went for all us geezers.
Madness everywhere, and we were always parrying it.
We swapped stories about what it was like to have some passenger puke all over you, or pee on the floor.

• “Flxible” was a manufacturer of transit-buses. They competed with General Motors. RTS had about 75. Flxible is no more.