Gang of seven

That’s Palermo at right. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Fewer and fewer attend these shindigs.


Yrs trly is at left. (Photo by Ron Palermo.)

Retired Transit bus-driver Ron Palermo organizes brunch get-togethers.
For those of us who worked at Transit from the ‘70s through the ‘90s and even later, who are now retired.
Attendees include both hourlies and management, although the managers tend to be low-level, not the high-and-mighty.
Only one manager was present, Gary Coleman (“coal-min”), a Radio Controller/Road-Supervisor.
It could be said the tilt was toward operations.
Providing bus-transit was a stupid, meaningless job, and seemed to foster the worst in behavior.
Doing the job seemed simple, but some wanted to make things worse by trying fast-ones.
Employees would go off half-cocked just to make a point.
They’d commit cardinal-sins right in front of management, and management often did the same. I could give examples.
And it was the poor passengers that often suffered.
A bus breaks down and cripples. No matter the bus should not have been on the road anyway.
At which point the trickle-down theory of management applies.
Management, in a desperate attempt to field the required number of buses, fields junk.
Passengers are late for work, but “not my problem.”
Things seemed to get worse as fewer and fewer people rode the bus.
Commuting to work downtown disappeared as jobs gravitated toward the suburbs — following highway improvement.
Yet local Transit seemed tied to moving commuters downtown.
Upper management at Transit accused the hourlies of being reprehensible, which they could be.
Yet in so doing management was being reprehensible itself.
Everyone seemed intent on just collecting their paychecks, both hourlies and management.
And each seemed intent on skewering the other. The motivation seemed to be to no longer provide transit to the public.
Riding bus became an undesirable alternative.
People didn’t wish to turn their lives over to the uncaring.
And so we gather, seven die-hards.
We gathered at Finger Lakes Racino for their buffet.
Finger Lakes Racino is a gambling casino added to Finger Lakes Race Track.
The horse-track itself is rather moribund; the casino saved it.
But the casino seems rather borderline; it ain’t hoppin’.
Row-upon-row of slots fill the casino, drowning out conversation with noise.
And what few customers are driving the things are old and decrepit.
Walkers and wheelchairs are in abundance.
But the casino has a buffet, that is the best us Transit-retirees have ever used.
But there were only seven of us; there used to be many more.
One died, and others trickled away.
Some have commitments that don’t allow them to attend Palermo’s get-togethers, perhaps a part-time job.
Fortunately there was little mention of my wife’s death.
I attend these shindigs despite being devastated.

• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
• A “road-supervisor” was an official of the company that rode around in a supervisor-car, supervised bus-drivers, and settled arguments with bus-passengers. They also attended bus accidents.
• My beloved wife of 44 years died of cancer April 17, 2012. She was 68. I miss her dearly.