Mess not with a Hughes, Part-3:

Over 44 years of marriage, my wife and I have had various banks.
My wife is now GONE, and left me with the last bank we had, Canandaigua National Bank.
We were both working for Lincoln-Rochester bank when we got married; she as a teller, and I as a management-trainee.
So we banked at Lincoln-Rochester, since as employees we were fee-free.
Lincoln-Rochester no longer exists. It affiliated with other New York state banks to become Lincoln-First, and that affiliated with Chase Bank in New York City.
I worked for Lincoln-Rochester over three years before I was “laid-off;” which to me was more like being “canned.”
Things had changed. The management position I was training for disappeared, so I was redirected to front-desk duty, which I could hardly do.
The bank was also upset I wasn’t a viper, hot to fleece the customers, especially the small ones. —That I had this despicable  compulsion to “be fair.”
That is I was more a Democrat (Gasp!) than a Kiwanian REPUBLICAN!
So I was cut loose, and drifted listlessly unemployed seven years.
During that time my wife and I moved to another apartment, plus my wife began her life-long career at Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company.
I also was trying to freelance motorsports photography, and sold a few photographs to nationwide magazines.
I also tried motorsports coverage for a small weekly newspaper in Rochester called City/East.
City/East was sort of an outgrowth of a neighborhood organizing against eminent domain by the state to put in an expressway.
During those seven years we may have switched banks; I can’t remember.
The next bank I remember is Central Trust of Rochester, third largest bank in Rochester.
It was only bank that remained Rochester-based, although it later affiliated with Irving Bank in New York City, and no longer exists.
The other banks in Rochester were Lincoln-Rochester and Marine-Midland. Both affiliated with outside banks during those seven years.
My wife and I also bought our first house during those seven years based on her income.
Our house was at 323 North Winton Road in Rochester, and we lived next to two employees of Regional Transit Service (RTS), both bus-drivers, Kathy Young and her boyfriend, whose name I can’t remember.
My attempt at freelance photography had crumbled, and it seemed my motorsport coverage was going nowhere.
So at the suggestion of Kathy I went to work for the bus-company, as a so-called “temporary-job” driving bus.
That temporary-job lasted 16 & 1/2 years until my stroke in late ’93.
And during that time we were banking with Central-Trust.
My stroke ended my bus-driving, and we may have switched banks before my stroke; I can’t remember.
Some time we switched to First National Bank of Rochester, tiny, but the only Rochester-based bank after Central affiliated with Irving.
I recovered fairly well, and after an unpaid internship sponsored by my stroke-rehabilitation I began employ with the Messenger Newspaper in nearby Canandaigua.
I interned there because I had done a voluntary newsletter for my bus-union while at Transit.
That newspaper was the BEST job I ever had. I refused to go back to bus-driving, although it would have paid better.
We also moved to my current home in West Bloomfield, south of Rochester, in 1990. That house was designed by us.
Marine-Midland had affiliated with HSBC out of Hong Kong, and we switched to HSBC because -a) they had a branch nearby, and -b) HSBC had bought our mortgage originally floated by a savings-bank in Rochester.
We stayed with HSBC the whole time I was at the Messenger, and also paid off our mortgage.
But our safe-deposit box was still in faraway Rochester at the savings-bank that originally floated our mortgage.
Which my wife felt was inconvenient.
So we started looking around for a nearby location for our safe-deposit box.
HSBC had a branch maybe seven miles away, but it was a safe, not a walk-in vault.
Canandaigua National Bank in nearby Honeoye Falls (“hone-eee-oye;” as in “oil”), about four-five miles away, had a vault.
They would rent us a safe-deposit box as part of a package that included a checking-account.
But that checking-account also had online bill-pay, and was otherwise online.
I’m sure HSBC could have done that too, but Canandaigua National Bank is independent; it’s not affiliated with some distant bank.
HSBC’s nearby branch also closed.
First National Bank apparently tanked, so Canandaigua National Bank is the only remaining locally-based bank.
Of course, the banks are always at war with each other, so there could be other banks claiming to be local.
But they’re not as local as Canandaigua, even if not affiliated with a New York City bank.
One day I picked up my paycheck at Transit, brought it home, and made what the bank calls a “split-deposit.”
My paycheck would be cashed, it would pay some bills the bank processed, and deposit $60 to our checking-account.
I took that all to a nearby Central-Trust branch, and transacted it.
I was given a receipt for $60.
That night the bank called. Our checking-account was overdrawn, and bouncing checks.
Apparently the bank had charged back the $60.
Um, I got a receipt!
I went up to the bank, and did what I call a “grandstand.”
I confronted the front-desk personnel, and said I wasn’t leaving until they redeposited that $60.
After all, I had a receipt.
Weeping and wailing and gnashing-of-teeth. They just wanted me out; I was upsetting customers with my yelling.
“But I ain’t leavin’ until you redeposit that $60, and reimburse your overdraft charges.
I worked for a bank once, and I know you can charge your bad-items to redeposit my $60.”
They did, but with my help.
They had apparently lost my Transit paycheck, and charged my checking-account $60 to recover part of their loss.
Don’t mess with a Hughes; you’ll get a grandstand.
Transit stopped payment on the lost paycheck, and issued me another.
With that, Central-Trust recovered their entire loss.
But they probably lost a few customers with my grandstand.

• “Hughes” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• 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 environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• The “Messenger Newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired almost nine years ago. I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern). It was the BEST job I ever had.