Friends

“You don’t go to college to become a bus-driver,” said my friend Jim LePore (“luh-POOR”) last night at our weekly Wednesday eat-out at a local restaurant.
Jim, like me, is a widower. His wife of 51 years died about a year after mine.
I met him at a church-sponsored grief-share. He was devastated. I thought I could help him.
He recovered fairly quickly, quicker than me, so tables turned. He ended up helping me.
For 16&1/2 years, 1977 to 1993, I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, a public employer, the supplier of transit bus service in Rochester and environs.
It also happened I graduated nearby Houghton College, and attended the 50-year reunion of my class the previous weekend.
Houghton is a religious college, so being an unbeliever I felt very out-of-it.
The same day as our dinner, retired bus-drivers from Transit held a breakfast meeting at another restaurant.
I didn’t fit there either, but noted I felt more comfortable with my Transit buddies than my college classmates.
I used to get this driving bus: “You have a college degree? What are you doing driving bus?”
“I majored in bus-driving,” I’d say.
“It was supposed to be temporary,” I told Jim.
“I was trying to find employ as a copy-writer, but was striking out.
My neighbor at that time, a bus-driver, said Regional Transit needed bus-drivers.
So I applied and was immediately hired.
I figured I’d do it a year or two, but it paid pretty good, and I enjoyed getting the hang of operating large vehicles.”
So I stayed with it, although at 16&1/2 years I was tiring of it.
It was our clientele, who could be rancorous and cantankerous.
We bus-drivers had a secret rule: “Don’t get shot!”
In the city, passengers could be threatening and unsavory. So I drove mainly rural and suburban routes.
I also drove school-work, but only in the morning. At that hour the kids, teenagers, were too sleepy to be trouble.
And they loved having me, because I wasn’t stickin’ it to my kids.
They were getting to school if I could help it. Better that than the slammer.
I drove one slum school-route the entire school year. Started with a full bus-load, about 50 — and ended up with about 20.
What happened? Prison? The grave? Was it my only rule: “Ass, pass, gas or grass; nobody rides free.”
My stroke, caused by an unknown heart-defect, ended my bus-driving.
I recovered fairly well, and ending up working as a “typist” at a local newspaper.
I never typed anything! I developed computer-tricks to quickly generate reams of copy.
A staunch REPUBLICAN was fixing to lay me off, but the Executive-Editor weighed in. “What do I wanna lay off him for? He’s giving me too much, and has a great attitude.”
My pay was a pittance, but I was having too much fun. They were letting what remained of my brain fly. They encouraged it.
A rehab-counselor wanted to get my job back driving bus — I told him fuggetabout it.
I always say recovery from my stroke is mainly because of that newspaper.
It’s been a long, strange trip. Difficult childhood, college at a school where I didn’t fit, bus-driving, and finally that newspaper, best job I ever had. —The sort of job I was looking for before I started driving bus.
My 12th-grade Social Studies teacher said I’d never amount to anything. I didn’t.
After four years of college I was sick of it. And that’s despite it being the first place adult authority figures valued and solicited my opinions, instead of automatically declaring me of-the-Devil.
Bellybutton picking for what? I had a life to live.
And I was always sort of out-of-it at Transit, but most of my best friends came from Transit.
My 6th-grade teacher bewailed I had so much potential. My parents were exasperated.
So now I drive this here Apple laptop — slinging words; a combination of my writing talent with computer-savvy I developed at that newspaper.
“You gotta learn how to budget your time,” Jim says.
“But I like slinging words,” I say.

• My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one.