Alumni picnic

Another Alumni picnic recedes into the filmy past.
The “Alumni” are retirees of Regional Transit Service (RTS), a public supplier of transit bus-service in Rochester (NY) and environs.
The Alumni are a club affiliated with Local 282 of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union.
282 is our union at Regional Transit.
For 16&1/2 years Yr Fthfl Srvnt drove bus for Regional Transit.
It was supposed to be temporary while I continued searching for employ as a word-slinger (writer).
But I stayed with it. The pay was pretty good, and I enjoyed getting the hang of driving large vehicles.
As a driver I was pretty much on-my-own, free of office politics.
If anything memorable occurred at this shindig it was toward the end, when fellow college graduate Dominick Zarcone (pronounced exactly as spelled: “Zar-KONE;” as in “cone”), who had just retired, told me I was the atheist he loved most.
“Wait one cotton-pickin’ minute,” I said.
“‘Atheist’ no; the word you want is ‘agnostic.’”
We discussed that, and then he said “If you wanna become Catholic (he’s Catholic), call me up.”
“Catholic for you, tub-thumping Baptist for Chip Walker, Latter-Day Saints for Harriman, Jehovah’s Witlesses for a guy I knew at the newspaper.
How come you guys never tried to convert thugs? Ronnie Culp, or George Weber. Two hulking bar-bouncers hot to bust heads.
No, yer always after me — the guy who listened instead of telling you to buzz off.
A Liberal (Gasp!), unable to pass judgment, lest you say something that might answer questions.”
Zarcone turned toward his car.
Zarcone and I were always friends, a devout Christian versus an agnostic.
He’s younger than me, but hired on right after me.
I had a stroke after 16&1/2 years, in 1993, which ended my bus-driving.
Zarcone completed 39 years; a lifetime of bus-driving.
I was tiring of it: our clientele, and also the idiot fat-cats that ran Transit.
You have to be a people-person, which Zarcone was.
He also could speak multiple languages, so people wondered why he drove bus.
He could gush love on his passengers, and witness to them.
I tried to be helpful, but could be a jerk if necessary. If a blowhard became angry, I’d say “suit yourself,” for which he paid dearly.
Zarcone might shower the guy with more love.
I did that too: my “guile-and-cunning” strategy. I ain’t Attila the Hun; threats of violence or the Police never worked.
Push too hard and yer liable to get shot.
So my stroke pushed me toward the BEST job I ever had, working for a newspaper in nearby Canandaigua (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”), The Daily Messenger.
My post-stroke rehabers wanted to get my job back driving bus, but I wasn’t interested.
Bus-driving woulda paid much more, but the Messenger was fun.
Word-slinger at last.
Dominick continued driving bus, relishing every day.
He also become a union official. Transit managers found themselves dealing with someone more intelligent than them.
I used to want Dominick to become president of our Local, but mainly to be a spokesman for Rochester labor.
The camera would have loved him; always smiling.
Rochester labor has a spokesman of sorts, the president of the local teachers’ union.
But he comes across like a Gestapo agent. Does he ever smile?
So now finally Dominick is retired; he can attend Alumni meetings.
But to my mind the Alumni is faltering. Our previous sparkplug died years ago, and our current president recently died.
So now the sparkplug is our Financial Secretary, who puts out a newsletter and organizes things.
At this picnic perhaps 10-15 were outside, and another 10 were inside the lodge. Contrast that with how many attended previous picnics.
And I always feel out-of-it, like not one of them. Bus-drivers are loud and assertive, which I’m not.
I had to be assertive to drive bus — it did wonders for my self-confidence.
But much as they always welcome me, I feel I don’t fit.