The moving finger having writ moves on
The other night I keyed a long e-mail to an old friend who began driving bus shortly after me — May of 1977.
We became friends despite him being hyper-religious, although more loving than my judgmental father.
He was one of many bus-drivers trying to convert me. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bible-thumping Baptists, Latter-Day-Saints, and in his case evangelical Catholic.
He ran the gamut during our employ. He was evangelical Protestant when we began, but returned to the Catholicism of his childhood.
I drove transit bus 16&1/2 years, and it ended with my stroke over 25 years ago. Bus-driving was supposed to be temporary. I was unable to find employ as a writer. I stayed with it because it paid fairly well.
After 16&1/2 years I was tiring of it. I test-drove every experimental, and mastered articulated (hinged, bendable) buses. Transit management assigned me the experimentals because they wanted my wordy evaluations — the writer-jones.
Our clientele was the trigger. I picked rural runs where passengers weren’t so difficult. I also did “school-work,” taking teenagers to a technical high-school on the western edge of Rochester.
My passengers loved me because I was a bleeding-heart liberal. I rode bus myself when younger.
When I went on vacation I told my passengers to be at their stops five minutes earlier, since I started five minutes late. I got downtown on time.
I also knew all the secret time-saving detours in case expressways clogged. I learned how to skirt traffic-jams, and if a passenger wasn’t at their stop I looked for him/her.
If some slum-kid was running after me, I broke all the rules and stopped. I wasn’t stickin’ it to that kid.
Bleeding-heart liberal or not, there were always passengers hot to mug me. I was looking at 14 more years. My stroke ended my bus-driving. That stroke was caused by an undiagnosed heart-defect, later repaired with open-heart surgery — I have “the zipper.”
I recovered well enough from my stroke to be employed by a newspaper — a paragraph factory. I wasn’t exactly writing, but I did some at first. It was more editing, and generating copy to fill the newspaper.
I call it “the BEST job I ever had.” I consider it a phase in recovery from my difficult childhood. The initial phase was college, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), the first religious institution to value and solicit my opinions instead of automatically categorizing me a threat.
The second phase was my wife, the first girl who actually liked me. I was convinced at an early age no girl would ever like me.
My wife died almost seven years ago. I was devastated for a while. She was the best friend I ever had. My bereavement counselor suggests my wife filled a gigantic void = someone actually liking me instead of badmouthing me as did my parents, etc.
Now I seem to be moving on to the next phase = actually liking myself. But 70 years late, in my humble opinion. Part of that is my childhood, but part was because I was married to a girl who actually liked me. I could hide. My social-graces are minimal.
With my wife gone, I’m on-my-own, and I experience incredible success. Start the conversation myself. If that bombs, it ain’t my fault. 10 years ago I hardly spoke to anyone — no one would wanna talk to me.
My friend bewailed not attending the Transit retirees Christmas banquet. I did, of course. I force myself to attend these functions per bereavement counselor advice.
I made many friends at Transit, despite feeling out-of-it. I loathe losing ‘em. But my friend needed to know I am no longer the wuss who drove bus. I also am no longer the dude I was while married = able to avoid social contact.
Successes are piling up. Start the conversation yourself. Let ‘em talk, and they gush all over me. Often they wanna hear what I say.
70 years late I’m discovering this, and bus-driving recedes into the filmy past.
• “The moving finger having writ moves on...” is a misquote from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on...”
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
We became friends despite him being hyper-religious, although more loving than my judgmental father.
He was one of many bus-drivers trying to convert me. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bible-thumping Baptists, Latter-Day-Saints, and in his case evangelical Catholic.
He ran the gamut during our employ. He was evangelical Protestant when we began, but returned to the Catholicism of his childhood.
I drove transit bus 16&1/2 years, and it ended with my stroke over 25 years ago. Bus-driving was supposed to be temporary. I was unable to find employ as a writer. I stayed with it because it paid fairly well.
After 16&1/2 years I was tiring of it. I test-drove every experimental, and mastered articulated (hinged, bendable) buses. Transit management assigned me the experimentals because they wanted my wordy evaluations — the writer-jones.
Our clientele was the trigger. I picked rural runs where passengers weren’t so difficult. I also did “school-work,” taking teenagers to a technical high-school on the western edge of Rochester.
My passengers loved me because I was a bleeding-heart liberal. I rode bus myself when younger.
When I went on vacation I told my passengers to be at their stops five minutes earlier, since I started five minutes late. I got downtown on time.
I also knew all the secret time-saving detours in case expressways clogged. I learned how to skirt traffic-jams, and if a passenger wasn’t at their stop I looked for him/her.
If some slum-kid was running after me, I broke all the rules and stopped. I wasn’t stickin’ it to that kid.
Bleeding-heart liberal or not, there were always passengers hot to mug me. I was looking at 14 more years. My stroke ended my bus-driving. That stroke was caused by an undiagnosed heart-defect, later repaired with open-heart surgery — I have “the zipper.”
I recovered well enough from my stroke to be employed by a newspaper — a paragraph factory. I wasn’t exactly writing, but I did some at first. It was more editing, and generating copy to fill the newspaper.
I call it “the BEST job I ever had.” I consider it a phase in recovery from my difficult childhood. The initial phase was college, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), the first religious institution to value and solicit my opinions instead of automatically categorizing me a threat.
The second phase was my wife, the first girl who actually liked me. I was convinced at an early age no girl would ever like me.
My wife died almost seven years ago. I was devastated for a while. She was the best friend I ever had. My bereavement counselor suggests my wife filled a gigantic void = someone actually liking me instead of badmouthing me as did my parents, etc.
Now I seem to be moving on to the next phase = actually liking myself. But 70 years late, in my humble opinion. Part of that is my childhood, but part was because I was married to a girl who actually liked me. I could hide. My social-graces are minimal.
With my wife gone, I’m on-my-own, and I experience incredible success. Start the conversation myself. If that bombs, it ain’t my fault. 10 years ago I hardly spoke to anyone — no one would wanna talk to me.
My friend bewailed not attending the Transit retirees Christmas banquet. I did, of course. I force myself to attend these functions per bereavement counselor advice.
I made many friends at Transit, despite feeling out-of-it. I loathe losing ‘em. But my friend needed to know I am no longer the wuss who drove bus. I also am no longer the dude I was while married = able to avoid social contact.
Successes are piling up. Start the conversation yourself. Let ‘em talk, and they gush all over me. Often they wanna hear what I say.
70 years late I’m discovering this, and bus-driving recedes into the filmy past.
• “The moving finger having writ moves on...” is a misquote from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on...”
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
posted by BobbaLew at 6:55 PM
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