A stupid meaningless job that paid pretty well

—“You have a college degree, and you’re driving bus?” A passenger might exclaim.
“What was your major?” They’d ask.
“Bus-driving,” I always answered.
Enter Bob Newhart’s “School for bus-drivers skit.”
When I graduated college in August 1966, I had no idea what to do with my life.
College — using my brain — had been fun, but I was tired of it. “Navel-picking,” I called it.
(August because I had to make up two courses.)
My original intent to teach high-school history fell apart with my first attempt at student teaching.
My mentor teacher was an authoritarian who declared the hyper-intelligent girl in his class needed a good spanking.
Bleeding-heart liberial that I am (GASP), I felt she just needed someone to care about her, take her seriously, challenge her. My militarist mentor quashed me.
So much for teaching. If this was how I was supposed to be, I wasn’t interested.
After college I worked at a bank as a management-trainee. Me management? Kee-RASH! I was cut loose after three years.
I also tried to freelance auto-racing photography. I sold a few photos to national magazines, but essentially lost money.
I also wrote motorsport coverage for a small weekly Rochester newspaper. But that was only summer work.
My wife and I existed on her income while I mucked about.
Seven years, and during that time we bought a small house in Rochester — essentially based on my wife’s income.
I also began interviewing for work as a writer; public relations I guess. “Failed writer,” my Facebook says.
Next to our house was a neighbor who drove bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS).
They needed bus-drivers, so I decided I’d try it.
It would be temporary while I looked for a writing job. But it paid fairly well, and had full bennies.
Looking for a writing job fell away, plus there was the challenge of learning how to safely operate large equipment.
16&1/2 years I did it, until my stroke ended it in late 1993.
I was tiring of it. To some extent it was our clientele, who could be rancorous and cantankerous.
When we moved out of Rochester to our new home in West Bloomfield, we no longer were five minutes from “the Barns.”
I no longer could work the kind of work I did before, which essentially was the rush-hours and/or schoolwork.
I had to switch to regular city runs, and reset my working hours to about 6 a.m. through 2 p.m.
(My final run was 5 a.m. until 1 p.m.; a straight-eight on a killer city line = stop at every stop; change the destination-sign on the fly!)
And regular city-runs didn’t get cut for school closings or holidays; plus I was paid less.
Bus-driving was turning into a drag.
By then I had driven every experimental — nothing was left but daily drudgery.
Socializing with my regulars was also out, since after the childhood I had I was no good at socializing.
“We got a good one,” my regulars always said. I didn’t play the superiority card. I’d ridden bus myself.
“I need somebody riding shotgun, so I don’t miss anyone,” I’d say on my first trip in from the boonies.
I also warned my riders when I went on vacation. “I know you’re out there, but my replacement won’t! Wear a light-colored jacket, and show up earlier than you do for me.”
But I was tiring of it. City bus-driving wasn’t country, what I gravitated to as I advanced up the seniority list.
So my stroke was sort of a blessing. It suddenly ended my bus-driving.
But I always say RTS paid for the house I live in. Plus I still have all those bennies.

• “Skit” is a YouTube link.
• I been told the correct CONSERVATIVE spelling of “liberal” is “liberial.”
• 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 heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, and that defect was repaired. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that over 15 years ago.
• For you RTS junkies, my neighbor was Kathy Young. Her boyfriend was Dave Farrell, also an RTS bus-driver. (Kathy was eventually fired after an accident. RTS fired bus drivers willy-nilly, but Kathy was a loose cannon.) —And it was the 800 line.
• “The Barns” are at 1372 East Main St. in Rochester, large sheds for storing buses inside. An operations/administration building was attached. We bus-drivers always said we were working out of “the Barns.”
• I made many friends at RTS; most of whom Hillary-Dillery would call “deplorable.”