April 1, 2022

Poetry is sometimes a contrived, awkward effort. This photo is poetry, and it was staged, but it really says so much.

Ashton and Cheryl had come to ride with me on my final trip as a Coast Mountain Bus Driver, and I needed to pee. I mean, we got back to the depot, and all I wanted to do was get to the washroom to pee, but Cheryl wanted a pic, she had this final pic in her mind, the one you see up there. I was about to launch into the next chapter of my life. Stepping off of transit, and into . . . what? The props came from another bus driver, he’d come to work early and set up my bus for me, adorning it with the banner and balloon that said “Happy Retirement”. I feared it LOL I was afraid somebody might do that, but it was more like I was afraid nobody would. So I drove my last 6 hours and 33 minutes as a bus driver with these banners and that balloon bobbing around my work space. Folks I, didn’t even know, cared expressed their regret, and bade me good will.

Its profoundly poetic that I needed to pee. Its the part of the job I won’t miss. Having to wait to go pee LOL. Re-grouping at the end of the line it takes to make it through this job.

I look disarrayed, and shambled, but I’m a happy man. My fellow operators helped me through, and two examples are Monica, and Tat.

Tat Lai…

a fellow bus driver who was sent to me by God to help me through my final weeks. He started my bus for me each morning, and I would write a smiley face on the back of his bus, something I did for a prank one of the first days of the sheet.

All the things I ever remember about supporting one another as drivers in a sometimes hostile world, Tat and I demonstrated over the last few months, actually. I can’t remember the last time I ever signed the same work two sheets in row, except these last couple of sheets, I did. I was getting ready to go. The comfort of the “known” as I prepared for the relative unknown of retirement.

Thank You, Tat you did nothing more nor less than be a fellow driver, spreading around happiness. I know I’ve left transit in good hands with folks like you around.

So, for those of you who might know what comradery looks like I’ll tell you a story about another driver friend of Tat and I, Monica…

As each of us deal with the daily ordeal of suffering through life, we can become isolated, and withdrawn. But with Guys like Tat and I around, you get pulled out of your gloom, reluctantly more times than not, and we put a smile on your face. Monica is such a story.

Way back when I first met her, I’d ride her 403 from Richmond Transit Centre to Brighouse for my afternoon tripper, and because it was a 403 I’d sit at the back. Its a very busy run, and to stand at the front and chat just doesn’t do anyone any good. But as I left the bus each day, I’d call our farewell to her by saying, “Goodbye Wendy!” So that she would get a bit of a laugh, and nobody else would know her real name. Lets not get too personal with the public LOL. Well, that became her name when ever I’d see her, and she called me Bart. She said that the public would even start to greet and say goodbye to her with her new “bus name”.

Well, over the years Tat and I would see her, and sneak up on her, and take photos of her and send them to her. To send cheer. Innocent fun to break up our ever so serious lives…

It was always a break from sitting around belly aching about the job, or the trauma of our lives, which we never really did with one another anyways.

That picture above was just such a day. She was sitting over off to the side at Bridgeport Station bus loop, chatting with another driver who refused to be photograped LOL… and Tat and I jumped on to get some pictures with her. I’m glad Paul was there to act as photographer for us 🙂

Such are the memories of my job, on this first morning of the rest of my life, April 1, 2022…