“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” 
Dr. Seuss

Labor day approaches which means that summer is ending.  It has been a bittersweet summer for me and has moved far quicker than I wished but it was bound to happen.  The sweetness of the summer occurred early on, shortly after school had ended.   My soon to be a nine year old grandson started a summer camp that he attended last year.  After two days they called my daughter in law and informed her that he wasn’t really welcomed there and she should have been told that in January when they registered but he was too much of a “boy”.  He would have the temerity to climb trees, pick up dead field mice, pick up a stick and pretend it is a rifle; everything a boy is not to be in today’s society especially in a summer camp supervised by college students who are given the title of “counselor”.  It is amazing to me that parents are so quick to pay exorbitant amounts of income to companies who sell themselves as something more than babysitters.  But I digress.  Their action proved to be my blessing.  Every Tuesday and Thursday I would watch the squirt.  We would eat lunch once a week at Warminster West, his favorite diner.

Aine, Justin and Evie
Our grandchildren – so far!

We went to Burdick’s News Agency in Hatboro where he would get his root beer float and then he would pick out “penny” candy (now a $1.50) for his sister Ainé  and himself.  I took him to the movies to see “Dunkirk” which he sat through engrossed and when it was over he not quietly (my grandchildren are not quiet) asked if it was over and when I told him it was he loudly said, “Maybe they will make a Dunkirk two” which anybody with any idea of history would smile at that bit of childhood innocence.  He also accompanied me to the Union Hall and patiently waited for his long winded grand-pop discuss work a couple of times.  It helped that there was a nice cat to chase and play with – not sure the cat feels the same.  One day I watched his sister Ainé which was fun.  Different but fun.  I guess the nicest compliment came when Justin told his parents that next summer he would like the same arrangement.

Life is not all sweetness however and it handed me more of the bitter than the sweetness this summer.   As we age and at 63 I have reached that point, death knocks at the door quite frequently and this summer it knocked on my door twice.  Two men that will not be known in the history books passed away.  Their deaths have affected me much more than most realize.  I was not particularly close to either men but I considered them as good a friend I could have; which says more for them then me.  We did not socialize or party together or call to chat and see how the family was doing etc.  No, their friendship was deeper, at least for me which again is a testament to their character.  Guys like Jim and Ron are the rebar in the concrete foundation; their prescience is unseen but essential.

As a newly elected shop steward of our small group of 40 bus drivers I was just getting acclimated to being in a Union position and developing a good relationship with our Union Business Agent.  It wasn’t long after that I was informed that Jim was replacing the gentleman I had been working with and I expressed some concern.  Of course I was being set up for a life lesson.  Jim turned out to be one of the best Business Agents I ever met and is in the top five of men I ever met.  He was quiet.  He would listen. If he wasn’t sure about something he would say so and tell you he would check on it, and follow through.  He was as honest an individual as one would ever meet and as long as I knew him and interacted with him he never would deviate from that honesty.

It was through dealing with him that my opinion of unions changed because he was a Teamster who would stand for the worker and the working ethic.  He was able to defend the un-defendable and let them know when they were in need of changing their work habits.  I used to hear complaints that he was too quiet; that he would not be in the company’s face and acting as a Teamster was suppose to act (we are not all Jimmy Hoffa Sr.) but those complaints soon disappeared because he was effective.  I only knew him through work and our contact in retrospect was pretty sparse but there was a friendship that I felt toward him that was very male – unspoken.  He also had a dry sense of humor that at least with me is a necessity.  He being a very heavy smoker of cigarettes was diagnosed with lung cancer 3 or 4 years ago but continued to work and maintain contact with the Union Hall where he was employed (by now elevated to Vice President) up to the last week or two.  I do not know how those who worked with him closely have been able to get through it.  I know that you keep plugging along but I was a moth on the far outside of the flame and there isn’t a day that passes that I don’t think of him without a hurt.  I know from the experience of losing my father, my father in law and my mom that these feelings soften over time but the greater the affection the longer and harder it is.  Jim will be missed for quite a long time and he will be missed by many who never had a chance to know him.

Ron

Shortly after Jims funeral I learned of another friend’s passing.  Ron was a fellow bus driver I first met in 2000 when I started driving for Laidlaw Transportation.  He was quiet and polite.  I was taken in completely by his stepin fetch it persona that he liked to portray at the time.  A tall friendly man from Alabama who I learned later moved up to West Philadelphia in the late 1960’s.  I will never forget the moment when he taught me the greatest lesson of misreading a person.  I was sitting in the drivers area reading Victor Frankl’s  ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’ and Ron was walking past and he stopped and said “Victor Frankl, that is a really good book.”  Being the first time we really spoke other than the standard pleasantries I was shocked and we ended up having a nice conversation about the book.  Over the years we discussed a lot of subjects and I learned more about him so that I would look forward to seeing him daily.  He was a quiet and very humble man.  He really had a love for his fellow drivers and showed it through various activities.  He would have weekly  “sales” of hot dogs and sausages, hold 50-50 raffles and other various fund raising activities to fund a “Lower Moreland Driver Hall of Fame” banquet where there would be four or five drivers voted into the hall of fame.  The drivers would receive a very nice jacket.  It was a really good time and one that we took for granted in retrospect.  He had a nice sense of humor and was the epitome of a Southern Gentleman to everyone he met.  His smile was infectious.  I often heard that phrase but until he came along I didn’t really get it.

He was forced to leave after 30 odd years of driving a school bus because of an insane law that while not racist in intent has been proven to be racist in action that allows local School Districts to eradicate employees who have any kind of police record no matter how far back.  Remember I related that Ron’s family moved from Alabama to Philadelphia in the late 1960’s; as a teenager and young adult he got involved with some bad youths in West Philly.  Spent some time in jail for a bar fight or whatever; the point is he changed.  He turned his life for the better.  He told me later that the short time he spent in the hoosegow changed him.  He was told by the company that the LMSD did not want him to drive their children anymore after 30 years of driving without any complaints because of something that happened when he was a teenager and young adult.  It broke his heart.  His co-workers tried to talk him into taking them to court but he refused.  It has been a burr in my seat ever since and though I wrote to my State Rep and even talked to him but nothing has been done to correct this injustice.  Ron was the first victim in our location of  this but unfortunately he is not the last.  In the few times I spoke to him since his termination he would snicker about it but I knew that it bothered him.  He passed away in North Carolina, and I would not be surprised if he was thinking about Lower Moreland and his students he drove those many years; he was that kind of man.  Lower Moreland School District did not deserve his service.

I loved those two men.  I loved them for being the men they were, honest and human.  I didn’t know their failures, their shortcomings, their sins.  I only knew them and the effect they had on the rest of us who knew them and I for one miss them.

Thank God for my grandchildren and family this summer.