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'WHY I LOVE BUSES SO MUCH!'

 
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Mr. Linsky
BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee



Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 5071
Location: BRENTWOOD, CA. - WOODMERE, N.Y.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:51 am    Post subject: 'WHY I LOVE BUSES SO MUCH!' Reply with quote

WHY I LOVE BUSES SO MUCH!


I answered this question in an essay that I had done way back when at BusTalk,net and I would like to reprise it for you at this time.

All of us on the ‘bus channels’ have our personal reasons for what seem to be love affairs with buses both past and present. I can’t tell you what yours are, but I can certainly enumerate mine;

It all started back in 1933 (a number of years before I was born) when Green Bus Lines (NY) was granted temporary franchises to operate six cross town routes in Manhattan with the stipulation that they provide 113 brand new buses for the service.

The depression years had not faded and money and credit were still very tight when Green Line found itself looking for cash to purchase what amounted to well over $200,000 worth of equipment (a lot of money in those days).

At first, the Board of Directors voted to assess the stockholder drivers to meet the obligation but instead met with deaf ears!

It was then decided to solicit outside investors to take up the slack and that’s where my father entered the picture.

My dad and Bill Cooper, then President of the company, were distant cousins and close friends from childhood and, while Mr. ‘C’ was in the throws of building a transportation empire, my father had already become a successful physician in Brooklyn by the early thirties.

To make a long story short, my father’s $10,000 along with like investments from several other friends of the company saved the day and the new buses began to roll in right of schedule!

All of the private investors (not to be confused with the stockholder drivers) gained seats on Green Line’s board and their dividends came in the form of handsome payments for attending monthly meetings.

Now, my father didn’t know any more about running a bus company then Mr. ‘C’ knew about removing an appendix but these so called meetings were really Saturday morning social gatherings complete with a breakfast of lox and bagels and a nice check to deposit in the bank!

Theses gatherings went on for many years and at a point in the late forties when I was about eight or nine my father decided to take me along one Saturday and I enjoyed it so much that I stayed!

I remember that I had breakfast with the ‘boys’ and then was excused for the business end of the session and taken down to the garage floor with all the interesting buses to see.

But what really did it for me were the bright red and cream jobs that sat in a junk pile in front of the garage (which, incidentally, was still at Cornell Park). I now realize that they were old ACF’s and Twins from Triboro and Jamaica.

The post script here is of course the fact that I went to every meeting thereafter and even learned how to drive at the age of fourteen on the 'Green Hornet' (that’s another story).

Mr. Linsky – Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, NY
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