Think your commute is rough? Try driving a bus

It’s not easy being a bus driver, but Bob is glad to have the job.

 “I started with IndyGo after driving tractor-trailers from New York to California. I got tired of being on the road as a truck driver,” he said recently, steering his bus near the end of his route. I’m not using Bob’s real name so he can speak freely, but he’s a friendly guy who enjoys the job and is nice to the passengers.

“I wanted to be home with my family instead of being on the road,” he said. “So when I got into this game it was like, OK, instead of being in a hurry all the time like when you’re driving a truck, I could take my time and take care of the passengers. As Jackie Gleason said, ‘How sweet it is.’”

IndyGo is looking for coach operators as it prepares to start the new Red Line this year and implement a 70 percent expansion in service. The job isn’t for everybody, and the numbers show it. The bus company had 682 total employees at the end of 2018, nearly 20 percent below capacity. In November, the company hired 10 people but lost 11. In December, three left and none were hired, according to a report to the IndyGo board at its January meeting.

The number of drivers isn’t broken out in the report, but Bob and other coach operators say they lose a lot of new hires because dealing with city traffic and angry passengers can be stressful. One woman told me about a passenger dumping a drink on her during a discussion. IndyGo takes passenger complaints seriously, and drivers dread getting written up.

Complaints peak during the summer, maybe because the heat frays everyone’s nerves. July and August saw about 360 complaints each, around double the lowest month, December. Most of the complaints are about “pass-bys,” when the bus doesn’t stop to pick someone up. In their defense, drivers sometimes find it hard to see a person standing in dark clothing at night. Some bus stops cover multiple routes and if someone’s not standing by the sign, a driver might think they’re waiting for a different bus.

IndyGo drivers see a lot. Bob was at a stop light once and looked down to see the driver next to him texting on her phone. The light changed, and her car didn’t move. Bob started to pull away when another car slammed into the woman next to him. He hit his four-ways and pulled over to see if he could help. Both of the other drivers got out of their cars to check the damage - and both were still on their phones, texting.

“You have to laugh sometimes, but it’s also scary,” he said. “We take safety very seriously. People have no idea what we see out here.”

Every organization has problems, but if you ride the bus system in Indy you’ll generally encounter friendly drivers, and will hear riders say “thanks” as they step out the door.

There’s a comment line for riders to speak up. It got 375 total calls in December, including 14 compliments. Most of us never think to jot down a driver number and register a compliment, but maybe we ought to. The number is 317-635-3344.

Indy's paratransit service better, but not there yet

Some good news at last night’s IndyGo board meeting about Open Door.

The Indianapolis paratransit service was running at an on-time rate of 89 percent at the end of December, according to Roscoe Brown, Vice President of operations. That’s compared with 65 percent in August.

WTHR-TV reported in November that the bus company had withheld $960,307 in payments to contractor Transdev for poor service.

Brown said IndyGo has withheld October payments, but released payments for November and December “minus liquidated damages.” Transdev is on track to achieve its contract goal of 95 percent on-time performance, Brown said.

A representative for the company said the improvements had been achieved by adjusting the “run-cut,” or drive scheduling. Peak demand time for Open Door is 7-8 a.m., but most of the drivers were starting work at 9 a.m.

“They had already missed the party,” the representative told board members.

IndyGo is issuing an RFP to look at best practices for providing paratransit service and to make recommendations for improving Open Door. Board members will also be visiting the Transdev operation to better understand how it functions, Brown said.

Elsewhere, President and CEO Michael A. Terry, announced that he is departing the agency.

“After 15 years of service, I’m going to be leaving,” he told the board. “It’s time. The organization is in excellent shape and it’s time to pass the baton.”

Terry, a 1974 graduate of DePauw University, previously was a deputy commissioner for the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles before joining IndyGo in 2003 as Vice President for business development and marketing.

“I’m not leaving right away,” he told the board. “I’ll be here to support the search and the succession plan.”

After the meeting Terry reflected on what the job had meant to him.

“This is a mission,” he said. “We’re doing very important work for Indianapolis, and we’re making progress. That’s very good to see.”

Looking back: the bus passenger column

Bus drivers to remember a favorite passenger -- and friend

Maude Bryant stood at a bus stop on East Washington Street, about to die.

Amid all the other traffic on that busy street, a speeding Chevy Blazer was headed her way.

She held a box of chicken from the restaurant across the street. She had a monthly bus pass. She probably had a pack of gum to give her bus driver, because that's what she liked to do.

It was just before 2 p.m. on Saturday.

What happened next, you may have seen in the news -- the 76-year-old woman run down on the sidewalk, and the SUV driver charged with reckless homicide and causing a traffic death while intoxicated.

This is about what happened before Saturday.

Maude was her name, but everybody called her Sam. She had the mental capacity of a 12-year-old. You could call that a deficiency, but friends saw instead the smile and enthusiasm of a happy child.

Some of her best friends were city bus drivers. She rode the bus just to have something to do sometimes, and they looked after her.

When Sam had trouble handling her money, driver Jeannie Kemerly stepped in. She organized things and put Sam on a budget, so she could live on her own and not have to go to an institution.

Sam became an honorary member of the family. Because Kemerly's three daughters had boys' nicknames -- Charlie, Oscar and George -- she wanted one, too. And that's how she became Sam.

When Kemerly died last year, one of her daughters, Cheryl Yarnell, took over as unofficial guardian, helping Sam remain independent.

On Thanksgiving and Easter, Sam could usually be found at the home of another IndyGo driver, Rhuperdia Chandler.

"I try to help everybody, but I loved Sam. She was family," Chandler said. "She loved everybody. I've never known anybody like her before."

Chandler heard about the crash while getting ready for church Sunday morning. IndyGo called her at home because police were contacting Sam's family of bus drivers trying to find the woman's real relatives.

She does have a brother and a sister. But both are in other cities and in poor health. So bus drivers were pitching in for a memorial service today.

It's at Shirley Brothers Irving Hill Chapel, 5377 E. Washington St. Visitation is from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., with a memorial service at 7.

That's only a block from the spot where Sam died. Friends have put up some red and pink artificial flowers and a toy mouse on a utility pole.

Sam had been standing next to the pole, waiting for her bus. The impact from the Blazer knocked her 60 feet. The thought of that made it hard for Chandler to sleep this week. More than anything, she hoped that Sam didn't suffer. Maybe, she hoped, her friend never even saw the truck.

Police said the Blazer was traveling at least 51 mph -- 75 feet per second.

It went onto the sidewalk just a few feet before the pole. In other words, everything happened in a split second.

In a cloud with no silver lining, the friends of Sam had to settle for this:

She lived a good life. Then, thank God, it ended before she knew it.

By John Strauss

The Indianapolis Star

May 2, 2003

 

Places you forgot you had been

It's interesting to see some of the things you find on the way to looking up other things.

Realized during a search recently that Google was archiving image files of newspaper stories, including some of the pieces during my years with Associated Press as a newsman, correspondent and news editor in Indiana, Tennessee and New York.

Not included are the 560 columns for the Indianapolis Star from 2000-03, the enterprise work on Iraq War veterans from 2003-05 or the online work as an editor and multimedia producer for IndyStar.com from '05-08 before joining Ball State University.

Three days on an Ohio River barge towhttp://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fDoqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZEcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6716,31410&dq=john-strauss+ohio-river&hl=en

Driving in a demolition derby
https://tcom610.blogspot.com/2011/08/driving-in-demolition-derby.html

Bus drivers remember a favorite passenger - and friend
https://tcom610.blogspot.com/2014/11/looking-back-bus-passenger-column.html

Preview of the 1990 World Chess Championship in New York
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jCIVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KgcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4908,7284006&dq=john-strauss+chess&hl=en

Meeting Lech Walesa in Poland
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FDEqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=R0cEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5161,309125&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

Prison riot at Pendleton
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PUwVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FuQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2009,155066&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

My day with the mercenaries in the prison-break caper http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8kIaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NyQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5914,2721237&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

Talking to country singer Steve Earle in New York
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pekcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=11gEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5281,1681403&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

Two Black Hawk helicopters collide at Fort Campbell http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=tPolAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gvwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6928,3730565&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xEMaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=iSQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5333,2774584&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

McDonald's manager was killed after offering himself as a hostage during a robbery.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8kkaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=byYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6728,2753828&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

Air Force jet crashes into the Indy Ramada Inn
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=S8ElAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qvwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3981,1218087&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

Ryan White confronts fear and prejudice in his Indiana home townhttp://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2_QwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=l90FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1228,5382666&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AL8MAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DWYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5191,6472113&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=EQMsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aG0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=2612,6166533&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

Fort Campbell ceremony to honor the Gander crash victims
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6z4dAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nKYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3440,5794334&dq=john-strauss&hl=en


Sent to a Klan rally in Tennessee: http://bit.ly/a96B1A
 
Horrendous Stan Fox crash at the start of the 1995 Indy 500
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=5MYRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pOwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5881,7401833&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

Plane crash that killed entire University of Evansville basketball team remembered
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FUYjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=APADAAAAIBAJ&pg=6896,9644884&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

Two Crows Yates was a pretty cool guy. Remember the story of the frog sisters.http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=EIIyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=y-YFAAAAIBAJ&pg=7031,2674241&dq=john-strauss+associated-press&hl=en

Cookie Man, the cab driver
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gyshAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BVMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5029,1796323&dq=john-strauss&hl=en

0-0-0

Here's the Indy Star memo that Romenesko ran when I left the newspaper:


http://www2.poynter.org/forum/default.asp?id=Memos&DGPCrSrt=&DGPCrPg=11
7/9/2008 2:47:55 PM

John Strauss leaves Indianapolis Star for Ball State job

From: Jon Sweeney/INI
To: StarNewsroom
Date: Monday, July 07, 2008 08:46PM
Subject: The Star’s loss is Ball State’s gain...

John Strauss, an editor on The Star’s Online desk, is leaving the newspaper to join the journalism faculty at Ball State University.

John has worked at The Star for 10 years, including stints as City Hall reporter, metro columnist, nonprofits reporter and as an enterprise reporter and “super GA,” traveling to Texas and Florida for the narrative story of a young Hoosier soldier’s recovery from wounds suffered in the Iraq War.

He was part of the team formed three years ago to enhance The Star’s online coverage, serving as the group’s multimedia editor and now as a content editor and as Sunday day city editor on the print side.

John was previously a supervising editor and correspondent for The Associated Press in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and New York City, and before that worked in local television as a reporter and weekend anchor.

At Ball State he will teach writing and reporting, and serve as faculty advisor to The Ball State Daily News, the school’s independent, student-run newspaper.

John starts in Muncie on Aug. 25. We’re still working out the timing of his departure from The Star, as well as the specifications for his sheet cake.

Driving in the demolition derby

(This was a first-person sidebar to a national story on derbies, the kind of crazy night on the job that sticks with you a long time later. When I was an AP correspondent, the occasional feature like this was a welcome break from some of the serious coverage of disasters we were often assigned. (A look at some more typical stories: http://tcom610.blogspot.com/2011/01/some-of-my-stories.html)

Novice drive takes his shot in demolition derby at fair

(John Strauss, the AP’s Evansville correspondent, drove a demolition derby car at the Posey County Fair and lived to write about it.)

NEW HARMONY, Ind. – Joe Downs had the car ready for the demolition derby: the windows and all but one of the seats were out, the hood was lashed down good and the doors were chained shut.

“Don’t be nervous,” he said, watching me fumble with the straps on the crash helmet. “Remember, if the engine catches fire, climb out on the roof. If the fire’s inside, go out on the hood. Whatever you do, don’t get off the car or you’ll get run over.”

Some choice: Say with a flaming 1977 Dodge Monaco or try running through a dozen rampaging jalopies doing their best to wallop each other.

“Just give them a good show,” said Downs, who works at the Evansville junkyard where the car was bought for $35. He taught me the basics:

Reverse gear is important in a demolition derby. Hit other cars with the back of your car to protect your radiator. Try to bash in somebody else’s front end and take out their cooling system. With luck, you can hide in the clouds of steam from exploding radiators.

But the Monaco’s jury-rigged shift stick jammed at the start, trapping my car against the telephone poles laid down to circle the field. Off the passenger side a station wagon hurtled backwards toward me.

BAM!

The Monaco shuddered violently and then shook clear, full throttle in reverse, toward the center of the cfield with the station wagon in pursuit.

BAM!

A three-car pileup in heavy traffic near the middle killed the Dodge’s engine. The car had to be hot-wired using cables on the floor as the sedan jerked back and forth under the pounding of the battles around me.

My car’s engine finally started and I was able to get away and take a couple shots of my own. I feinted, jabbed, parried, got some good contact and started to get the feel of it.

The Dodge somehow made it to the final round but got hammered badly there, eliminated finally when the driveshaft broke on one of the telephone poles.

If there was one bright moment, one glimpse of the thrill the regular drivers get out of this mayhem, it came early on – as I scrambled to keep from being disqualified for not hitting another car within the time limit, two minutes.

As the announcer was telling the crowd I only had seconds to go, the Dodge leapt forward, picking up speed toward a slow-moving car 40 yards away.

Time was almost out. The crowd, knowing this was my first derby, was cheering and I felt like a high school kid sprinting for the end zone.

I made the play, creaming the station wagon head-on to stay in the game.

The crowd roared. The head-on crash wasn’t smart – but it was a good show.

Aug. 7, 1987

Cab driver Steve the Hippie

I went to Albuquerque in 2009 to speak to the New Mexico Press Association and met a loquacious cab driver on the way to the hotel. The creative challenge was to help tell his story. Or stories. (He had a lot to say.) Beneath the gruff, slacker exterior was a bright guy with a lot of pride in how his daughters turned out. You'll see him swallow hard after he talks about them. Next question.

Things you can learn in prison

A long night at an Indiana prison riot offered a good lesson in journalism and human relations when I was on the street years ago.

This came up recently when I came across my story dictated from a telephone booth at the Indiana Reformatory at Pendleton northeast of Indianapolis.

Here's the top:

PENDLETON, Ind. - Authorities today regained control of a prison block where knife-wielding inmates rebelled in protest of conditions, injuring five guards and holding two others hostage for more than 15 hours. A third hostage was released earlier.

The last of the guards was released shortly after midnight Friday after Department of Correction officials agreed to meet some of the prisoners' demands.

"I'm OK," said one hostage, corrections officer Carl Ingalls of New Castle, as he waited early today at the Indiana Reformatory entrance for his wife.

Five guards were hospitalized with stab wounds, with one listed in very serious condition, authorities said...


Things I remember about that now:


- Somebody told me that night that the guards at any prison only have control of the place as long as the inmates let them. The inmates generally comply because they get to run the society inside, and any rebellion usually brings a very tough response. At Pendleton that night, the inmates had enough control to force administrators to negotiate. And they figured out what conference room we in the media were filing from. Soon they began calling the phone to tell us directly about their complaints. They were smart, organized and very violent.

- For a reporter on the scene there were challenges that hardly exist today. Laptops were rare so we dictated stories and updates by telephone. You did that by assembling your notes and quotes, writing yourself a lead to get started and then weaving the rest of the narrative together as you went. That's a skill that could be helpful again today when we're talking about frequent Web updates.

- We had no cell phones, so to file an update we had to use the pay phones in the lobby (after administrators disabled the conference room phones we had been using, because the inmates were calling us). There were just three pay phones. As midnight arrived and it appeared the inmates were about to release their hostages I grabbed one of the pay phones and called my office, holding the line so I we could get the update out right away. Other reporters did not like this, so I pretended to be in a heated conversation with somebody at the other end. As soon as the last hostage was released we hit the wire in time for morning newspapers that had been holding their pages.

- Don't freak out your sources. After the prison was secured again we naturally wanted to talk to some of the correctional officers who had been held hostage. No way, administrators said. They were a bit shaken up and were still being debriefed anyway. An hour later I was still on the scene, in the tradition of wire service reporters who have to stick around well after the cycle closes in case there are questions. The TV cameras had packed up and the place was clearing out when I saw a door open and a young guy in his 20s walk out. He wore the uniform of a correctional officer but his tie was askew, his hair mussed and his face pale and haggard. I sidled up to him.

"You OK?" I said.

"Yeah, I'm OK," he replied.

"You were one of the guys they were holding hostage?" I asked gently.

He nodded and told me his name, and then we both looked up. A frantic, wild-eyed man ran up to us - one of my competitors from another wire service.

"Hey! Are you one of the prison guards?" he said in a loud voice. After the very quiet start of our chat it sounded like this guy was yelling. My guard lowered his head and mumbled that he had to go meet his wife. The interview was over.

That moment with the former hostage was brief but it made the third paragraph of our national story. It was also a great lesson in human relations. My colleague hadn't meant to blow the interview: Had he been cool and just eased into the situation we could have both gotten a first-person account from inside the riot.

The gentle touch often pays off. That's a principle that's worked in a lot of situations far from the prison over the years.

- John Strauss, jcs1122@yahoo.com

Storytelling: The Brave, 7th Grade Viking Warrior

Jules Loh

(AP Photo)

(From 2010)
Jules Loh, retired great AP feature writer, has died. Read his AP obit here: http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/101746968.html

Here's his famous, 600-word profile of revenue agent "Big Six" Henderson:


BIG SIX HENDERSON

BY JULES LOH
Associated Press witer

LOUISVILLE , Ky. (AP) - In Kentucky‘s moonshine hollows, one name still strikes awe: Big Six Henderson

Big Six Henderson busted up more stills in his time than anybody in history. If that is not so, at least it is the legend. When moonshiners talk about Big Six Henderson, the line between truth and legend blurs.

“I don’t know what the record is,” Big Six Henderson allowed, thinking back on his days of prowling around in alien corn.

“I know I raided more than 5,000 stills and sent more than 5,600 moonshiners to prison. You could figure it up. I’ve kept a copy of my daily reports for every day I was a revenue agent.”

That was for a span of 28 years until he retired a few years ago, and it figures up to roughly a still every other day. The saga of Big Six Henderson, though, is hardly told in dry statistics.

The moonshiners Big Six Henderson tracked down imparted heroic dimensions to him and respected him as much as they feared him.

“Mr. Big Six,” one woman said when he came to haul her husband off to jail for a third time, “we’re proud to have folks know we know you.” More than a few moonshiners named their children for Big Six Henderson.

One even named his mash barrel for him, painted “Big Six” on it and talked to it fondly.

“Good morning, Big Six,” he said to the barrel one day. “Why don’t we just run ourselves off a little batch, you and I. What do you say to that, Big Six?’’

“That you’re caught, Thurlow,” Big Six Henderson said, stepping out of the mist.

At 75, Big Six Henderson is still impressive to behold. He is a bear of a man, 6-foot-4, with a think bush of white hair and eyes the color of wet turquoise. His mother named him William; Big Six was the name he picked up when he was going to law school and throwing a baseball after the fashion of Christy “Big Six” Mathewson.

His career as a lawyer was a rapid as his fastball.

“My first and only case was defending a guy who broke into a warehouse. He was guilty as hell, but I got him off. I decided if I had to make a living that way I might as well be a holdup man and at least be honest about it.”

There is nothing complicated about Big Six Henderson’s sense of justice.

So he became a federal treasury agent, a “revenooer” as they are known in the hills, and went it with a single-mindedness that became the stuff of myth.

Big Six Henderson can smell a still from 10 miles off. “Actually about two miles if the wind is right,” Big Six Henderson corrected. Big Six Henderson can shoot a pistol out of your hand at a hundred yards. “Well, the way that got started was by accident. I was aiming at the man’s belt buckle.”

It was no myth, though, that he could creep through the woods as quiet as smoke in his green raiding suit and could run like a deer for miles. Usually he didn’t have to run after his quarry.

“Homer, halt!” he shouted at one fleeing moonshiner. The man froze in his tracks.

“I’m halted, Big Six, I’m halted.”

He was a legend in his time, all right, and not just because of his uncanny skill and his zealotry. He also has a reputation for fair play and decent treatment of the moonshiners he caught.

“I never regarded them as doing something evil, just illegal,” Big Six Henderson said, “and I never abused them.” The big man thumbed through a sheaf of his faded daily reports, looking wistfully at the names.

“Killed a few, but never abused them.”