My old man was a bus driver. All anyone under 25 getting on in Loughrea had to say was ‘how’s Mike’ and he’d wave them on for free. He used to put his lunch box /coat on the front seat for anyone he knew. Free travel came at a cost. You had to talk hurling to him.
He had an exemption from the smoking ban. Anyone who went up to him complaining about another passenger smoking were likely to see his hand out the window and him trying to blow smoke out the right side of his mouth.
Best of luck with the bus driving career change @Pirlo & @maurice_brown.
Pirlo would make a great Wexford GAA bus driver. @Pirlo, you’re younger than me so you might not remember him but there was a chap that used to drive the Harriers’ bus for Busher’s back when we were children. Jasper was his name, real Wexford town & had the worst language. An absolute character. Would be calling us all sorts of names for being rowdy on the bus. “Shut the fuck up yiz little cunts or I’m stopping the bus!” I think he died a relatively young man himself.
Great stuff. My Dad is a retired(ish) long distance haulier. He still does a lot of charity runs, recently just back from Ukraine but has spent years going to Bosnia, Kosova, Belarus, Albania etc.
He helps out one of the bus companies in Kilkenny when they are stuck for drivers (which is all the time)and he could work every day if he wanted to.
He’s flat out this time of year with school tours and he’d say the bus parks are full of “oul lads like me”.
As you are there… Any hope for the ash?
The view on the roadside is quite depressing this past two weeks round east Limerick.
Nothing immediate. The landscape saddens me daily. Watching the older ash literally turn grey is so depressing.
One thing we are attempting now is coppicing older groups of trees, some in the proximity of houses etc. in lieu of wholesale felling.
This is a long term experiment to see how they react.
There’s ongoing work trying to breed disease resistant ash but there have been a few setbacks
Name rings a bell, will find out more over the weekend. Ya know his surname?
It’s mad that drivers have to retire at 70. There’s many a lad who’d have all their capabilities and be able to do school runs. Should have to do a specific bus medical test for it and leave them on. Some lads just don’t want to retire and want to keep busy.
Galway no different. Looks worse than. Id expected.