Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993 TAG: 9401040008
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY WALKER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEW|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``Four, five, six, seven - was that an eight-dollar bill? ... Eight and two's 10, and that's a-plenty ...''
Halsey has put a note on the window - ``I AM RETIRING TODAY'' - and his long-time customers are wishing him well.
One customer hands him a Mr. Pibb from the drink machine. ``This is for me? Boy that's nice, Jimmy! Thank you, Jimmy!''
``Are you happy to be retiring?''
``I'm as happy as a bald-headed bumblebee in a clover patch.''
\ As they approach Halsey's window, the blank urban faces break into smiles.
An old man in a porkpie hat smiles hugely, most of his lower teeth missing. ``It's the last time I'll talk to Artie Halsey,'' he says.
``I'll see you on the street, and I'll still talk to you,'' Halsey replies.
In between serving customers, Halsey reminisces about his life and his 40 years with the bus company.
Artie Halsey was born in North Carolina on Jan.1, 1929, and moved with his family to Roanoke in 1946. One of his early jobs was building roads.
One day he was working at the intersection of Williamson Road and Orange Avenue, and a city bus drove by. A young woman on the bus, Claudine Hall, saw him and said to a friend,``I'd like to meet that guy.''
They met. Two-and-a-half years later, Halsey married her.
``Forty-five years later, I'm still married,'' he says, his dark eyes intensifying.
He came to work for Safety Motor Transit - the forerunner of Valley Metro - on July3, 1953. In those days, city bus drivers drove students to and from school, in addition to regular routes.
Halsey's black hair and black mustache, and his singing, reminded the kids of Tennessee Ernie Ford. They called him ``Tennessee Ernie'' or ``Safety Motor Ernie.''
He sang ``Sixteen Tons'' and ``Big Bad John'' and imitated the kids' favorite cartoon characters - Bugs Bunny, Huckleberry Hound, Deputy Dog.
``The school kids and me, we sang every new jingle that came on TV. The Dr Pepper jingle was the most favorite, because it was easiest to remember.''
He sings: ``Dr Pepper is the friendly pepper-upper, it never never never lets you down ... ''
``He was always a driver you'd like to ride with,'' recalls Neal Thomasson, a Valley Metro driver who attended Jefferson High School. ``He always kept kidding with the kids. I've never seen him in a bad mood.''
``We had little questions we asked each other,'' Halsey recalls. ``We asked each other, `Why did the elephant paint his toenails red?'
``So he can hide in the strawberry patch.''
``Did you ever find an elephant in your strawberry patch? It works, don't it!'' He laughs at the corny joke.
These were the days of segregation. A sign in the front of the bus said ``Whites To The Front, Colored To The Rear.''
``We didn't enforce segregation,'' Halsey says. ``Whoever got on the bus first chose their seats. To me and the schoolchildren on the bus, it made no difference.''
To generations of schoolchildren, white and black, Halsey was a friend. ``All the kids I've seen grow up and become doctors, lawyers, city councilors, bankers, business people ...''
He drove kids to school from 1953 to 1975. In 1985, he quit driving and became a bus information officer.
\ This day, he's holding forth for the last time from the ticket window in Campbell Court.
``Some people come in now, I don't know their names, but I can tell them where they got on and off the bus 35 years ago. This fellow right here [a man with red hair and beard], he rode with me when he was 12 or 13, and he had two crutches, and I helped him on the bus.''
``Oh, it's been 20 years or so,'' says the man.
In January, Valley Metro will give Halsey a retirement party. After a lifetime amid diesel fumes, after all the sunny days, the rainy days, the songs of children, the joyful rides from school on the last day before Christmas, Halsey no longer will work for the bus company.
He won't be idle. There's the vegetable garden, the flower garden, the cattle he owns with his son, the '52 Chevy pickup that needs restoring, the patio his wife wants him to build and 47 years worth of hunting and fishing to catch up on.
There's also family. He and Claudine have three children and seven grandchildren. He is ``Pa-paw'' to his grandchildren and all the other children who come to his house on Richard Avenue in Northeast Roanoke.
Like Mr. Chips, like George Bailey, Artie Halsey has brightened thousands of lives in a thousand small ways. ``If you say `Good morning,' that may be the only thing a person needs,'' he says.
``I am not a psychologist or philosopher. I've just watched people and tried to serve their need.''
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB