THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607260210
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 96 lines
When Ralph Kramden came home after a hard day of bus driving, he exhibited the charm of a hungry pit bull, growling at his wife and threatening to send her ``to da moon.''
When Paul Brinkley came home from his bus driving chores, he smiled at his wife and softly asked, ``How you doin'? Been OK?''
Jackie Gleason, as Kramden, had every right to be ill - he was driving on New York City's killer streets.
Brinkley drove in Hampton Roads, mostly Suffolk, for 48 years. He made his last trip last September, a run to Paul D. Camp Community College.
``I liked that job better than anything,'' the 79-year-old retiree said. ``I don't know of any job I would've enjoyed more.''
Brinkley would have enjoyed staying in the driver's seat of a Tidewater Regional Transit bus, but a combination of eyesight problems and arthritis made that impossible.
``I'm sorry that his health wouldn't let him continue working,'' said Thomas G. Hines, director of public works. ``I'd still like to have him in the saddle.''
Brinkley never pushed the horsepower.
``I always drove two minutes late. I didn't want to be accused of running early,'' he said, explaining his consideration. ``A lot of people - I knew what time they went to work. I knew the hours they rode. If I saw 'em coming, I'd wait a minute.''
There is another example of his caring ways.
``I never believed in starting the bus till everyone sat down,'' said Brinkley, who often made runs to Obici Hospital. ``That was to protect pregnant ladies and older people.''
Most people loved him - except one.
``It was in the early days,'' Brinkley said. ``This woman went to the boss. Later, he told me about the visitor and said I should get along with her - if I could.''
The grumpy passenger was a chronic complainer ``who had griped about every driver,'' he said. ``With me, one day, she wanted to go out through the entrance. People were coming in.
``She said she came in that door and was going out that door. I flipped the switch before she could do that,'' Brinkley said. ``I said - you wanna get off at this stop, or further up the road?''
He paused, smiling as he anticipated telling the delicious ending. ``She went out the back door,'' he said.
Otherwise - ``I enjoyed meeting the public, carrying the same people to work,'' said Brinkley, who carried them with safety in mind.
``I never had a ticket. I was involved in some accidents, but I never caused any. I was never charged,'' he said. ``It was always the other person's fault.''
One person rammed into the rear of his bus, causing some minor damage. No choice but to go to court.
Brinkley wound up defending the nervous woman.
``She really couldn't help it. The road was very wet,'' he told the judge.
``Paul probably had the best rapport with the public of any operator we ever had,'' Hines said. ``He made a friend of everybody around him.''
Those friends came from all the areas Brinkley served, all the routes he covered.
``The first one was Norfolk Road, South Suffolk, Saratoga,'' he remembered. ``At that time, three buses ran about 15 minutes apart.''
In those days, buses ran from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m; in those days, there were more passengers.
``We had Ford buses - carried 27 passengers. Today, we have 16-passenger buses,'' Brinkley said. ``I liked the old ones better. They felt more like a bus.''
Those old days were better in another way. Passengers needing change could rely on him to click the nickels, dimes and quarters out of his coin changer.
``Nowadays, you have to have exact change - danger of being robbed,'' said Brinkley, a Johnson County, N.C., native who moved to Suffolk in 1944.
His wife, the former Masiewell Jordan, is from Edenton, N.C.
They married two years after he began his bus driving career with Suffolk City Transit, which was later swallowed by Community Bus Lines, headquartered in Portsmouth.
When that happened, Brinkley worked as a watchman at Planter's. That lasted six weeks. The company wanted him back. Same story with Tidewater Regional Transit, which swallowed Community in the 1970s, serving most of Hampton Roads.
``They took over,'' Brinkley said, ``but there was no personnel change.''
He stayed on, even making a Norfolk run one day a week.
Most of Brinkley's career involved the four- and five-mile trips in and around Suffolk.
``I was full time until 1968,'' he said, ``then I switched to part time - about 15 hours a week - to protect my Social Security money.''
He has gone from the bus driver's seat to a seat in front of the television set at home.
``I started looking at soap operas with my wife,'' Brinkley said. ``Now, I'm hooked - especially on `The Young And the Restless.' ''
He is not young. He is restless.
``I miss the driving,'' he said. ``I miss the people who used to ride with me, and laugh and talk with me.
``I appreciate how good they were to me. I was the same with them.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Paul Brinkley would have enjoyed staying in the driver's seat
longer, but health problems forced him to retire. by CNB