Bus driver retires after 50 years behind the wheel
Jerome Watters started driving before buses had phones for emergencies
After spending 50 years behind the wheel of an Ottawa bus, Jerome Watters has one piece of advice for making the most out of the job.
"You have to be a people person," he said. "In order to enjoy this job, you have to enjoy people. And I've had a lot of really interesting people over the years."
Watters started driving in 1974, and has had so many passengers that some who he picked up as students are now his peers, driving buses for OC Transpo.
Now entering his well-earned retirement, Watters is reflecting on the changes that the city — and its buses — have gone through over the decades.
What's changed
The most obvious change in his job, Watters said, is the buses themselves.
When Watters started in 1974, city buses were exclusively diesel, making them "rattly" and "noisy" to drive.
Even before drivers got on the road, the experience could be unpleasant, Watters said.
"When you started the garage up in the morning, you couldn't hardly hear. You couldn't hardly see inside the garage, it was so smoky," he said.
In contrast, the latest electric buses are "great to drive," Watters said.
"They're quiet, very quiet. You don't even hear them coming," he said.
And new buses have another modern convenience: phones.
Before portable phones (let alone cellphones), if Watters' bus broke down somewhere remote, he just had to wait for the next bus to come along and help him.
If it happened in a residential area, he'd start knocking on peoples' doors.
"You'd rap on their door, and you'd say 'Can I use your phone to call work? I'm [broken] down,'" Watters remembered with a chuckle.
Wisdom for new drivers
But dealing with the public can also come with some drawbacks, and Watters said he tried to prepare rookie drivers for that eventuality.
"As I tell any new drivers, the first thing you do before you leave the house in the morning is spray on your Teflon coating," he said.
"So that when somebody yells at you, screams at you, you just let it wash off. Because we don't know — they may have just found out their mother or father has got cancer and only has two months to live."
Though he said he'll miss the people — both his coworkers and the public — most of all, Watters is looking forward to whatever the future holds
And he won't be leaving Ottawa's streets behind entirely; he plans to work for his brother's friend a few days a week as a street sweeper, noting how he's "so comfortable" behind the wheel.
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