Life's Turns and Lessons Riding the 65 Bus
By Michael Welt
Far from the University of California, and the magnificent hills that lie behind it, the streets of Berkeley turn cold and commercial. The traffic roars past the stores on San Pablo Avenue. On Hearst Avenue and Fourth Street, Mexican day laborers stand in clusters of five or six, waiting for work.
And on a particularly deserted street, behind the Amtrak station, the 65 bus
is ready to begin its journey. Over the course of 45 minutes it will weave its
way from under a highway overpass up past the university campus and into the
hills that stand watch over the city's inhabitants.
The bus driver, Candace Rogers, is all smiles and friendly gestures. She lives
in El Cerrito but prefers the towns of Missouri where she grew up. "The
people are friendlier," says Rogers.
The bus she is driving is 11 years old and shows its age as it lumbers up the steep incline on Hearst Avenue. In another few years it will have to be replaced or have its engine refurbished, Rogers says. That won't matter to her though. "It'll be here" she says, "but I won't."
In the winter, Rogers will begin her online bachelors program in accounting. She is about 30 years old and has worked for AC Transit for eight years. She began driving to help pay her way through junior college but, as she puts it, "the money got good and then-" and she slits her throat with her finger.
"You can't really live out here," says Rogers, whose rent has nearly
doubled in El Cerrito since she moved there. "The cabinet doors are all
off. The wood is rotten."
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From atop the Berkeley Hills, along the twisting turns of Grizzly Peak, Jackie Kons drives her empty 65 bus back towards the Bay.
"Over the long haul, driving these buses takes its wear and tear on your body," she says. "You've got to be careful because there's not a whole lot of places to use the bathroom."
It is at least half a mile from the bus's first stop at the Lawrence Hall of Science before the first passengers board.
Jean Ratjeans, a woman who appears to be in her seventies, sits near the driver.
She has lived in the wealthy hilled neighborhood for fifty years. "I came
here when I went to Cal and found that I liked the area," she says.
"They had very good service when I moved here," says Ratjeans. Now she says she helps restless bus travelers sometimes if she passes them in her car. "I feel sorry for the people when I see them on Sundays. I give them a ride."
Ratjeans says she was an elementary school teacher in Richmond before retiring 10 years ago, when the school system had financial troubles.
"Elementary school teacher? Is that right?" asks Kons. "You might know my Mom," she says, but Ratjeans doesn't.
Ratjeans says retiring at the time was the only way to insure she would keep her health benefits.
"It ended up they didn't take them away," says Ratjeans, "but they scared enough of us and three to four times as many people retired that year as usual."
"I became bitter," she says. "I realized that I had misjudged them." Then she adds, "But I learned one more lesson."
Kons has learned her lessons, too.
"I know a lot of people love this job," Kons says. "They say, 'You don't have a boss here.' There are 48 people on this bus. They're my bosses."
And as she talks her bus meanders down the hill, through the scenic territory of north Berkeley, until it finally nears a highway overpass by the Amtrak station and the Bay, where Kons will exit her bus, stretch her legs for a few minutes, and drive back up the hill.