Getting Off the Bus After 76 Years of Work
After working for 76 years at public transit agencies, bus maintenance attendant Arthur Winston celebrated his first day of retirement and his 100th birthday Wednesday at a party in the cavernous Los Angeles MTA garage named after him.
There to mark his achievements were about 400 colleagues, members of the media, schoolchildren and family. The Laker Girls cheered, "Go Arthur!" A Metropolitan Transportation Authority choir belted out gospel songs. Schoolchildren gave him a handmade book that pronounced the slight retiree "our star."
All the while, the man almost everyone calls "Mr. Winston" grinned serenely under his black fedora. The crowd whistled and clapped in honor of his longevity and work ethic. Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, Winston had missed just one day of work: the day in 1988 that his wife, Frances, died.
Winston, seated on a folding chair in a brown vested suit and shiny gold tie, gazed out at the sea of orange MTA vests and blue work shirts, at TV cameras and at a bus that had delivered him to this party with the constant punctuality that marked his career. Legs crossed, weathered hands folded in his lap, Winston soaked up the scene of silver and orange balloons floating everywhere. He never stopped smiling.
Not after 90 minutes of speeches from bosses and dignitaries, not after 45 more minutes of celebrity-like photo ops, with one well-wisher after another leaning in for a picture with him. Finally, the man of few words was asked why he was retiring. Why now?
"Oh," he whispered with a shrug, "100 years seemed like enough."
Indeed, Winston said, he had a few plans for his next century. He would be gardening at his home south of the Santa Monica Freeway, volunteering in the community -- and exploring the city riding the Metro buses that he and, later, his crews, cleaned daily.
"I'm gonna cool down a bit first," he said with raspy voice -- one of only three sentences he uttered during the hoopla.
Winston will not only play passenger. He will continue driving his faded green Tercel, his friends said. He recently passed his driving test for a license, said Bertha Crear, the mother of one of Winston's crew members.
"We had him over for dinner -- I made neck bones; I know he likes neck bones -- and he was so much fun," Crear said, her son Lester nodding beside her. Mother and son erupted in laughter retelling Winston's dinner table talk, including his scolding of a woman who worked at the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
