Bus driver’s final stop

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/03/2020 (2190 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Jerry Zalik stopped by city hall in search of a job 46 years ago, he was presented with an unexpected choice.

The employment application he received listed three career positions the then-23-year-old could sign up for: fireman, policeman or transit.

Without hesitation, Zalik submitted his resumé to the city’s public transportation department, turning the ignition on a career that has included eight mayors, countless kilometres and thousands of passengers.

On Feb. 21, Zalik retired as bus operator No. 2 with Winnipeg Transit, reaching the final marker as one of the longest-serving bus operators in the service’s history.

“I enjoyed it, I liked being out there, and I liked driving,” said Zalik. “I’ve had some wonderful conversations throughout the years on different topics. It was great.

“I don’t know if they’re learning from me, but I’m learning; it made the day go better, the humour made the day go better, so for me that was a good thing.”

Days after friends, family, colleagues and Transit officials celebrated Zalik’s last shift with a send-off at the final stop of his route, the 68-year-old father of two was still buzzing.

“It will hit me at some point,” Zalik said. “I’ve only been away for a short period of time; I still find myself (looking at) the buses to see who is sitting in the seat, what kind of bus it is… I’m sure I’ll get over that, but it’s your job and when you’ve done it that long, it’s hard for you to cut it off immediately.”

In 1974, Zalik had recently returned to Winnipeg, after spending a year living and working on a communal farm in Israel. Zalik’s father didn’t hold back in his insistence the young man get a job, and sent him downtown to find work.

“My dad kept saying the TV, the papers, the radio, they’re saying they’re really short of bus drivers,” Zalik recalled.

“You know, I was looking at him saying, ‘What, me? Drive a bus? Are you crazy?’

“But here I am,” he said with a chuckle.

Paul St. George, Zalik’s colleague and friend, holds Transit operator badge No. 1. The pair started with the authority the same year; at the time, Zalik was Transit’s 1074th operator, while St. George managed to get ahead of him on account of their last names.

“We’ve done it all, we’ve seen it all,” Zalik said.

His career started behind the wheel of the Waverley route — the equivalent of today’s Route 78, Zalik says — and as a rookie, it was a line he would hustle for every shift, and eventually signed on to when seniority allowed.

“I loved it,” Zalik recalled. “You find your niche, you find something you like, and it was perfect for me.”

As his seniority grew and his badge number decreased, Zalik moved on to helm the 71 Arlington through parts of the North End and Garden City, where he made meaningful relationships with passengers he saw on a daily basis for 12 years.

“I was very close with a lot of them. I knew them, they knew my kids,” Zalik said. “We talked about everything on the bus.”

In those days, operators had to memorize the order of routes on the hand-cranked display and the driver’s seats weren’t all that ergonomic, Zalik said, likening the comfort level to that of a milk crate.

Potholes have always existed, air conditioning was a luxury not a need, and drivers still fail to use their signals, but for all the gripes one can have with their workplace, Zalik said he was rarely fazed. He preferred to look on the lighter side, cracking quips and jokes with passengers and co-workers.

“I had a lot of fun with it, and I portrayed that on purpose,” Zalik said. “You can’t just be staid and serious all the time.”

Gail Lamoureux, administrative assistant with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, said Zalik is unique because of his ability to raise the spirits of people around him — a quality not lost within a system that moves 168,000 passengers a day.

“He can always make people laugh in the first few minutes, and is truly one of a kind,” said Lamoureux, who worked with Zalik for 35 years. “He loves the job and he’s all about the job… Jerry is badge No. 2 for a reason.

“He doesn’t have any chip on his shoulder, doesn’t carry any bad feelings. It’s going to be hard to find someone to fill those shoes.”

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca