Deke vs. Patrick; I Won

The very first FTDS pic. I was a mini-runner, a newbie driving
 Line 1-Vermont. It was a wonderful route to break in on, and I miss it still.

Deke's (Final) Note: I'm a spirit now. I haunt the body and mind of Patrick, who created me. Yeah, I went haywire a few years. Lost the mojo. Patrick's anguish and anger fed my writing. It became unlike what I had originally intended for this blog. So, I had to die so that Patrick could be free of my negative karma. I'm a bad influence on this cat. I drank Scotch whisky all night long, and died behind the wheel. Patrick killed me so that his writing could live. You'll see my demise when he finally finishes that damn book of his.

Now, I ask you give my alter ego the same consideration you bestowed upon me for eight years. Patrick helped write my book. He spent 18 painstaking months making sure my words fit into 310 pages. He could have omitted a few ugly chapters, but I stubbornly insisted they were worthy of the project. Now, it's his turn.

I kept him from writing these past six months, in hopes his soul would quiet down and allow his creativity to overtake my intense negativity. Instead, it only frustrated him because transit workers worldwide have suffered immensely the past two years. So much has happened that "we" have not documented here in Portland. My ghost and Patrick have argued the past few weeks over the future of FromTheDriverSide. He wants to describe his feelings, which actually defy proper homage. We came to a mutual agreement: he'll bash dipshidiots when necessary, as he describes his life as a bus operator.

Me? I'm just gonna fade into Historical Portlandia. I had my 17.45 minutes of flame. It was fun, but it's done. Please lift Patrick up more than you did me. He has a lot to offer. It was he who found creativity inside the doldrums and terror of transit. He mourned the humor I left behind as anger controlled my writing. He refused to put me on a pedestal because my words either punched too hard or not nearly enough. I was good practice, but became an obsession for his mortal soul. I'm neither mortal nor moral. He is both, or so he hopes. 

Enough of this dual personality bullshit. Patrick has killed me, and since he created me, so I must fade away. Like any evil spirit, I must find a new host. I wanted to kill Patrick but he was too strong. In the end, I have to admit it: kindness in a spirit will overpower negativity when given half the chance. When he forcefully stopped being Deke last July, my grass was burnt. Too bad he couldn't get high on it. Instead, he became wiser. 

Oh well. It was fun while I inhabited him. So long, folks.

* * * * *

One of my favorite blog images.
Clackamas Community College, Line 33.

Good fucking grief, Deke. Shut up and die, willya? Thanks for eight years, but we're done. Begone, beastie.

Whew! Now that part of me has slipped away, I can be ME. Finally. I've missed you, FTDS Fans. Mostly, I've missed writing here. As I told my dear friend Tommy Transit, this keyboard is my innermost therapist. And cri-min-et-ly, I have needed a therapist the past year more than I needed to lose my virginity in 1977. 

It has been a battle between pseudonym versus self the past six months. I began blogging almost nine years ago as a simple writing exercise. It blossomed into a worldwide phenomenon, then a book. It became an obsession in which I began to value "hits" more than content. My apologies, folks. It took a few slaps upside the head from my Beloved to set me straight. She hated being called "Mrs. Blue", even though I thought it was cute. She altogether did not think that. When it all got too heavy, so I just stopped writing. That was more painful than you realize. Like losing a best friend, a trusted therapist. 

Part of me thinks the stoppage was a mistake. Transit workers have suffered indescribably the past two years of this damned pandemic. Yet we're still here, braving a microscopic assassin which has claimed the lives of too many of our worldwide total. All the while, I should have been writing as the wheels rolled. It was all I could do just to drag my ass to work, let alone re-live it after endless stress-filled shifts. It was easier pre-COVID, although that's hard to imagine after all that was described here. 

As the pandemic grew, so did my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I wasdrinking too heavily and having nightmares, day-mares and countless psychiatric meltdowns due to numerous run-ins with mentally-ill challengers to my roll. Additionally, the worry about contracting this damned virus given my constant contact with the public washed or not so much consumed too much of my strength.

Friends have seen parents die. Add the grief of losing my father in 2018, my little brother with Down Syndrome imprisoned (quarantined) in his own home for 20 months resulting in his health and mental well-being deteriorating too quickly. We almost lost him to a likely-depression-induced illness. Top it all off with one of my closest, long-time dear friends being diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer. National politics, local disastrous bullshit and our own transit management crises took a back seat to my many personal nightmares. 

Stuck my finger into a fan, early on.
Duh. Ouch.

We all have suffered singular fates. Loved ones have died, if not from Covid-19 but from heartbreak and isolation. It's hard to be a human in the '20s. Many of us lost fur buddies too. Our support circles have been assassinated from all directions. Nobody has been immune from the cuts of the Covid knife. Deke was lucky; he bowed out before the most intense pressure pushed this soul into its darkest depths. Not to be ever denied, my soul has clawed frantically to clamber back up to the precipice. Now, family turmoil threatens my stubborn belief that love conquers all challenges. And that, folks, is what scares me most. I can deal with the ugliest of slights, but when my support system suffers the slightest break, it threatens what inner strength I have left. 

Right now, I'm at the lowest point I have been in 30 years. Think of a campfire which smolders in the wee hours. My soul is that one stubborn ember that throws up a flame every few moments, oblivious to the temperature or lack of fuel. I have never been one to quit. But my strength is wavering, and I fear that flame flickering out.

I seek professional counseling when my emotions become too intense to manage with a shrug and a wee dram (or too many). When I sought to extend my counseling sessions last fall, I was told by our provider that I had "exhausted" my benefits. I had far surpassed my psychological limit long before that dreadful telephonic moment. At the end of my wick, I was reaching out for help; I was denied. I could have accessed help through my health insurance, but was too weak, too beat down to give a flying fuck. It's exhausting to give a new counselor the past 40 years of my psychological history before delving into present catastrophes. 

My lifeline has always been, and even more so these past two years, through several daily phone calls to my Beloved. She helps me through the worst, an emotional rock whenever I feel happy, sad and often overwhelmed. Lately, Beloved has been in so much physical pain I hate to pile my own disasters onto her already-heaping plate of woe. It's a delicate balancing act. While she is my balancer, my calmer, my peaceful human co-conspirator, I feel bad adding to her own psychological weight limit. Yet, we have always been a team and hold each other up when we need each other most. Lately, it feels like she has been the stronger of our intense bond. To need her strength when she is consumed with constant pain seems unfair. Yet she is admirably game, and manages to say what I need to hear, whether I want to hear something else. "Out there", she gives me the juice enough to get back in the seat and just do my fucking job. And that takes a LOT of strength I'm not always ready to summon from within. Not without her, Beloved Stacers. For nearly 29 years of my 61, "Mrs. Blue" (sorry, honey) has always found the right words enabling me to regain the seat, to persevere in the worst of times imaginable. Thank you, Stacey.

Thanks, Tom Patterson, for the first,
and only, "Deke Cartoon"

So. My decision to take up the dead Deke's slack did not come lightly. It wasn't borne of duty to him, but to YOU, dearest fellow operators. You know of what I write here. You feel it, live it and often have no public voice. If I can do anything at this keyboard, I hope I can do just one: describe this operator's life behind the wheel. Ever since I took a pencil in hand at eight years of age and wrote a clumsy child's poem, I've yearned to write. So I have, and so I will until this soul takes the flight of my ancestors.

Here I am, brothers and sisters. I will open up to you. Not as a pseudonym, but as Patrick Brian Coomer. Nearly 20 years a Gladstone resident, formerly of Arizona, graduated from Florence High School in 1978. Former CACtus Editor, KCKY News Editor, Typographer at JM Typography (and others), IT Support Tech at Health Net of Arizona and Oregon, nine-plus years a TriMet Bus Operator. There you have it: this is me, and I write for you.

I hope to do you justice. Deke's years of writing demand it. I love you all, and so must this be.