For this action project, we were instructed to visually represent some steps of a hero's journey of a fictional character and non-fictional character. I decided to make two different slideshows that include both of my heroes who have impacted my mindset and life. I chose Danny LaRusso as my fictional character because he was the protagonist in the movie The Karate Kid that he can be looked at as a hero in different ways. The real hero I chose is my grandpa Bert Haynes. I chose him because I wanted to learn about him and his life. The part of this action project that I am most proud of is the interview and in-depth hero's journey of my grandfather because learning more about him benefits me so I can pass his story on to my younger family members.
Interview starring my Grandpa Bert:
N.L. - Alright I'm ready to start. Can you give me a brief summary of your career in life?
Grandpa Bert - “When first applied to be a CTA conductor I was… I think twenty-three. They kept telling me there were no openings. They asked me if I wanted to be a bus driver and I told them no, I’ll wait. So to make it long story short, I applied in ‘73, 1973 and I didn’t get called until 1977. I waited for 4 years to get the job. They kept calling and asking me,” Don’t you want to be a bus driver?” but I told them no, I didn’t want to drive the bus. They said, “Well, I’m sorry but there are no openings available for conductor right now.” A guy would tell me to that, “Mr. Haynes, take bus driver, work it for 3-6 months then you’ll be able to switch over to conductor. I said no sir, I don’t want to drive the bus. So, I kept turning bus driving down and finally I got that letter in the mail that said, “If you are still interested in being a conductor for CTA, come down to um something something North Clark Street one Monday morning. Cuz when I got hired, you went to the counter to get the application, fill it out at the desk and gave it back to them. They said they would give me a call in a couple of weeks. They told me that they would be calling me in a couple of weeks. A few weeks later, I got called in, I took a test; got interviewed, finger-printe, investigated and got the job. I started from 1977 and stayed until 2003. I retired with a full-pension in 2003."
N.L.- “How did you first know that you wanted to be a train conductor?”
Grandpa Bert - “I knew after my first train ride watching him. In my head I thought, what was he doing. The train would pull into the station as he dropped that lever and he would say, “35th Street, 35th!”
N.L. - “Did you have a mentor or aid when you first started working as a train conductor?”
Grandpa Bert - “Yeah, my mentor was a guy that lived in a building with me in the projects, by the name of Willy Wells. When I started he had been working for the CTA five years before I started. He was my best friend and he was the one who also convinced me to become a conductor for the CTA. He was also a line instructor, who taught the new conductors that started being hired. We went to class first to learn how the train works, duties of the conductors, and precautions for emergency situations.”
N.L. - “Did where you lived and the areas you were used to shift towards an impact on your perspective of the city while traveling all throughout Chicago as a CTA train conductor? Did your perspective on Chicago change?”
Grandpa Bert - “When you get hired with CTA, they determine whether you were going to go north, south, or west. My starting routes and terminals were on the Southside but I traveled north, south, and west through Chicago. Every shift on a route would be 3 roundtrips every day that I worked. By being out there on the train nearly every day, it helped me learn my city more. I got more familiar with the city. By me being a conductor, I would always have to give directions to tourists because they were told to look for the conductors in the third or fourth train car in the middle of the train. I also had to call in every day before you worked at 4:30 p.m. for your assignment and you never knew where and what time you were going to work. If the clerk didn’t like you, the clerk would keep you on “late pm” and “midnight”. A late-night shift is from 6 p.m. to 11 a.m. A midnight shift is from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. The CTA requires you to get 8 hours of sleep in between each shift. I worked out of the 61st and Prairie terminal. Your clerk determines your schedule weekly. A major perspective for me is that traveling on the Southside and Westside everyone on the train would be black and brown people. The further north you went on the train, the more you would notice people who wouldn’t look like me and you. All races and cultures of people to the CTA. My train was literally all white passengers until it got to Jackson on the Red Line Train route. Downtown Chicago's loop at Jackson station was the turning point of different races and cultures of people.”
N.L. - “What were some obstacles and challenges you faced?”
Grandpa Bert - “I would get annoying passengers who came to me with false directions and argued that they didn’t know what directions were accurate. I would still help them though.”
The worst part of being a conductor was collecting carfare after passengers got on the train because people would try to pull all types of stunts to get out of paying their fare. I remember watching this one guy get on the train after I opened the doors and pretend to be asleep when I came to collect fares. I said fare please and he tried playing like he was already on the train.
The worst time to be a train conductor was anytime they had a baseball game at Wrigley Field. It wasn’t so bad taking them to the games; it was picking them up after the games. Drunk passengers would constantly come back there to my position pissy drunk asking to call out a stop or press a few buttons. “I’ve been watching you for a couple of stops and I think I can do that. Can I call out the next stop? Can I come open the doors?” That’s what many drunk passengers would say to me. Once I asked a drunk passenger could I come to your job and come play around at your job. He said, “His boss wouldn’t let him.” I told him that this wasn’t a damn toy to play with, I’m controlling a moving train. I could lose my job by letting any unauthorized person touch anything up here.”
N.L. - “Was there a time where you felt that it was a low point in your life while working as a conductor? “
Grandpa Bert - “There were many times I didn’t like things but I almost quit one time. The one thing that really got me about CTA is that I didn’t know I would have to drive the train because I almost quit when I found out. As a CTA conductor, there is a 90 -day period before you get sent to motor school, where you learn how to drive the CTA “L” trains. The only way to keep your job as a conductor you have to go and finish motor school. Just in case of an emergency. For example; if the motorman gets sick, the conductor would have to switch places with the operator/motorman to drive the train.” It’s amazing how much the CTA system has changed since 1997. The would always tell us in the early ’90s that major changes were going to come in the future. They told us in a meeting; come June 1, 1997, we taking conductors off of the train and killing the job completely. Conductors would become motormans at the front of the train having the push of a button call out stops, say when the doors were closing, and when there was a delay. We lost our jobs to automation technology. I was a conductor, motorman, and flagman. The conductor position got you in the door, but you had to qualify for at least three other jobs in order to remain in work under the CTA. I didn’t know until I was a conductor that I had to qualify for three more jobs but I did it though.”
N.L. - “How did you bounce back from the title of train conductor being completely erased?”
Grandpa Bert - “Along with my sub-positions of flagman and towerman, I enjoyed my position of towerman the but not like being a conductor. After 15 or 18 of working as a conductor, I was able to switch to a tower job. I didn’t have to work on the train anymore. I worked as a towerman at 63rd and Ashland. As a towerman I was allowed to wear just about anything that I wanted except for sandals and open-toed shoes. The best part is that I work in a building watching the trains go by as I switch the tracks for different train lines. This position was good for when it was wintertime here in Chicago.”
N.L. - “What would you consider your biggest accomplishment while working for the CTA"?
Grandpa Bert - “Being able to work as a CTA train conductor for over two decades, I loved what I was doing because ever since I was young I wanted to be a train conductor and that’s what I did. I always had a feeling I would end up working as a train conductor.”
N.L. - “ Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap up grandpa”?
Grandpa Bert - “Being a conductor wasn’t all the fun I thought it was going to be. We had the worst bosses of any job because the public were our bosses. Especially if the train had to sit, man I ain’t never been cursed out so many times, much and so bad in my life. I had to explain to the passengers that when a train in front of me breaks down, there is no going over it, around it, or under the train. We just have to sit an wait until I get the green light to move the train. The mentality of knowing what you want to be in life at a young age helped me become a train conductor. That’s why I’ll tell anybody that by the time you’re ten years old, you should know what you want to be in life. You should have some inclination about what career you want to work in because you been around to different places, seeing different people's work, and different things in life. You should have some kinda inclination about jobs and careers you want to pursue just like you have inclinations about jobs and careers you don’t want to do. I started off working at Jewels, Speagles, and driving taxi cabs. Then I got into being a train conductor. You start at the bottom and you work your way up. That’s why the higher your education is; the more money you will be able to make.”
References:
The Karate Kid. John G. Avildsen. Columbia Pictures, 1984. Film
Haynes, Bert. Personal Interview. 11 November 2019.
Robert Mark Kamen. “The Karate Kid.” Rotten Tomatoes, 20 Nov. 2005,
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/karate_kid Accessed 18 Nov. 2019.
