Trolley Tales
By Elizabeth Carr
One crowded day during peak season while Stephen Crews was driving his trolley, he glanced up into his left rear-view mirror and saw a woman hanging halfway out the window. "She had grabbed one of the red handles, and the window swung all the way open," he said. After he pulled the trolley over, he politely told her that the red handles were for emergency use only. Now, in order to prevent a similar situation from happening, he makes sure he has the air conditioning cranked up all the way.
In the cool interior of the trolley a sign is posted that says, "Avoid unnecessary conversation with the driver." But if you ask, Crews will always tell you a story.
Crews, 43, of Largo, is a trolley driver for Suncoast Beach trolleys. Every person and stop on his route is part of his narrative.
Before entering the scene as a trolley driver he drove other vehicles. Trucks. Tankers. Vans. Crews has even driven a box-trailer. He has driven almost every type of truck through just about every major city in the United States.
"I used to have to load my own freight onto the trucks I drove," said Crews. "Now, my freight walks on and off." The 14-mile trolley route is a much smaller route than Crews used to drive.
And on the four days a week he works as a trolley driver, he collects $1.25 for a one-way fare or $3 for an all-day pass. But Crews doesn't care about the money—just the stories and safely carrying a few of the 500,000 people a year who ride the trolley.
Crews remembers a day when he had only one passenger. As he was heading toward Corey Avenue in St. Pete Beach, a passenger sat in the back of the trolley and Crews said he heard the popping lid of a soda or beer can. He told the gentleman that drinking on the trolley was not allowed, and the man said he didn't open any can.
"I told him he could either get off the trolley and leave the beer behind, or he could get off the trolley and stay with the beer," Crews said. The man threw the beer away at the nearest stop and stayed on the trolley the rest of the route.
Then there are the regulars, such as the cleaning women he picks up around 7 or 8 a.m. every Sunday who work in Treasure Island. Crews has gotten to know some of them pretty well through the years, despite the fact that every four months the route he drives changes.
But the route change doesn't stop people from remembering him. Crews tells how he saw a passenger named Debbie and her guide dog Maggie a few months back, when he was driving the same route he drove when he started driving a trolley nearly two years ago. He saw Debbie coming and said good morning to her, and she knew exactly who he was.
Those whom he has never met create new stories for him. Two girls who boarded during their spring break said the trolley should have karaoke. Sometimes when he's alone he sings to pass time or look for celebrity look-alikes. He swears one day a man boarded the trolley who looked just like George Costanza—a character from the TV show "Seinfeld." Another time he had a couple who looked like Sonny and Cher. He told that story to a co-worker right after the sighting.
At the most popular stop—John's Pass—he told of the time he took one woman's concern and turned it into a joke. The woman was so concerned she would miss the John's Pass stop that she kept coming up and asking Crews how she would know when it was John's Pass. He told her he would let her know, but a few minutes later she came up to the front again. Crews had a little bit of fun with her.
He got on the microphone and said, "This is the John's Pass announcement system. If this were the real John's Pass, I would say John's Pass," he said. "But this is just a test of the John's Pass system." When they reached the stop, he told her over the microphone they were now at the actual John's Pass stop. The woman laughed as she was getting off the trolley and thanked him for a fun ride. And though most of the time you can't see his expression behind his reflective sunglasses, you can see his smile spread wide when he tells that story.
There are also details he has to tell his passengers. Crews often has to explain why there are no stops within two miles after entering Belleair. If people want to go anywhere in Belleair Beach, they either have to get off at the last stop in Indian Rocks Beach and walk or get off as soon as the trolley enters Clearwater, since Belleair doesn't pay for trolley service. "Sometimes if they are regulars, I will let them off as soon as I get out of Belleair, just so they don't have to walk," he said.
The story he loves most to tell about is his 7-year-old daughter, Jessie, and how she sometimes rides the trolley with her dad. He likes to tell how she prefers the trolley with the pictures of the dolphins on the side to the one with the manatees. He tells of his hobbies: wakeboarding, shooting handguns at paper targets, and most, recently, caring for the beta fish that his daughter loves. Those are the stories that make his smile wide enough to outshine his bald head. |
