| April
20, 2000
STAFF Q&A/Willie Glymph would do anything for his passengers —
including drive across the country to see them in action.
“I think you always
have fond memories just being around
the people.”
BY SANDY SMITH
__________________
WILLIE GLYMPH
Position:
Bus driver, Transportation and Parking
(now retired)
Length of service:
39 years
(four with Hard Surface Maintenance, 35 with T&P)
Other stuff:
Now that he has the time, he would like to do the cross-country
trip thing again.
__________________
Photo by Daniel R. Burke
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You know you’re
someone special when they name a bus for you.
And the Penn men’s and women’s crew teams did just that for
their longtime bus driver Willie Glymph. From now on, Penn’s rowers
will travel in style on the “Sir Willie Glymph” (“It just
sounded good,” Transportation Services Manager Ron Ward said about
the “Sir” tacked on to the name), named in his honor when he
retired from the University after 39 years of service March 30.
After 35 years of taking good care of his patrons on both the crew bus
and the PennBus shuttle through University City, it was the least they
could do.
Q. What was our shuttle bus operation like when you started?
A. When we first started, we had started out with one bus. And it
was a stick shift. We started going to West Philly first, and then later
on we started moving into town. And then they added another bus. So we
had two buses from then on.
Q. I heard the crew team gave you some really nice presents on your retirement.
A. Oh, yeah. They gave me this jacket [a custom-made red and blue
leather jacket], with the P here [points to split-P logo on the front],
and the P on the back, and “Pennsylvania” on the back. And the
girls team gave me a watch. And then they gave me an oar cut in half with
an inscription on it. And they gave me a gold plaque that you hang on
the wall with two oars on it. So…it was pretty nice. I’m so
proud.
Q. Did your PennBus passengers do anything special for you on your last
day?
A. Yes, they did. As a matter of fact, they gave me a big card on
the 4:50 trip. I opened the card and never looked at the top. So the guy
[who gave me the card on behalf of the passengers], he told me to look
at the top and see what was there. So he gave me [pulls out crisp bill]
a $100 bill.
Q. What’s the furthest you traveled with the crew team?
A. I think the furthest I went [was] whenever we were hauling boat
shells. I went to Massachusetts — I think that’s as far as I
went. And then during the off-season, when they went to San Diego once,
me and a guy drove all the way to San Diego.
Q. Did you see the Grand Canyon?
A. Yes, we did. We went into Flagstaff on the way down. And I thought
I never would — I had said, It’s a big hole. [I didn’t
think] I would enjoy it, but after I got up there, we spent two hours.
Q. How long ago was this trip?
A. It must have been at least — about 27 years.
Q. What were some of the places you enjoyed most in San Diego?
A. When we got there, we didn’t have a lot of running around
that we could do. We were only supposed to be there for the weekend. There
was a restaurant not too far from [where we stayed], run by a gentleman
named Morrie, and it had home cooking, hot bread in the morning —
I enjoyed those little places.
But on the way — as a matter of fact, we met a girl — she was
walking the beach the first morning we were there. And I was just relating
to the guy and said, Look, man, I’ve never been out here, I don’t
know nobody out here. And all at once two girls came down the beach. And
one of the girls ran up and grabbed me around the neck, and I said, Oooh!
Then I looked up and said, Oh, yeah, Mary Watson! So she said, Yeah. I
said, You were manager of the rowing team. I was just talking about you
when you were walking down the beach. She said, Why don’t you come
out after the race and come over to our house and stay? We’re having
a party and if you ain’t got nowhere better, just stay here for the
night. So I said, OK, we’ll see. But the coach wanted us to go back
and take the boat shells on the side, so we never made it out. But it
was nice.
Q. You still hear from her?
A. No, but everyplace I go I run into someone that had graduated,
somebody that’s coaching with another place. Like there was a guy
from years ago — he’s a coach at Miami now and he’ll send
me a hat up from Miami every once in a while just to show me that he’s
still around.
Q. Have any other former crew team members come back as alums to talk to
you?
A. Oh, yeah. They were back Class Day. We’d sit down, talk, they
were having their little celebration. They were nice when they were giving
me the jacket and all that for Class Day. And it was very good. Most of
them remember you; some of them you know the faces but forget the names.
It was nice.
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