An ode to CATA bus drivers

Freshman year, we’re more than grateful for our friends. (Let’s be honest, we have all found ourselves with our head in the toilet at 3am confessing our love for our best friends while they patiently hold our hair back).

Sophomore and junior years we genuinely thank our parents for staying on the phone with us until 1am while we have a “quarter life crisis” at least once a week.

And as we enter our senior year, we openly appreciate some of the most inspiring and influential professors who have set our life on a trajectory we never could have imagined just four short years ago.

However, there is one group of people who allow for our college experience to be so incredible and memorable (or maybe just incredible…) that Penn State students too often take for granted: CATA bus drivers. 

On Friday and Saturday nights, the CATA bus drivers are your mother…when you were a toddler. They don’t judge or get mad when drunk you forgets how to use a toilet and, instead, pees directly on the floor of their bus. (Well maybe they do get a little mad. But only if they notice.)

They take care of you when your face quickly becomes ghost white and you don’t remember what to do next. But don’t worry because one CATA bus driver, Drew, is always there to remind you to, “grab the garbage can, go outside and don’t throw up on the bus.”

They always watch to make sure that you are warm enough in the winter. As Drew explains, “in the wintertime you can have kids who are passed out getting hypothermic in a bush or what not.”

And although they constantly remind you to look both ways before crossing the road, they understand that drunk you cannot possibly comprehend such an advanced notion.

And they accept how clumsy you are every time you try to stand or walk. So they, “anticipate that people are going to fall out in front of the bus, or jump out, or get pushed out,” Drew said. And yet they never give up on you.

The CATA bus drivers are your most loyal friends. They put up with your drunk ass time and time again even when your other friends refuse. Drew said: “Everything that can happen on a CATA bus has happened,” and yet they still permit you to come back as often as you want.

The CATA bus drivers listen to all of your conversations judgement-free. Even when your “circular conversations that are a mixture of social anxiety, hormones and alcohol,” as Drew describes it, sound, “kind of Tourettes like as the alcohol increases.”

Additionally, the CATA bus drivers are also like your “cool” parents away from home. They allow you to chant as loudly as you want, “Tits out for the boys,” without lecturing you or yelling at you to be quite. (Although if you want to win bonus points with Drew, learn how to chant in sign language!)

They haul your ass to and from class, the library, club meetings, sporting events and parties even during the worst weather conditions without ever giving you a hard time, being late or forgetting (so long as you make sure you are behind the painted line and don’t get on the back door). And they acknowledge your request to get dropped off somewhere, without any questions being asked.

More than that and on a more serious note, the CATA bus drivers are sometimes your most humble heroes.

During Drew’s first month as a driver, he said: “I had a freshman who tried to commit suicide by stepping out in front of my bus. It just so happened that while going around the loop a couple more times, I noticed him and he had kind of broken away from his buddies and stepped out in front of this bus…I recognized that and when he did it I was able to stop…His nose touched the bike rack, but I was able to stop.”

And finally, the CATA bus drivers are like your wise grandparents filled with a plethora of advice.

CATA bus driver Chuck points out: “Everybody wants to have fun and everybody is out to have a good time. Life is a learning experience. The only way you learn in life is through the school of hard knocks and the more often you get sick, hopefully the more you learn not to do it again.”

So the next time you ride a CATA bus be sure to show your gratitude. Be polite. Smile. Say, “Thank you.” And if you really want to show your appreciation, Drew says: “Hugs and cookies work for me.”