Some people are driven. Dottie Piantedosi is a driver.
She drove the Bedford Local Transit van for the past 12 years, which was an encore following some three decades of operating school buses and a range of heavy equipment in the Department of Public Works inventory.
Piantedosi is retiring from professional driving, and she was the guest of honor at a festive luncheon last Friday hosted by the Council on Aging under a tent in the Town Center parking lot. Celebrating were Council on Aging staff and some of her passengers.
Alison Cservenschi, Council on Aging director, lauded “the many things Dottie has done for everybody over the years.” The retirement gifts featured a replica Massachusetts license plate (BLT DP1) and a gaudy necklace with a charm saying, “Officially Retired.” (Someone gave her a small cardboard sign reading, “Retired, Not Expired.”)
Fittingly, the menu included BLTs.
Piantedosi, trying to remain composed, said of her CoA co-workers, “They have been the nicest group to work with. We all work great together. I can’t say enough about this place.”
The BLT provides door-to-door van transport by appointment between homes and the senior center, stores, and medical offices. The BLT resumed operations on May 17 after a pandemic hiatus of 14 months.
Piantedosi’s professional life changed after the massive February snow event that became known as the Blizzard of ’78. She was working as a secretary in Waltham when snow began to fall. Her supervisor wouldn’t permit early departures, and ultimately she was stuck in her car on Route 128 near the Bedford-Lexington exit.
“A guy in front of me opened his trunk and gave me some winter clothes, and I walked home,” she related. A few days later she got a call from her uncle, Orlando “Chico” Palmeri, suggesting she join the drivers at Bedford Charter Service. “I’ve never looked back.”
She said she was the first woman school bus driver, and spoke fondly of William Martines, the owner.
Her next job was with the Water Division of the Department of Public Works, reading water meters. But she said her unofficial job description was a lot broader, as she learned to operate almost every piece of equipment in the garage—front-end loaders, backhoes, dump trucks.
“I’ve snowplowed every inch of this town,” Piantedosi said. She added that she also opened graves in Shawsheen Cemetery for friends and loved ones.
At the DPW, “I was living out of three or four lockers, I had so many clothes and work boots. I used to cook during snowstorms.” And she also occasionally filled in for Peter Pierce, the longtime driver of the BLT.
When she took over as the BLT’s regular driver, she said, she found the floorboards had rotted in the van. The replacement was a 12-passenger vehicle which she said was a little oversized. Her current rendition is a nine-passenger minibus.
Piantedosi brings her effervescence, generosity, and energy to her driving. “I’m not driving the young and the restless, I am driving the elderly and the handicapped,” she declared, adding, “And they all need TLC.”
“You have to love your job or you shouldn’t be there.”
She also has been working as a certified nursing assistant at Carleton Willard Village (“I’ve always had two jobs”).
Piantedosi said she was busy all the time during the pandemic shutdown, working with a crew to make hundreds of masks or driving patients and visitors to the VA Hospital in her own car. “I just believe in what I do,” she said. “My parents brought me up well. A lot of patience has been the essence of this job. I’m from a large family so I have a lot of patience.”
She didn’t mention any specific post-retirement plans; “I’m going to spend a little time enjoying,” she said. “I have been blessed with all good people in my life.”
Dottie has retired, not expired!
Mike Rosenberg can be reached at [email protected], or 781-983-1763
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