Arthur and La Tanya Mitchell grew up on the westside of Long Beach together and the pair have been part of Long Beach Transit (LBT) for more than 25 years.
“My sister had a best friend and […] I would go to her best friend’s house. Her best friend had an older brother and that was his best friend [Arthur],” La Tanya said.
“Fast forward, life goes on, we’re at [Long Beach] Transit and we’re talking. We lived in the same neighborhood, we know the same people and we reunited.”
Fellow LBT employees were shocked to find out that La Tanya and Arthur were married to each other.
“The way that they found out was [when] he brought our kids up to the job,” La Tanya said. “They were like ‘what are you doing with Tanya’s kids and I’m like ‘Tanya’s kids? This is my kids,’” Arthur said as the room burst with laughter.
Arthur filled out the LBT form after having his friend fill it out, “I just filled it out, not trying to get the job, I got the job and […] the rest of it was history after that.”
For 25 years, Arthur tries to talk to all passengers and to remember where his regulars stop at.
“I like to see my job as the carpool driver,” he added. “The job is stressful […] it’s a non-stop job but you have to restart every trip like you just started.”
Looking back to his childhood, Arthur went to church frequently and played sports at Silverado Park.
His family consisted of his military father, stay-at-home mother and three sisters.
“My upbringing, growing up with a mom and dad, my faith […] I saw my dad work hard so that’s all we knew,” he said.
“My love was dealing with youth […] I always liked to see someone want to do something and be able to help that person achieve that goal,” Arthur said.
After his shifts, Arthur watches sports, gardens around his house, spends time with his family and works out.
His favorite sports teams are the Philadelphia Eagles and the Los Angeles Lakers.
“I had seen Randall Cunningham play a game and it just drew me to them [Eagles].”
La Tanya grew up on the west side of Long Beach but had a different upbringing. When she was little, she rode the bus to school and had a huge family, with six siblings in her immediate family.
“My dad was a mechanic and my mom was in the dental field so we had to walk to school, come home and do chores.”
Growing up, La Tanya wanted to become a nurse, she worked as a certified nurse assistant for two years at Alamitos Belmont and trained to become physical therapist tech.
“They laid off my department at the hospital and I couldn’t get another PT tech job because I was trained in-house,” she said.
Just like Arthur, La Tanya’s friends and family were applying for LBT, “My sister came to apply here [at LBT] and I was with her and I had a few classmates apply.”
Her classmates convinced her to apply to LBT and she ended up getting the job.
She explained her sister didn’t get the job but the LBT interviewer’s wife worked with La Tanya at the hospital.
“He already knew the situation so he said ‘you know what, you got it’ […] and I’ve been here for 25 years.”
After getting off her shift at noon, she spends time with her grandkids and enjoys pin up photography.
La Tanya said she deals with the stress and being bus operator by, “Heavy on the prayer, not taking things personal [and] writing things down for a schedule.”
Her ultimate goal is to live a happy and healthy life, “If we get home in one piece, hey that’s a good day.”
“There’s a lot of ups and downs but it’s how you deal with it,” La Tanya said, “I’m a big person on how you treat me is how you treat you, as long as people treat me with respect, they will get the respect back.”
Arthur got a piece of advice from a boss at his first job. “Time is everything,” he said, “If you wait, you’ll be late. If you come early, you can always make up that time to catch up.”