It’s a Harley-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand
So here we are, Linda and I walking placidly down Shellpot Drive toward 2401.
We are passed by a blatting red GeezerGlide piloted by a helmetless, grizzled road-warrior, bearded, graying ponytail flapping in the breeze, looking like Willie Nelson in a red bandana, spitting ceremoniously on the pavement while puffing a Marlboro.
He stopped and asked where we were going.
“Just down around the corner,” we said.
“Hop aboard,” he said.
Slowly and majestically we paraded down the street. Jack’s bloated GeezerGlide was parked on the grass under the mimosa-tree.
“Over there,” I pointed, and we arced off across the grass, but it was wet, and the red GeezerGlide was plowing a furrow eight inches deep.
We stopped next to Jack’s GeezerGlide, and grizzled road-warrior began the mantra: “It’s a Harley-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
“You park here, and you’ll never get out,” I said.
We paddled toward a sidewalk. I found the sidestand, and road-warrior’s GeezerGlide was parked.
Inside, Jack — about 250 pounds lighter — chanted the mantra too: “It’s a Harley-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
Actually this is a takeoff on a similar mantra: “It’s a Jeep-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
I saw it yesterday afternoon (Thursday, February 8, 2007) along the top edge of the windshield of a Jeep Grand-Cherokee, a vehicle the all-powerful Tim Belknap says is hardly a Jeep.
He has one, and says “I sure wouldn’t take that thing up into the woods behind my house. It’s a car.”
Yesterday’s trip was to an evening dinner-party in Rochester for all the people who once worked for Lawyers Co-op Business-Systems, where Linda learned ‘pyooter-programming.
I guess Business-Systems got sub-divided and sundered by all the mergers and buyouts.
Many in it were laid off, although my wife continued programming in other areas.
Every year all the people that were in Business-Systems get together for a dinner-party.
Most have other jobs; and a few still work for Lawyers/West/Thomson/whatever. Some, like Linda, are retired. All are our age or nearing it.
A Business-Systems party is not like a Messenger-party, where Linda was a known quantity: “Oh, it’s you that makes the Grady-cake; it’s your garden;” and “it’s your jelly.”
The Business-Systems people don’t know me at all; I don’t make cakes to bring in. Rototilling and lawnmowing are specific to us.
So essentially I was baggage: a silent tagalong while everyone else yammered.
Two things stood out:
A former employee saying Lawyers/West/Thomson/whatever had lost all her records — and they thereby asserted that since they had no record of her ever working there, she wasn’t entitled to a pension.
Another lady, our age, who had apparently served in Vietnam, saying “here we are doing Vietnam all over again.”
I took along a Cycle-World magazine, but eventually set it aside, since the lighting was dim, and the yammering heavy.
Our dinner had been selected beforehand — stuffed-shells, because that was the smallest entree. You could also order prime-rib and baked-potato — PASS — enough to feed a famblee of five with one serving. There was no way I could eat a whole baked-potato — usually we split a potato and eat it mashed.
There were four stuffed-shells per serving; Linda and I could have gotten by fine with only two each.
Yet we all know the drill: “My mother survived the Dee-pression, so you better clean-your-plate! Little children are starving in China!”
There also was garlic-bread, and I attempted to butter it with what ended up being a creamer — cream exploded all over my pants.
There apparently was also an elegant order of the cracker-servings at each place-setting, and I inadvertently ended up eating the crackers of my neighbor (cue Bluster-King).
We were first to leave — we have dog-care issues — after emptying our wallets for dinner/tax/18% gratuity — about 35 smackaroos.
We then drove home in a howling blizzard with white-outs on the north-south roads we were traveling.
Got home about 9:45 and went straight to bed; and then the doorbell rang in the pitch-dark at about 10:15.
Linda had left her wallet at the party, and a guy that lives out this way had brought it.
So Linda pulls a boner that makes me wonder about some of the boners I’ve pulled — which I always think are stroke-effect.
The other day, the checkout-lady at Weggers didn’t put a bag of groceries into my cart, so I walked out without it. Didn’t notice until almost bedtime. (Weggers had the bag — I retrieved it today.)
Years ago (before the stroke) I left my wallet atop the rear-bumper of our Rabbit at a foot-race, and someone found it at an intersection and turned it over to the State Police. They are the ones that called me.
We are passed by a blatting red GeezerGlide piloted by a helmetless, grizzled road-warrior, bearded, graying ponytail flapping in the breeze, looking like Willie Nelson in a red bandana, spitting ceremoniously on the pavement while puffing a Marlboro.
He stopped and asked where we were going.
“Just down around the corner,” we said.
“Hop aboard,” he said.
Slowly and majestically we paraded down the street. Jack’s bloated GeezerGlide was parked on the grass under the mimosa-tree.
“Over there,” I pointed, and we arced off across the grass, but it was wet, and the red GeezerGlide was plowing a furrow eight inches deep.
We stopped next to Jack’s GeezerGlide, and grizzled road-warrior began the mantra: “It’s a Harley-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
“You park here, and you’ll never get out,” I said.
We paddled toward a sidewalk. I found the sidestand, and road-warrior’s GeezerGlide was parked.
Inside, Jack — about 250 pounds lighter — chanted the mantra too: “It’s a Harley-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
Actually this is a takeoff on a similar mantra: “It’s a Jeep-thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand.”
I saw it yesterday afternoon (Thursday, February 8, 2007) along the top edge of the windshield of a Jeep Grand-Cherokee, a vehicle the all-powerful Tim Belknap says is hardly a Jeep.
He has one, and says “I sure wouldn’t take that thing up into the woods behind my house. It’s a car.”
Yesterday’s trip was to an evening dinner-party in Rochester for all the people who once worked for Lawyers Co-op Business-Systems, where Linda learned ‘pyooter-programming.
I guess Business-Systems got sub-divided and sundered by all the mergers and buyouts.
Many in it were laid off, although my wife continued programming in other areas.
Every year all the people that were in Business-Systems get together for a dinner-party.
Most have other jobs; and a few still work for Lawyers/West/Thomson/whatever. Some, like Linda, are retired. All are our age or nearing it.
A Business-Systems party is not like a Messenger-party, where Linda was a known quantity: “Oh, it’s you that makes the Grady-cake; it’s your garden;” and “it’s your jelly.”
The Business-Systems people don’t know me at all; I don’t make cakes to bring in. Rototilling and lawnmowing are specific to us.
So essentially I was baggage: a silent tagalong while everyone else yammered.
Two things stood out:
I took along a Cycle-World magazine, but eventually set it aside, since the lighting was dim, and the yammering heavy.
Our dinner had been selected beforehand — stuffed-shells, because that was the smallest entree. You could also order prime-rib and baked-potato — PASS — enough to feed a famblee of five with one serving. There was no way I could eat a whole baked-potato — usually we split a potato and eat it mashed.
There were four stuffed-shells per serving; Linda and I could have gotten by fine with only two each.
Yet we all know the drill: “My mother survived the Dee-pression, so you better clean-your-plate! Little children are starving in China!”
There also was garlic-bread, and I attempted to butter it with what ended up being a creamer — cream exploded all over my pants.
There apparently was also an elegant order of the cracker-servings at each place-setting, and I inadvertently ended up eating the crackers of my neighbor (cue Bluster-King).
We were first to leave — we have dog-care issues — after emptying our wallets for dinner/tax/18% gratuity — about 35 smackaroos.
We then drove home in a howling blizzard with white-outs on the north-south roads we were traveling.
Got home about 9:45 and went straight to bed; and then the doorbell rang in the pitch-dark at about 10:15.
Linda had left her wallet at the party, and a guy that lives out this way had brought it.
So Linda pulls a boner that makes me wonder about some of the boners I’ve pulled — which I always think are stroke-effect.
The other day, the checkout-lady at Weggers didn’t put a bag of groceries into my cart, so I walked out without it. Didn’t notice until almost bedtime. (Weggers had the bag — I retrieved it today.)
Years ago (before the stroke) I left my wallet atop the rear-bumper of our Rabbit at a foot-race, and someone found it at an intersection and turned it over to the State Police. They are the ones that called me.
posted by BobbaLew at 6:30 PM
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