Git-R-Dun

The other night (Thursday, April 17, 2008) I set out for Rochester to attend the regular monthly business meeting of Local 282 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, my old bus-union at Transit.
I turned north (right) from our driveway onto State Route 65, and about 500 yards north of our house is Cycle Enterprises, which has been there since time immemorial, and was there long before we built our house.
Cycle Enterprises, under a different owner then, was where Peter Strohmier (“STROH-meyer”) bought the fabulous 1980 Ducati 900SS I ended up with.
As I approached Cycle Enterprises, a grizzled road-warrior pulled his Harley GeezerGlide right out in front of me.
Didn’t look or anything.
Yowzuh! I slammed on the brakes.
Thank goodness I was driving the Bathtub. The CR-V would have locked the rear.
Road-warrior glanced in his mirrors — like “where’d he come from?”
I waved hello. “Yeah, I just saved your butt. Avoided plowing into ya,” I said.
“Perhaps ya could look next time before pulling onto the highway.”

Someone on a Gold Wing did that to me once while I was driving bus.
Cut right in front of me.
I opened my window and said I rode motorbike myself, and never did anything like that.
Years ago I entered an expressway on-ramp on the Ducati.
A Sukuki rocketbike was ahead of me, and he screwed it to the wall.
Blasted onto the expressway without looking at all.
I can’t do that.
I looked first, and merged safely into expressway traffic.

We continued the short way up Route 65 to the four-way intersection where 65 turns west (left). —The intersection has been graded to allow continuous turns on 65 without stopping.
We were both going straight onto Pittsford-West Bloomfield Road, and GeezerGlide accelerated noisily away, ending up about 200 yards in front of me.
I noticed I was being closely followed by a large dark-maroon Chevy pickup, probably driven by his wife. Like they had driven to Cycle Enterprises to pick up his bike, which had been in for service.
Pittsford-West Bloomfield Road eventually crosses County Road 14, and GeezerGlide was signaling to turn right. So was the pickup.
County Road 14 is a stop-sign, so I caught up with GeezerGlide.
But GeezerGlide wasn’t stopped for traffic. He was stopped to let his wife catch up.
I came up behind GeezerGlide and noticed a small chrome license-plate surround.
“Git-R-Dun” it said.

“Git-R-Dun” is the slogan of all over-confident problem-solving engineers, who claim they can solve all the world’s problems; like my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He was trained as an engineer.

For 16&1/2 years I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. As a bus-driver, I was a union employee.

We built our house in 1989, and moved into it in 1990.

a “Ducati 900SS” is a motorcycle — pretty much a sport-bike; a racer. “Ducati” (“Dew-KAH-tee”) is the manufacturer, Italian. At that time, the 900SS was the only bike like that. Ducatis are still made.

“GeezerGlide” is what I call all Harley Davidson ElectraGlide cruiser-bikes. My loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston has a very laid back Harley Davidson cruiser-bike, and, like most Harley Davidson riders, is 50 years old. So I call it his GeezerGlide.

“The Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub. “The CR-V” is our 2003 Honda CR-V SUV.

A “Gold Wing” is a large Honda touring motorcycle.