Actual pheasant this time.......

......Not some strange bird dressed in an iridescent dark-blue Vietnam vet jacket picked up in some steamy Saigon boudoir.
I’m headed up Stirnee (“Stur-neee”) Road yesterday (Monday, November 10, 2008) toward the Stirnee Road parking-lot of the so-called elitist country-club.
I’m in the Bathtub, intending to hike our dog around the paths.
There is a sharp curve where the northerly road turns east-northeast.
You have to allow for it.
Do it wrong and you end up in a yard.
I slow for it, sweep around the curve, and there it is, smack in the apex, an actual pheasant waddling across the road.
Since I couldn’t see it until my turn, it’s only about 10 feet in front of me.
I have no choice but to run it over — ker-thump!
Memories of the time I split a possum with the FZR400 about 5 a.m. in the dark on my way to Transit.
Looking rearward I saw the pheasant fluttering into the sky. Stunned I guess, but still able to fly.
Memories of the time I clobbered a deer with an artic.
No sign of the deer when the dippity showed up — the deer must have got up and walked away.
I must have brushed the deer aside; didn’t actually run it over.
I got away a half-hour late, and those flunkies at Transit had me make the trip anyway.
—A half-hour late.
“Hey, where ya been? We thoughtcha were never comin’.”
No matter my passengers showed up a half-hour late to work. “We Transit-managers don’t ride the bus. Never in a million years! But keep that fat paycheck a-comin’.”
Like the time I had my Park-and-Ride bus cripple on my deadhead trip out I-390 to Avon (“AH-vahn;” not “AYE-vahn” [like the cosmetic]).
It pumped out all its tranny-fluid.
They knew that sucker was leaking ATF when they sent it out.
But what difference does that make?
It’s my problem. Better yet it only leaks when floored.
So I won’t see it in my precheck.
So here I am crippled on the shoulder of I-390. I set up my reflective triangles, with my four-ways a-flashin’.
The truck (T-14) appears with its 55-gallon drum of ATF, but they decide it ain’t worth fillin’; it’ll only cripple again — they see the leak.
So they decide to get me another bus; the cripple will need the hook.
Finally, about 45 minutes after my cripple, my replacement-bus shows up.
Did they decide to cover me, so my passengers wouldn’t wait 45 minutes in the cold?
Of course not! I would make the trip 45 minutes late — “just keep that fat paycheck a-comin’.”

“An actual pheasant” refers to a previous encounter with a bird that I thought might be a pheasant, but probably wasn’t.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “ow”) Park, where I run and we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.

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

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

The “FZR400” is my 1989 Yamaha FZR400 motorcycle; 400 ccs. Motorcycle number-four; I’m now on motorbike number-six.

“Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).

An “artic” (“r-TIK”) was a two-section (“bendable”) bus powered by one motor. The second section was a trailer connected to the first section by drawbar/bellows. It had a single driver. —The motor was in the first section. (They were my favorite ride.)

“Tranny-fluid” and “ATF” are automatic-transmission fluid. The transmission needed ATF to operate. (Our buses were automatic-transmission.)

“The hook” is the tow-truck.