Texas Roadhouse
Sunday December 22nd, 2013, I ate out with my niece, her husband, their daughter, and my niece’s mother.
They live altogether in that mother’s old homestead west of Rochester in the suburbs.
My niece and her mother are my only close relatives; that is, that live nearby.
My wife’s mother, still alive at almost 98, lives in central Florida; and my wife’s brother lives down near south-Florida.
My wife died April 17th, 2012.
My own family are all over the east coast.
Both my parents are gone — my wife’s father is gone too.
I have a younger brother who lives in northern Delaware, where my family once lived.
Another brother lives near Boston, and a sister lives in Lynchburg, Virginia.
My sister who died in December of 2011 lived in a condo in Fort Lauderdale. Both my parents moved to south-Florida before they died — mainly to be near that sister.
My sister’s only child, a daughter, also lives in Fort Lauderdale.
My brothers also had children, as did my sister in Lynchburg. I’ve rarely seen them.
I’ve never seen my Florida niece’s children at all.
My wife and I had no children.—Fear of being like my father.
My Rochester niece’s mother is my wife’s brother’s first wife.
He’s had four wives, but my sister who died had four husbands.
I have a nephew by his second wife, and two nieces by his third wife. They all live near Atlanta.
I’ve been loudly excoriated by my siblings for having erroneous politics and religion.
I’m a Democrat (Gasp!), and more-or-less agnostic (double-Gasp).
Worst of all I’m a “liberal” (double-triple Gasp!). —My brother-in-Boston spells it “liberial,” and my deceased sister called me a “bleeding-heart liberal.”
Although sometimes my brother-in-Boston spells it “liberila;” and loudly insists spelling makes no difference unless you’re a newspaper, part of the dreaded media cabal with its liberal agenda.
—In which case a tub-thumping Conservative would do a better job of cranking out that newspaper, toeing the Fox-News line of fair-and-balanced reporting (yeah-sure!).
When my sister called me a “bleeding-heart liberal,” I said “WHAT DO I KNOW? I’ve only been married once.”
Eating out with my Rochester niece was at “Texas Roadhouse” in deepest-darkest Henrietta south of Rochester (NY).
“Deepest-darkest Henrietta” because during my career driving transit bus I had a short trip taking developmentally-disabled from downtown Rochester out to a school in Henrietta.
To get to that school I had to drive through a Henrietta suburb.
I noticed the houses were tiny development houses with flat-roofed garages or porches added-on. Additions done on the cheap.
And those garages were often bigger and higher than the house.
They were designed to accommodate a ten-wheel PeterBilt or Kenworth truck.
The trip was strange. Those tiny houses with oversize garages looked weird.
Then too, I live in an extremely rural area. If I look outside at night I might see a light or two.
My road out front, a state highway, might average a single car every two-to-five minutes.
Henrietta is opposite.
I found myself amongst hundreds of cars.
All on Jefferson Road, that had to be widened to 6-8 lanes to accommodate all the traffic.
It’s not fearsome — I did drive bus, after all. But it ain’t rural.
Jefferson Road is lined with glittering theme-restaurants much like Texas Roadhouse.
20 years ago it wasn’t like this — and all I could think of was how those 89 bazilyun cars were fouling the atmosphere.
You could probably see Jefferson Road from the International Space Station.
And would all those restaurants survive if gasoline were $20 per gallon?
My railfan friend in Altoona, PA predicts that day is coming, and highways in this nation are already overloaded and crumbling.
Traffic in Rochester isn’t too bad, but in other locations rush-hour becomes a parking-lot.
I’ve driven Interstate-10 near L.A. and it’s 10-12 lanes wide. Giant Hummers and Expeditions cruise the passing-lane at 100-plus. On giant chromed spider-alloys with tires thin as banana-peels.
Texas Roadhouse wasn’t bad, but was overbearing in theme.
The place is awash in rootin’-tootin’ cowboy paraphernalia, part of which is the saddle.
The deal is if it’s your birthday, you’re supposed to ride the saddle — western complete with saddle-horn.
Fortunately there’s no horse, although I suppose that might add to the restaurant’s atmosphere.
Particularly the smell of horse-droppings.
The saddle is just atop a wooden frame. It ain’t rockin’-and-rollin’ as it would be on a horse.
My niece’s mother had along a friend who is in his 90s. It was his birthday.
He didn’t ride the saddle, but our waitress loudly announced his birthday, and had the entire establishment do a “YEE-HAA!”
Poor guy.
You can be damn sure I ain’t patronizin’ Texas Roadhouse on my birthday.
We’ve eaten out at other theme restaurants along Jefferson Road. One restaurant had talking moose-heads.
MARCY, IT’S EVERYWHERE!
So I motored slowly out Jefferson Road, headed home after eating out at Texas Roadhouse.
The 89 bazilyun cars disappeared as I turned south on Pinnacle Road. Back to relative peace-and-quiet.
My niece eats out quite often.
My wife and I didn’t. I was afraid of too much salt in the restaurant fare, so we ate at home. —Too much salt I can taste, and is hard to take.
Now that my wife is gone, I still prepare a lot of what I eat at home.
But eating-out is pleasant.
It’s a meal I don’t hafta prepare.
And the company is pleasant.
But I hope I can avoid the “YEE-HAA!”
ADDENDUM: Another eating-out a Texas Roadhouse; Sunday, February 9th, 2014, in honor of my 70th birthday, which was almost a week ago (February 5th).
As these shindigs do, it took a momentum of its own:
—1) Some sort of pre-arrangement seemed to be in play, whereby my niece’s husband was expected to order a steak dinner, yet part of this dinner was to be shared with my niece’s mother.
My niece’s husband switched, causing weeping-and-wailing and gnashing of teeth.
My niece’s mother was justifiably upset all plans seemed to have gone awry.
I watched quietly as bickering began. I wasn’t even aware it was bickering at first.
“Blog material,” I said to my niece.
“Forget about it” all seemed to say. My niece’s husband didn’t want the steak dinner. He thought it would be unsatisfactory.
My niece’s mother thereupon got fried onion-rings with a coupon, enough to feed a family of five in Bangladesh.
I ordered only a bowl of chili. Last time I ordered a pulled-pork sandwich, but that was too much. A pulled-pork dinner would be extreme overload.
—2) After dinner I went outside to survey the new car my niece’s husband had just purchased.
He goes through 3-4 cars per year. In the amount of time I own one car, he might own 30 cars.
He’d told me all about it.
He was behind the wheel, so I leaned on his open car-window.
“You parted with your truck?” I said.
“That truck had the best V8 ever made. Chevrolet’s SmallBlock was a major step forward when it was introduced, but Ford has caught and passed it.
The SmallBlock was revolutionary when it debuted almost 60 years ago. But GM never modernized it. They rested on their laurels.
Ford brought a modern double-overhead-cam V8 to market, but GM never did. They could have double-overhead-cammed the SmallBlock, but they didn’t. All they did was develop more horsepower out of an old design.”
I saw a 32-valve double-overhead-cam Ford V8 in a ’56 Ford pickup. I was thrilled to hear it run. The guy ran it up through the gears leaving the car-show.
“This car has 32 valves,” my niece’s husband trumpeted.
“It does not!” I said. “It has a 24-valve V6.” (Or maybe 18 valves, three valves per cylinder.)
“It’s a 32-valve V6,” he said.
“That’s not possible,” I said. “Even five valves per cylinder, and Yamaha had that for a motorcycle, ain’t 32. Six times five is 30; 32 is two valves too many.”
And so began a torrent of yelling.
“You can try to intimidate me all you want, but you’re wrong!”
I certainly had plenty of would-be intimidators driving bus.
“But this motor is special,” he said; “three valves per cylinder.”
“Six times three is 18,” I said.
‘“It’s a 32-valve V8!”
“A few seconds ago you were telling me it was a V6,” I said. “I got you so confused.”
This argument had turned unfortunate.
I don’t want my nieces’s husband thinking I’m giving him a hard time.
But a 32-valve V6 is just plain impossible.
And I had let the argument get outta hand.
It’s the fact I once drove bus, and am not about to buckle.
So passed another visit to Texas Roadhouse, and hardly what I expected.
Fortunately I didn’t have to ride the saddle, nor endure a “YEE-HAAA!”
I hope we eat out again, and if so I’ll cut my niece’s husband some slack.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —My ancient blog says Marcy and Mahoney live in Boston. They did back then, but now they are married and live in Los Angeles. Ried now lives near Denver, and the Messenger is no longer the great place it once was. By now it’s almost staff-less. Only Wheeler is still there. —The blog also has my wife being alive, which she was at that time.
They live altogether in that mother’s old homestead west of Rochester in the suburbs.
My niece and her mother are my only close relatives; that is, that live nearby.
My wife’s mother, still alive at almost 98, lives in central Florida; and my wife’s brother lives down near south-Florida.
My wife died April 17th, 2012.
My own family are all over the east coast.
Both my parents are gone — my wife’s father is gone too.
I have a younger brother who lives in northern Delaware, where my family once lived.
Another brother lives near Boston, and a sister lives in Lynchburg, Virginia.
My sister who died in December of 2011 lived in a condo in Fort Lauderdale. Both my parents moved to south-Florida before they died — mainly to be near that sister.
My sister’s only child, a daughter, also lives in Fort Lauderdale.
My brothers also had children, as did my sister in Lynchburg. I’ve rarely seen them.
I’ve never seen my Florida niece’s children at all.
My wife and I had no children.—Fear of being like my father.
My Rochester niece’s mother is my wife’s brother’s first wife.
He’s had four wives, but my sister who died had four husbands.
I have a nephew by his second wife, and two nieces by his third wife. They all live near Atlanta.
I’ve been loudly excoriated by my siblings for having erroneous politics and religion.
I’m a Democrat (Gasp!), and more-or-less agnostic (double-Gasp).
Worst of all I’m a “liberal” (double-triple Gasp!). —My brother-in-Boston spells it “liberial,” and my deceased sister called me a “bleeding-heart liberal.”
Although sometimes my brother-in-Boston spells it “liberila;” and loudly insists spelling makes no difference unless you’re a newspaper, part of the dreaded media cabal with its liberal agenda.
—In which case a tub-thumping Conservative would do a better job of cranking out that newspaper, toeing the Fox-News line of fair-and-balanced reporting (yeah-sure!).
When my sister called me a “bleeding-heart liberal,” I said “WHAT DO I KNOW? I’ve only been married once.”
Eating out with my Rochester niece was at “Texas Roadhouse” in deepest-darkest Henrietta south of Rochester (NY).
“Deepest-darkest Henrietta” because during my career driving transit bus I had a short trip taking developmentally-disabled from downtown Rochester out to a school in Henrietta.
To get to that school I had to drive through a Henrietta suburb.
I noticed the houses were tiny development houses with flat-roofed garages or porches added-on. Additions done on the cheap.
And those garages were often bigger and higher than the house.
They were designed to accommodate a ten-wheel PeterBilt or Kenworth truck.
The trip was strange. Those tiny houses with oversize garages looked weird.
Then too, I live in an extremely rural area. If I look outside at night I might see a light or two.
My road out front, a state highway, might average a single car every two-to-five minutes.
Henrietta is opposite.
I found myself amongst hundreds of cars.
All on Jefferson Road, that had to be widened to 6-8 lanes to accommodate all the traffic.
It’s not fearsome — I did drive bus, after all. But it ain’t rural.
Jefferson Road is lined with glittering theme-restaurants much like Texas Roadhouse.
20 years ago it wasn’t like this — and all I could think of was how those 89 bazilyun cars were fouling the atmosphere.
You could probably see Jefferson Road from the International Space Station.
And would all those restaurants survive if gasoline were $20 per gallon?
My railfan friend in Altoona, PA predicts that day is coming, and highways in this nation are already overloaded and crumbling.
Traffic in Rochester isn’t too bad, but in other locations rush-hour becomes a parking-lot.
I’ve driven Interstate-10 near L.A. and it’s 10-12 lanes wide. Giant Hummers and Expeditions cruise the passing-lane at 100-plus. On giant chromed spider-alloys with tires thin as banana-peels.
Texas Roadhouse wasn’t bad, but was overbearing in theme.
The place is awash in rootin’-tootin’ cowboy paraphernalia, part of which is the saddle.
The deal is if it’s your birthday, you’re supposed to ride the saddle — western complete with saddle-horn.
Fortunately there’s no horse, although I suppose that might add to the restaurant’s atmosphere.
Particularly the smell of horse-droppings.
The saddle is just atop a wooden frame. It ain’t rockin’-and-rollin’ as it would be on a horse.
My niece’s mother had along a friend who is in his 90s. It was his birthday.
He didn’t ride the saddle, but our waitress loudly announced his birthday, and had the entire establishment do a “YEE-HAA!”
Poor guy.
You can be damn sure I ain’t patronizin’ Texas Roadhouse on my birthday.
We’ve eaten out at other theme restaurants along Jefferson Road. One restaurant had talking moose-heads.
MARCY, IT’S EVERYWHERE!
So I motored slowly out Jefferson Road, headed home after eating out at Texas Roadhouse.
The 89 bazilyun cars disappeared as I turned south on Pinnacle Road. Back to relative peace-and-quiet.
My niece eats out quite often.
My wife and I didn’t. I was afraid of too much salt in the restaurant fare, so we ate at home. —Too much salt I can taste, and is hard to take.
Now that my wife is gone, I still prepare a lot of what I eat at home.
But eating-out is pleasant.
It’s a meal I don’t hafta prepare.
And the company is pleasant.
But I hope I can avoid the “YEE-HAA!”
ADDENDUM: Another eating-out a Texas Roadhouse; Sunday, February 9th, 2014, in honor of my 70th birthday, which was almost a week ago (February 5th).
As these shindigs do, it took a momentum of its own:
—1) Some sort of pre-arrangement seemed to be in play, whereby my niece’s husband was expected to order a steak dinner, yet part of this dinner was to be shared with my niece’s mother.
My niece’s husband switched, causing weeping-and-wailing and gnashing of teeth.
My niece’s mother was justifiably upset all plans seemed to have gone awry.
I watched quietly as bickering began. I wasn’t even aware it was bickering at first.
“Blog material,” I said to my niece.
“Forget about it” all seemed to say. My niece’s husband didn’t want the steak dinner. He thought it would be unsatisfactory.
My niece’s mother thereupon got fried onion-rings with a coupon, enough to feed a family of five in Bangladesh.
I ordered only a bowl of chili. Last time I ordered a pulled-pork sandwich, but that was too much. A pulled-pork dinner would be extreme overload.
—2) After dinner I went outside to survey the new car my niece’s husband had just purchased.
He goes through 3-4 cars per year. In the amount of time I own one car, he might own 30 cars.
He’d told me all about it.
He was behind the wheel, so I leaned on his open car-window.
“You parted with your truck?” I said.
“That truck had the best V8 ever made. Chevrolet’s SmallBlock was a major step forward when it was introduced, but Ford has caught and passed it.
The SmallBlock was revolutionary when it debuted almost 60 years ago. But GM never modernized it. They rested on their laurels.
Ford brought a modern double-overhead-cam V8 to market, but GM never did. They could have double-overhead-cammed the SmallBlock, but they didn’t. All they did was develop more horsepower out of an old design.”
 |
| Ford’s double-overhead-cam V8 in a ’56 Ford pickup. (Photo by Bobbalew.) |
“This car has 32 valves,” my niece’s husband trumpeted.
“It does not!” I said. “It has a 24-valve V6.” (Or maybe 18 valves, three valves per cylinder.)
“It’s a 32-valve V6,” he said.
“That’s not possible,” I said. “Even five valves per cylinder, and Yamaha had that for a motorcycle, ain’t 32. Six times five is 30; 32 is two valves too many.”
And so began a torrent of yelling.
“You can try to intimidate me all you want, but you’re wrong!”
I certainly had plenty of would-be intimidators driving bus.
“But this motor is special,” he said; “three valves per cylinder.”
“Six times three is 18,” I said.
‘“It’s a 32-valve V8!”
“A few seconds ago you were telling me it was a V6,” I said. “I got you so confused.”
This argument had turned unfortunate.
I don’t want my nieces’s husband thinking I’m giving him a hard time.
But a 32-valve V6 is just plain impossible.
And I had let the argument get outta hand.
It’s the fact I once drove bus, and am not about to buckle.
So passed another visit to Texas Roadhouse, and hardly what I expected.
Fortunately I didn’t have to ride the saddle, nor endure a “YEE-HAAA!”
I hope we eat out again, and if so I’ll cut my niece’s husband some slack.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —My ancient blog says Marcy and Mahoney live in Boston. They did back then, but now they are married and live in Los Angeles. Ried now lives near Denver, and the Messenger is no longer the great place it once was. By now it’s almost staff-less. Only Wheeler is still there. —The blog also has my wife being alive, which she was at that time.
posted by BobbaLew at 6:23 PM
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