Glowering Intimidator

The other day (last Thursday, November 12th, 2015) I had a medical appointment in nearby Canandaigua at noon.
After setting up my dog inside my house, I aimed my car out the driveway toward State Route 65, the road I live on.
After traffic cleared, only one car, I turned south on 65 toward the center of our little town, what there is of it.
The center of our town is the traffic-light, where 65 ends at its intersection with east/west 5&20.
The road 65 is on continues south as County Road 37.
5&20 is NY State Route 5, and U.S. Route 20, both on the same road.
5&20 used to be the main east/west road across western NY before the Thruway, Interstate-90. It followed an old indian-trail, and separated about 20-30 miles west.
State Route 5 goes up along the lake. I remember driving it back in the ‘70s chasing a restored railroad steam-locomotive, Norfolk & Western #611.

611 chuffs down 17th Street in Erie on the old Nickel Plate. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

We were skirting Lake Erie.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2 — I’m 71.
At the traffic-light I would turn left toward Canandaigua.
As I began my turn I noticed a glowering intimidator nipping my bumper, shaking his fist and yelling, and lunging to my right as if trying to pass illegally in the right-turn lane for County Road 37.
That right-turn lane goes away.
Clearly, I wasn’t driving fast enough. I was driving at a reasonable and normal speed, instead of blasting my turn like race-driver Denis Hulme (“hyoom”) rocketing his Big-Block Can-Am McLaren out of the hairpin at Mosport (“moe-SPORT”).


Hulme blasts Moss Hairpin at Mosport about 1970, in his Can-Am McLaren, the greatest racecars I’ve ever seen. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

I wasn’t pedal-to-the-metal!
I drove transit-bus 16&1/2 years for Regional Transit Service (RTS), a public-employer, the supplier of bus-service in Rochester and environs.
In order to drive a bus safely, you had to allow for idiots and wackos.
I still do it! My braking-distances are way more than suggested. I still wanna stop without throwing my passengers outta the seats.
So okay, let the dude pass when we get outta town.
But he fell behind as we drove out of town.
That is, until I slowed for a pickup signaling a left-turn ahead of me.
Another car was between me and the pickup, and I doubt Mr. Glowering Intimidator saw the pickup.
All he saw was me, obstructing his fevered attempt to be a NASCAR racer.
On my bumper again, shaking his fist and yelling.
It became apparent I and my leader were going to have to go around the pickup on the right shoulder.
But I got a raving maniac behind me.
He was already lunging for the right shoulder, so I backed off and let him by.
My leader had already moved to the right shoulder, surprising Mr. Intimidator, who was more obsessed with me than ascertaining the whole picture.
He had to back off; at least he didn’t rear-end my leader.
Drive eight hours a day, and you get madness like this.
“Oh Dora, look, a bus. PULL-OUT! PULL-OUT!”

• The Nickel Plate mainline did street-running through Erie, PA.
• Sports Car Club of America’s Can-Am series, back in the early ‘70s, was the BEST racing I ever saw. Unlimited two-seater fendered sports cars with hot-rodded aluminum Big-Block Chevy motors generating almost 800 horsepower — the ultimate hotrod on twisting road-circuits. One of the road-courses was Mosport near Toronto. The Can-Am waned after Porsche (“poor-sha”) developed a 1,000 horsepower turbocharged Can-Am racer.