Rained out

“It looks like we might get rained out.” I said that to my silly dog as we started toward Rochester.
Today, Saturday August 17th, was our annual Transit retirees picnic at Ellison Park east of Rochester.
I’m sure constant-readers know of my 16&1/2 year career driving transit-bus for Regional Transit Service. If not, see footnote below.
It was a stupid, meaningless job for a college-graduate who can recite Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet almost entirely. But it paid well, so I stayed with it. —I always say it paid for our (my) house, which I now fully own.
It was dry when we started, but a dark horizon-filling cloud was approaching from the west. It started raining as we neared Rochester, then began pouring on the I-590 expressway.
It was coming down in buckets as we drove into Ellison. I circled the parking-lot, and “Guess we gotta give up!”
I never got out of my car.
For me to attend that picnic, it has to be not raining. The picnic is in a lodge, but I can’t go in, since I have my dog with me.
Registration and signup (?) is more-or-less outside. They were under a roof. But I’d hafta trudge a downpour to get to it.
“Gotta go home,” I said to my dog. “We can’t have fun if it’s pouring.”
Ellison is a wonderful place to hike your dog: smells and critters galore.
I never fit well at Transit. I’m not loud, and I don’t modify all spoken phrases with the F-bomb.
My bus-driving ended with my stroke almost 26 years ago. I feel like I’m no longer a bus-driver. In fact, I’m no longer that person.
My stroke occurred at a lucky time. I had no idea how I’d do 14 more years.
My stroke led me to the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. Fulfillment for a word-guy.
But I don’t regret Transit. I made many friends, and it gave me the ability to finally shut down my overly-judgmental father.
As I motored home the downpour stopped. It poured later here at home.
I always feel out-of-it at these Transit retiree functions. But “so much for our annual Transit retirees picnic; we coulda had a good time.”

• 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 heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, and that defect was repaired. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that over 13 years ago.
• Click that “116th Sonnet” link, readers. It’s an audio-clip.
• RE: “our (my) house......” —I live alone (with my dog) in the house my wife and I designed over 30 years ago. A contractor built it for us. My beloved wife died over seven years ago.
• At Transit I was a union-employee. Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 282.
• Transit retirees call themselves “the Alumni.” It’s an official club sanctioned by ATU Local 282.