Most Glorious Vacation Day II
Most Glorious Vacation Day II
Allow me to start by telling you about a friend that I’d never met before. Her name is Ginny (That’s what she likes to be called) Toney and she lives in Houston. We exchange emails from time to time, and on a few occasions we have talked on the phone. Our common interest is that we are a little bit related and she has written a book about our families. “The Reuter/Riter Family of Germany and Wetzel County, Virginia/West Virginia” by Virginia Lee Simms Toney published in 1988, it is a genealogy of our families starting with Johannes Jacob Reuter and Anna Kunigunde from Staufenberg, Germany in 1654AD. Records prior to this date were destroyed by the war, mainly the bombing of Dresden. This is not some tablet of notes based on one or two conversations with some of the old folks. It is a professionally done document into which she invested many years of trips and serious research going to places such as Germany, Salt Lake City, and wherever records required she go to make it complete. It is more than 300 pages of painstaking detail. Every family needs a Ginny Toney for records. From 1988 forward we may have to find a replacement for her. If Ginny doesn’t mind, I’ll probably tap Ingrid for the job. I haven’t mentioned it to either of them yet.
Yes, of course I am listed in the book. Page 197 says “Riter, Jerry Roger IX-1-1-1-3-5-16-4”. The Roman numeral indicates that I am the 9th generation from Johannes Jacob Reuter. The last Arabic number by my name means I was 4th born in my family. My father was the 16th (holy crap!!) born in my grandfather’s family. Grandfather was 5th born in his family and so forth. Long story short—her grandmother is Helen Reuter whose little brother, William was my grandfather. This is not Ginny’s only writing, but probably her most difficult. According to the Houston papers she is also a respected lecturer. I was coming to Texas to see my daughter on this trip and I would be darned if I was going to miss a chance to have breakfast with Ginny.
The problem was that my 1st stop for gas today (3.422 gal-21,319 miles 10:00 AM) was a reality check. Exhaustion had made me sleep late and I was still a couple of hundred miles from Houston. I called her from the station and asked if we could trade the breakfast date for lunch and estimated I could get there before 1:00 PM her time. She agreed, so I hung up and hit the saddle completely forgetting that I was still in Louisiana.
A few miles west of Baton Rouge there is an 18 mile bridge across Atchafalaya Basin. It’s part of the largest swamp in the United States. Modern and wide, the bridge is the nicest and safest stretch of highway on all of I-10. It also has the lowest speed limit. The limit had been 70 mph for the last two hundred or so miles. I usually drove with an indicated speed of 75 mph knowing that bikes always read a few miles optimistically. I had calibrated my own speedometer with a GPS just yesterday, and I found it read between 7 & 8 mph high at this level. In other words, I was driving about 67 or 68 mph.
Suddenly, the side of the road came alive with several Highway Patrol cars each singling out a motorist to run down and exact a toll from. I was one of those. The officer pointed out to me that the speed limit was now 60 mph and accused me to going 80. I explained that I had not yet noticed the change in maximum speed posting, but that under no circumstances was I doing 80 mph. That would mean showing 88 or 89 on the indicator. I wouldn’t do that unless there was some kind of emergency. He wasn’t buying it, nor was he moved by the poor old man on a little bitty scooter routine. I must say, his demeanor and deportment were excellent although he was mistaken about the speed I was travelling. He didn’t want to be there. Policemen hate traffic duty, especially running speed traps. It’s a case of a decent young fellow whose job for now just stinks. He gave me a number to call sometime in the next month to find out how much I’ll owe. See 1st comment.
I arrived in Houston about noon and Ginny took me out and bought me lunch at her favorite deli. We had a wonderful time trading stories and agreed to keep in touch by email and phone. Thanks to her marvelous book, friends that claim kinship to me can get their pedigree on line for the asking. The book is out of print now, and Lloye and I bought what we thought were the last three copies. I sent one to my sister whose daughter, Penny (a devout Mormon) was extremely grateful. Ginny found one last remaining copy of it and asked me to give it to my daughter, Rachel, who I was going to see in Austin this evening. Next stop, next blog.
No. I havn’t paid the ticket yet. I have sent the DA a couple of letters asking him to reconsider and agreed to pay a reduced fine that more accurately reflects the speed I was actually going. So far, no agreement.