Page 16 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • May 30, 2012 Revenge soon was mine. This time, I was making another trip down Rock Road to the bank. There were a lot of people walking around, so I cut down from the speed limit to below the speed limit, unwilling to crush even the peskiest of pedestrians so that I could feed my own feeble sense of self-important. Honk! It was a woman this time. I looked around, saw shoppers approaching the crossing lines, stopped to let the pedestrians pass without mowing them down like grass as I had been ordered to, and then drove the rest of the distance at half the speed I had been driving at, in the mad hope that my assailant would try passing in a no-passing zone or – best of all – essay an illegal left turn into a parking space on the left (and wrong) side of the road right in front of a cop. No such luck. Once I found a parking space, she drove onward, once again pushing past the speed limit. Here is a pleasant thought: If police officers set up ambushes in areas where people engage in chronic speeding, they could defray a sizable part of their own salaries. Once in a while, Glen Rock catches somebody on Maple Avenue – always a pleasant sight. At least two kids have been killed by motorists on Maple Avenue, not because the motorists were speeding in those cases, but because the kids were not being watched, and ducked out in front of the cars. The fact that even a law-abiding driver can kill a kid indicates just how dangerous a scofflaw speeder is. This is not a place to be in a rush, and a kid’s life is more important that the self-importance of somebody who needs to be somewhere and just did not leave enough time. Another key ambush zone would be Oak Street in Ridgewood. The number of stop streets leading to Oak Street tends to slow down the drivers who turn off Maple Avenue uphill to the YMCA, but on Oak Street, a police officer with a radar gun could buy Ridgewood a new patrol car every month clocking people who do not seem to recognize that a lot of people have to drive across Oak Street. Just recently, a police officer who lives in Glen Rock and works in Wyckoff alerted people to the chronic speeding on Eder Avenue – including drag racing. Remember James Dean in “Rebel Without A Cause”? Remember how the real Dean died? This could be another asphalt river to pan for gold -- in the form of speeding tickets. What about the people who do not want safe drivers to drive at the legal speed, or in bad road conditions like new rain, fresh snow, or black ice, even under the legal speed? There are some great ticket opportunities here, too. People who do not want there to be a speed limit, especially in residential neighbors, can feel free to move out where there are freeways. I rode on one outside Los Angeles some years ago, and they are pretty amazing. However, the one I rode on was not located in a residential neighborhood. The first thing the police should do when somebody is pulled over for a moving violation involving speed or abusive honking and gesturing is to make absolutely sure that the speeder is in this country legally. If not, stamp the violator “Do Not Return” (I mean electronically, of course) and let the taxpayers buy them a one-way ticket back home. If they are Americans, they should be sent back through the mill to re-take the written portion of the driver’s test – in English – and they should also have to pass an IQ test in English showing that they have a functional IQ. I think that very intelligent people are not always the best drivers in the world. They tend to see cars as vehicles of transportation, rather than fantasy, but I think they also have the mental capacity to understand what happens when a car smacks into another car, or into a pedestrian. Is chronic speeding and rude horn-honking to make other people speed a macho thing? Join the Marines! Strike terror into the hearts of America’s enemies overseas, not disgust into the hearts of Americans on their way to work or to pick up the kids. Is speeding a right? Tell it to the judge. A $1,000 fine for everybody who is 10 miles over the speed limit in a residential neighborhood would do our communities a lot more good than “community service” by people who lack medical skills. Inciting others to speed should be good for $100 per honk. The penalty for indecent gestures should be six months in stir. Our communities are not over-supplied with bullies and buffoons, but sometimes these drive through. The least we can do is allow them to help us with our taxes. Pull them over at the first honk to make people speed, and instantly when they speed. We need money! It was 1 p.m. I was coming back from the Glen Rock Recycling Area, where I had just donated some future mulch for the good of the community. I was headed toward Kilroy’s to shop at my local merchant. As I approached a right turn at the railroad tracks, I spotted a tall, wellgroomed woman pushing a baby stroller. I was not sure who had the legal right of way, but I try not to kill women and kids, so I signaled right as I slowed down to let her complete the crossing rather than run her over. The guy behind me honked. Can I get a translation of “beep”? I understand five languages and can read a few more with a dictionary, but what does a honk mean? Does it mean I should swing over sharply and hit a woman and a baby so some guy can avoid using his brake when he is entering a shopping district with crosswalks? I hope not. I would like to have a higher regard for my fellow man than to believe that. But nobody who drives a car around here should attempt to pose as a lover of humanity. The only time I am ever glad to see another vehicle on the road is when I am broken down and it is a tow truck looking for me. Once or twice a year, an airport limousine is also okay. Otherwise, an empty road is a beautiful road. I am requesting another translation. I was on my way to Wyckoff to pose as a living advertisement for the Zabriskie House. I was wearing my period-authentic 1861 Civil War uniform, complete with a rare New York State Infantry jacket with real “excelsior” buttons from the 1860s sewn in place right side up. As I was signaling to turn onto Route 208, looking over my left shoulder for drivers who took the speed limit as a point of departure, I heard a honk. Some guy who could not see the same road that I could must have wanted to get out there and open her up, and my own commitment to getting to my destination alive made no difference to him. I pulled out when I felt like it and he roared past to show me and the world he had more horsepower than a tugboat. I pointedly did not show him what I had in the back seat, but it was not a lug wrench. Not many people have ever seen a New York State Infantry jacket with genuine 1860s excelsior buttons, but it is, I assure you, a much bigger status symbol in some leagues than a hot car of the type that people with threedigit IQs have long come to consider an anachronism and a contributor to global warming. I refused to lurch out into traffic where people were speeding in the slow lane, not because I was afraid to die – I came to terms with death when I volunteered for U.S. Army Airborne in 1967 – but because I did not want to get blood on that jacket. I did not want to get blood on the bayonet of my musket, either. I have a long reach and, among the people I finally grew up with, the Lakota of Pine Ridge and Standing Rock, fist fights are for sissies…but perish the thought. I became so non-violent once I proved capable of producing male children that I not only promised not to fire the musket, but allowed the spiders who live inside the smoothbore barrel to remain unmolested. They have a right to live. They never honk either. Honking for homicide? Not on this dude’s life! Ramsey Fast friends Mandy, left, admires twomonth old Resh held by volunteer Marie Claire at the adoption fair held recently in Ramsey. Four dogs, but no kittens, found good homes at the daylong event, sponsored by Friends Of Wayne Animals. For information go to www.petfinder.com Ramsey primary (continued from page 7) from each of the borough’s voting districts. The addition of two new voting districts in the borough has expanded the opportunities for those who wish to serve on the county committees. With the addition of Districts 7 and 8 this year, Richard Daul filed for Republican County Committee in District 7 and Abbas Safai and Katherine Safai filed for seats in District 8. Democratic candidates who have filed for their party’s county committee organization include Francis Kelaher and Mary Ann Cary in District 1 and Louis Moore in District 4. A chief function of the county committees is exercised when a member of the council resigns in the middle of his or her term. The county committee organization associated with the resigning council member’s political party is charged with providing the council with the names of three prospective candidates from the same party, and the council selects a new member.