Romeo History
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 11:38 am
A suggestion was made that I write about the Romeos. I have written about the history on the forum before, but I can do it again. Bucky or Richard is much more qualified than I am, but here goes.
First I will disqualify the rumor I heard that the Romeos started Cassoday. Both the Romeos and the Cassoday breakfast are evolutions. Both had beginnings from the same general area so some of the same people might have been involved. If you go back far enough and work at connections probably anything motorcycle could be connected.
This is the best history I have. Jack in Hutchison has a group called the FSSNOCs. This stands for Four Stroke Singles National Owners Club. The idea of course is to promote the use of thumpers. Jack would and still does arrange a meeting place for people to ride to. In the early days it was around the state, now it is around the country and only about four or so a year.
The way I got the story is that Jack wanted someone else to do the weekly rides and talked Bucky into doing it. Bucky stayed with it and being less single minded (pun intended) than Jack, he invited anyone with a motorcycle. Somewhere early on Bucky wanted to take a vacation and conned Richard into taking over. I don't have dates and not sure if anyone really does, but this all started somewhere around 2001 or so. I thought it was a little earlier but Bucky said it wasn’t and he knows more than I.
This all seemed to fit real well with Richard. Like all of us Richard enjoys the ride and meeting. But I do think we owe the success of all this to it insuring Richard’s escape from the motel once a week. Being a small business owner there are never ending tasks, but by having others depend on him, would override business for a day. There still was no name for the group. Richard would take your email address and give you an email once a week on where to go, that simple.
I started attending the rides in about 2002, again that could be within a year or so either way. At that time there were probably 10-15 attending a lunch. Somewhere shortly after I started going on these rides my wife was reading a cartoon about old men giving a waitress a hard time at a diner. The punch line was the old man saying we are Romeos: Retired Old Men Eating Out. She brought it over and said, "This is you." I remarked, " No we are Retired Old Motorcyclist Eating out." I presented this to Richard at the next lunch; he didn't like it. By the next lunch he was warming up, and on his email for the third lunch he stated that we were officially the Romeos.
There was still just the one group; the number had grown to the mid twenties on a strong day. Within a couple of weeks a nephew of mine in Emporia that had a T shirt shop had the first shirts printed off, the back being the picture of the thumpers at Potwin. The little saying on the front was my doing. Having a name seemed to grow the group faster.
It was probably that following winter that provided my next stage of involvement. You all know Richard as being pretty rigid on the temperature of riding. Never changing the day etc. It has always been that way and that is fine. It was colder than Richard wanted to ride and I got an email from Bucky saying that it wasn't going to be that bad, why don't we go someplace. You pick it out and email some of the guys. If my memory is right, it was Shirley's at Overbrook. Bucky, Butch, Harry and I were the ones there, and it was a little colder than we had bargained for. I was now in the scheduling business.
I have no idea how much time passed, but one Sunday morning at Wally's in Desoto, Harry, Larry and his other brother Larry cornered me. Richard's rides were often centered around Lindsborg, or East/Southeast of Wichita. He did go to other places, but living in this area four out of five rides were 150 miles or so each way. The idea was if we were to ride over 100 miles to lunch, I should have one closer. That started what is now the Eastern group. I would wait for Richard's email then either arrange a second ride or not depending on where his was. I don't think Richard was happy about all this, but it wasn't long until each group had exceeded the number of riders before the split.
The website was something I had been trying to hatch for a while. Roger in Lawrence was going to help, and things came up so he couldn't continue. I was in the process of getting it going. Actually I don't know a thing about computers, so I was checking with the outfits that do it for you when Jerry volunteered. It turned out to be a forum instead of a website, but it serves us quite well. The forum was designed with expansion in mind and as you have seen, we have expanded. We have since added the Kansas City group, then a South Central group for this general area. A Houston area group will probably join a South Texas group for the Corpus Christi area shortly. There are a few other areas that have expressed interest and will be added if they get things developed. Jerry has done a great job with the forum. There have been a lot of interesting things happen that all of you have been spared from. Jerry and I have spent many hours discussing how things should be done. He would try something, and I would check it for user friendly. Very interesting process, just wish I knew more about it.
So there you have the Romeos. A unique group that has no base. We have no one in charge, no members, no dues, and no rules. Some think it is a motorcycle thing, but it's not; it is a people thing. Motorcycles are the things we have in common, and we do enjoy the ride, but we meet for the camaraderie, food and, of course, a story or two never hurts a thing.
First I will disqualify the rumor I heard that the Romeos started Cassoday. Both the Romeos and the Cassoday breakfast are evolutions. Both had beginnings from the same general area so some of the same people might have been involved. If you go back far enough and work at connections probably anything motorcycle could be connected.
This is the best history I have. Jack in Hutchison has a group called the FSSNOCs. This stands for Four Stroke Singles National Owners Club. The idea of course is to promote the use of thumpers. Jack would and still does arrange a meeting place for people to ride to. In the early days it was around the state, now it is around the country and only about four or so a year.
The way I got the story is that Jack wanted someone else to do the weekly rides and talked Bucky into doing it. Bucky stayed with it and being less single minded (pun intended) than Jack, he invited anyone with a motorcycle. Somewhere early on Bucky wanted to take a vacation and conned Richard into taking over. I don't have dates and not sure if anyone really does, but this all started somewhere around 2001 or so. I thought it was a little earlier but Bucky said it wasn’t and he knows more than I.
This all seemed to fit real well with Richard. Like all of us Richard enjoys the ride and meeting. But I do think we owe the success of all this to it insuring Richard’s escape from the motel once a week. Being a small business owner there are never ending tasks, but by having others depend on him, would override business for a day. There still was no name for the group. Richard would take your email address and give you an email once a week on where to go, that simple.
I started attending the rides in about 2002, again that could be within a year or so either way. At that time there were probably 10-15 attending a lunch. Somewhere shortly after I started going on these rides my wife was reading a cartoon about old men giving a waitress a hard time at a diner. The punch line was the old man saying we are Romeos: Retired Old Men Eating Out. She brought it over and said, "This is you." I remarked, " No we are Retired Old Motorcyclist Eating out." I presented this to Richard at the next lunch; he didn't like it. By the next lunch he was warming up, and on his email for the third lunch he stated that we were officially the Romeos.
There was still just the one group; the number had grown to the mid twenties on a strong day. Within a couple of weeks a nephew of mine in Emporia that had a T shirt shop had the first shirts printed off, the back being the picture of the thumpers at Potwin. The little saying on the front was my doing. Having a name seemed to grow the group faster.
It was probably that following winter that provided my next stage of involvement. You all know Richard as being pretty rigid on the temperature of riding. Never changing the day etc. It has always been that way and that is fine. It was colder than Richard wanted to ride and I got an email from Bucky saying that it wasn't going to be that bad, why don't we go someplace. You pick it out and email some of the guys. If my memory is right, it was Shirley's at Overbrook. Bucky, Butch, Harry and I were the ones there, and it was a little colder than we had bargained for. I was now in the scheduling business.
I have no idea how much time passed, but one Sunday morning at Wally's in Desoto, Harry, Larry and his other brother Larry cornered me. Richard's rides were often centered around Lindsborg, or East/Southeast of Wichita. He did go to other places, but living in this area four out of five rides were 150 miles or so each way. The idea was if we were to ride over 100 miles to lunch, I should have one closer. That started what is now the Eastern group. I would wait for Richard's email then either arrange a second ride or not depending on where his was. I don't think Richard was happy about all this, but it wasn't long until each group had exceeded the number of riders before the split.
The website was something I had been trying to hatch for a while. Roger in Lawrence was going to help, and things came up so he couldn't continue. I was in the process of getting it going. Actually I don't know a thing about computers, so I was checking with the outfits that do it for you when Jerry volunteered. It turned out to be a forum instead of a website, but it serves us quite well. The forum was designed with expansion in mind and as you have seen, we have expanded. We have since added the Kansas City group, then a South Central group for this general area. A Houston area group will probably join a South Texas group for the Corpus Christi area shortly. There are a few other areas that have expressed interest and will be added if they get things developed. Jerry has done a great job with the forum. There have been a lot of interesting things happen that all of you have been spared from. Jerry and I have spent many hours discussing how things should be done. He would try something, and I would check it for user friendly. Very interesting process, just wish I knew more about it.
So there you have the Romeos. A unique group that has no base. We have no one in charge, no members, no dues, and no rules. Some think it is a motorcycle thing, but it's not; it is a people thing. Motorcycles are the things we have in common, and we do enjoy the ride, but we meet for the camaraderie, food and, of course, a story or two never hurts a thing.