At age 71, a Pittsburgh area school bus driver takes to the road on his motorcycle, "You just enjoy it."
Sometimes in this business, we get to meet someone along the way who has a great story to tell, and that's exactly what happened to me in the Best Buy parking lot in the North Hills.
Jerry Mason has been a school bus driver for 35 years, currently he's with the North Hills School District, but that's just his vocation, it's not his story.
"They call me 'Kool Breeze' in the motorcycle world," he told me.
Mason has been all over the United States on two wheels, saying that he's over a million miles.
"Easy, 48 states, Canada, Mexico, I've been to the west coast 13 times from Pittsburgh," he said. "I've been up the coastline on the Pacific, I've been through the Redwood Forest."
Think of some kind of landmark in the continental United States; chances are, Mason has ridden through them. Whether it's the peak of the Rocky Mountains or the eastern seaboard, he's been there.
"Coming down the hill into Salt Lake City, it's about a 10-mile hill, you can see, it's beautiful," he said. "I've been to the keys, to the zero mile marker, been to Bar Harbor, Maine, [eaten] lobster tails."
He's a member of the Pittsburgh Deacons, a service club, and he's traveled with the group and he's traveled alone.
"There's a lot of good people out there, people to help you," Mason said. "There's a lot of friendly people everywhere you go, you just have a good time. It's like freedom, the wind's blowing through your hair, and you just enjoy it."
He calls his bike "The Midnight Caller" and put 400,000 on his first gold wing, and 450,000 on Midnight Caller 2, and on three, he had a close call in Wytheville, Virginia, putting it down on the left side of an I-77 ramp.
"I had my trailer, so when it went down, it just gradually came back, I gave it some gas, and kept on going," he recalled.
That prompted him to adapt Midnight Caller 3 to a tricycle over 100,000 miles ago. He's also no fairweather rider, rain or shine, he rides.
"It's windproof or waterproof, head on down the road," he said. "This old man knows to have plenty of water. Jump out there early in the morning because by the time you get up at 9, 10:00, shower, eat, it's 102 degrees and now you've got to ride in it."
At age 71, he's outridden many of his friends, two marriages, and enjoys time with his six daughters, but the call of the road is a force he does not deny.
"I take a notion, I go, you only come once, enjoy it," He said.
Mason and the Deacons were just in the Juneteenth parade with him leading the way, sound system blasting. Believe me, you hear him coming before you see him coming.
So what's next for Mason?
He's heading to Virginia Beach and then back to the West Coast with stops in Las Vegas and Denver.
He said he'll keep riding until he says he can't anymore.
