E-Mail
Print
tool name
closeWhen Johnny Ray rides his scooter down Gray Highway, he’s used to people pointing and staring.
It’s not the candy-apple red Roketa 250 that attracts all the attention but the red-haired girl wagging her tail on the seat behind him.
Gizmo, his Pomeranian/cocker spaniel-mixed pooch, rides in style in her own “K-9 unit” fastened to the bike.
“She loves it. She rides good,” Ray said.
She took an interest in the scooter as soon as he drove it home last year.
“When I got back from my maiden trip, she put her little paws on the running board like, ‘Daddy, I don’t know what this thing is but I want to go with you,’ ’’ said Ray, 64, who retired in 1996 from doing in-house printing for the Atlanta Braves for 15 years.
He still works in Atlanta doing overnight printing when the Georgia General Assembly is in session, but he said he was hardly making any money commuting.
When gas prices shot up to more than $4 a gallon, he opted for better gas mileage around town and bought the scooter.
Leaving Gizmo home was not an option.
“She pouts,” he said.
Ray at first thought he could hook her up with a harness and leashes, but he decided instead on a double-decker contraption. He hinged two black milk crates together and fastened them with bungee cords.
Advertisements for Ray’s favorite hangouts, Old Clinton Opry and the Wagon House Opry in Haddock, emblazon the sides of the plastic box with Ray’s e-mail across the back.
The homemade cage gives Gizmo room to stand up and stretch.
“I get the biggest kick when she sticks her nose out of the hand holes,” Ray said during a breakfast break at Burger King in Macon.
He goes inside the restaurant for a bite and a cup of coffee and brings her a biscuit before they ride home.
“Hey there baby,” he says as he approaches with her morning snack and begins to interpret for her. “She says, ‘Have you got my biscuit?’’’
Gizmo stands at attention and focuses on her daddy. Her prominent, soft, shaggy ears are reminiscent of her namesake from the movie “Gremlins.” Ray lifts the top milk crate and feeds her bits of egg and cheese.
The bread will go to the yard dogs back home near Gray. When the two load up on the bike each clear morning, he flips a coin to decide whether to head to Gray or Macon for breakfast.
Their trips are limited to early in the day and evening during the hotter months. Ray knows the cool spots.
“Ole (Times) Country Buffet has a nice tree that I can park under,” said Ray, wearing a black T-shirt that reads “Got Pets?”
When there’s no shade, he pulls a nylon cloth with the image of Geico’s gecko out of the back compartment and lays it over the top of the crate.
While she’s waiting outside the restaurants, people come up and stick their fingers through the holes to pet her soft, graying fur.
“Everybody just loves her,” he said.
Gizmo might let out a couple of coughs — a symptom of congestive heart failure that could have ended her life years ago.
But she keeps hanging on.
Ray says strangers in the restaurant will ask, “‘Who’s got that motorcycle with the dog on it?’ I tell them, ‘I can call my motorcycle woman a dog, but don’t you call her a dog.’”
People often snap photographs of Gizmo Girl and Johnny Ray.
The two have traveled as far as Panama City, Fla., together on the scooter.
“When I go to church and places I can’t take her, she looks up with those brown eyes saying, ‘Daddy, won’t you take me?’”
To contact writer Liz Fabian, call 744-4303.
@Nyx.CommentBody@