Show and Tell

Check it out, I made a floor pump! 
                                                                                         

9 pounds of scrap wood
and used plumbing pipe

It's not like I needed another one, I think I already have 6. A nice Silca my wife gave me years ago that I keep in the basement with my bikes and tools, a Blackburn and a Specialized on the back porch(one set up Schreader, the other Presta), another identical Blackburn in the attic(I got tired of carrying one up the ladder every time I wanted to ride the bikes I have up there, so now keep one there sort of permanant-like) and another one or two out with loaner bikes. So no, I didn't really need another one, and if I did I could have just gone to the bike shop and spent $30 on a nice one.

Well, that's probably untrue, I really couldn't have just gone and bought one, I have the money, I'm employed and all that, but buying a pump isn't something I've ever done or am ever likely to do. Other people do though. People who then dispose of the last one with the broken chuck or the loose barrel that wont seal any longer. People who's trash I pick through when I go to their houses to meet them for rides. I've never had a new one except that gift from my Sweety, just repaired whatever ones turned up in the skip and used them.

Pumps are really simple, once you've had a couple apart you will cease to find them very mysterious and eventually you might even think to yourself," I could totally MAKE me one of them floor pumps". Then one day you find a scrap of heavy copper plumbing pipe, and thinking how sharp it would look all polished up, stuff it under your workbench to make a lamp or whatever out of someday. Then a year or two later you're bickering with yourself about whether to throw out that bent up vintage French handlebar with the cool engraving, and suddenly think"SHAZAM! That would make a sweet floor pump handle!" and then remembering the chunk of pipe under the bench, spend the next 2 weeks investing all your spare time into making what you could have purchased for $30... While the grass grows up over the mailbox, the garden goes all to hell and you forget to wash socks and have to wear sandals everywhere.

Not that that's what happened to me or anything.

Just relax and take a deep breath...

I had a lot of fun making it though. There was enough easy stuff like gathering up and polishing all the brass and copper hardware and fittings to go with the copper pipe and brass manifold and check valve I had to make. The woodworking was only about a 5 on a 1 to 10 scale of difficulty but it took me a while to figure out how to form a leather cup to seal the piston. It worked the first time but required way more messing around than I thought it should have. But as a result, I now consider myself the Worlds Foremost Expert on the manufacture of leather cup seals. I suspect I may be about to become wealthy as people clamor for my services. Time will tell. 

I already had the perfect hose, it's from my plumbers leak testing kit. I'm not sure whether I should go buy a new one to replace it or make one out of cheap rubber fuel line from the Auto Parts Store like all the other amateur plumbers. Maybe I should just stop doing any plumbing... Either way, it looks properly vintage with a braided fabric covering and shiny brass fittings. It and the black steel industrial pressure gauge with the magnifying lens really finish off the old fashioned vibe. I hope with a few years of use it will pass for something my Grandfather would have used. Nothing would please me more than to tell someone I made it and have them accuse me of being a big fat fibber(at least about the pump, not in general of course...). It's usefully huge as well, in a 1920s sort of "keep it by the garage door to top off the tires on the Model T" kind of way. If you need to pump up your Fat-Bike with the 5" tires without resorting to a compressor or 6 or 7 CO2 cartridges, this is the pump. There's even a half dozen patches, a square inch of sandpaper and a tube of rubber cement rolled up in a scrap of handkerchief inside the handle. I truly fear no flat while in the company of my "Pumpe Gigant"(that's German for big ol' pump).

Anyway, that's what I spent some of my time doing lately. I like making stuff and when things turn out well I get an amazing amount of satisfaction from having and using those things. Especially if they look really cool.

I have a couple of ideas about what to make next, I'll just have to go dig around under the bench to see what I have to work with...                                           

I will crush you little Girly pump.

Legible from 6 feet up.

Longest ride of the year. So far.

Last Sunday was our local Bike Club Century(100 miles in one day), I did a few extra miles on my ride into town and finished with enough extra on the way home to complete a Double Metric Century(200 Kilometers or 124.3 Miles). It was my longest ride this year due to a bit of surgery in June and a huge backlog of chores and projects that accumulated during the time I wasn't supposed to lift anything over 10 pounds(you really can't get anything useful accomplished with a 9.9 pound maximum payload, Hell, my conscience alone weighs 13). 200km has become something of a personal test for me over the last few years, long enough to give me an idea of how much momentum I'm building on the "Downhill" side of 50, but not so long that it requires dropping everything and "training" like some of the bigger, more epic distances that sometimes sound like fun. And summer is slipping away fast so it seemed like time to go do it, I also wanted to see if I was back in shape or becoming "enfeebled" as my Daughters claim. I got it done, not as fast as last year but I got to ride with some people I really like and one of my regular riding partners finished her first 100 and I was glad to be a part of that.

A 124.3 mile ride is also an opportunity to get lost in your thoughts for 10 or 11 hours. I always have a lot to think about and this time came away with some new thoughts and ideas about a couple of things. If you promise not to make fun of me or point out my inconsistencies and hypocrisy I'll share some of it with you. Promise? OK, read on...

I spent a good part of the first few hours trying to figure out how big a jerk I really am, it was on my mind because recently I commented on someone Else's bike blog that I had, on several occasions, intentionally, and gleefully, bumped 2 different riders who habitually do stuff that cause them to drift backwards into the rider behind them in a paceline or tight pack. It was the typical offhand comment of someone who feels justified in their actions and assumes everyone reading it will raise a glass in their honor with a hearty "Hear! Hear!" But everyone didn't raise a toast to me and proclaim me to be a grand fellow. In fact, the consensus seemed to be that I'd been an Ass. That was sort of a surprise and my first response was to try to explain the whole situation so everyone(all my close personal internet friends at least) would see that far from being an Ass, I was acting Bravely, in the interests of cyclists everywhere and might even be a HERO!(blahblahblah...). But the more I tried to explain it, the more I became convinced that, with certain caveats, I really had been a Jerk(I was also reminded that the internet is a dangerous place if you're a bit insecure, prone to talking too much or too loudly and blush easily, sort of like the Cool Kids Table in Jr. High).

I'll just run through those caveats here before we go any farther and then I'll try to explain where I actually ended up on the subject of my being an Ass...

Caveat A) It wasn't a violent shove or anything like that, it was simply not getting on the brakes when he came back at me (caused by him sitting up in the draft, tapping the brakes after moving over in front of me or any number of things the rest of the riders around him sincerely wish he would stop doing), and lining my tire up with his so they "barked" and he would feel the sudden contact. Worse stuff than that happens on every other ride, sometimes because of the squirrel tactics he himself employs. Dang-it, we don't have to take it! When I say it like that it's easier to convince myself it's no big deal and people should calm down...  But it's still mean.

Caveat 2) I never wrecked anyone.  True, but that's not quite the same as saying if I keep doing it I won't eventually wreck someone.

Caveat  D) That's how I was taught how to ride safely in a fast group(this is where I think I really got off track).   Sure, this was how I was taught to ride fast in a group. When I was 18 and 19, by a bunch of older Racers who dis-invited you pretty quickly if you were sloppy or erratic. It was definitely a different setting from a casual Club Ride but it made sense, Racing is pretty serious business as pointless amateur athletics go, and as the risks increase with speed and urgency, so does the need for everyone to be skilled and focused. It's one of the ways you honor your Mates and The Sport, you take it seriously. One ends up taking pride in that skill and focus. It's one of the things I really like about Racing and it's easy to decide that everyone who rides around me should ride to the same high standard that I do. But the fact is I'm not sure what riding to that "standard" really means. And who am I to assign that task to everyone anyway? It's not like anyone's coming on these rides to learn my fabulous technique. And do I really ride so fabulously anyway? It's nice to think so but I don't Race anymore, I wasn't good at it when I did, and I wouldn't want to ride with the punks I learned with now anyway, even if I could(actually I really could, they're all even older and fatter than me now and half of them probably can't remember where they left their bikes, so those guys I can handle). It's all stuff I should understand better than I do but it's only now starting to sink in in a new way.

So yeah, scrubbing those guys tires like that was a shabby thing to do and if I was a Mensch, I'd find an opportunity to apologize to them and not do it again(but also give them a bit more room cuz' they're still going to run somebody into a mailbox someday). I'd feel better about myself if I did so here's my chance to lower my P.J.I.(Personal Jerk Index) and feel free to eat my lunch at the Cool Kids table again.

But all this thinking about how we treat each other when we're "playing" reminded me that there are situations when we have to accept that harsh "That's the way it is in this League" sort of approach if we're going to get more out of things, but also how hard it can be to figure out what those situations are. I used to play Softball in a local league, I was "OK" I suppose, but not great. Some years I played in the "B" League and other years when our team didn't have a better Catcher I played "A" League. Same game, same rules, ostensibly the same goal of playing your best and having fun but the expectations about skill, focus and etiquette were far greater. I played so much better in "A" than I ever did in "B" and I absolutely fell in love with playing Catcher, but I remember how dumb I felt a few times when I showed up with my "B" league habits and attitudes.

 Like the time the Ump called me "out" before the pitcher was even facing me because I put a foot out of the back of the box. I knew that rule, and I knew what the purpose of that rule was; to keep Batters from taking the heads off Catchers like me. In "B" we'd just remind the batter and the Ump would warn them a couple of times before finally calling them out. I was constantly having to watch out for the guys who liked to step way back for a deep pitch and make me scramble. I didn't have that habit but I was a bit sloppy about lounging around in the box waiting for the Pitcher to get ready. In a place where people came to experience a more intense and challenging version of the game I was suddenly the guy who couldn't be trusted not to do something dumb. So it was "THE BATTER IS OUT!", and go sit down. I was super frustrated at myself and annoyed at the Umpire who wouldn't give me a break.

But as the season went on that Ump was the one who taught me the most about how and when to stand my ground at the plate and not let super aggro runners drive me out of the base path when I was covering a throw to Home. I learned that I had been giving runners way more room than I needed to and that in this league I was going to be throwing games away that my team was working hard to win if I didn't learn when and how to give some guys a shoulder when they were trying to get away with something. When some runner would charge me at Home and try to knock the ball out of my glove and I could dump him on his ass and come up with the ball I felt like I was playing a completely different game than when I used to just make a show of getting shoved out of the way and assume the Ump would call the dude out for it. But when I went back to playing "B" league in later seasons I didn't go knocking runners down who didn't yield even though the rules would certainly allow for some of that. Different league, different people looking for a different experience. I don't think I was ever really tempted to bulldoze anyone at the plate but I did do a much better job of keeping everybody honest, there was also a few times I thought "That guy would probably enjoy this game so much more if his bag of tricks was deeper than just charging the Catcher".

I'm not going to risk my 50 year old shoulders and knees playing ball anymore and I don't ride quite like I did 10 years ago, but I still want to feel like I'm "On the gas", you know? That attitude of "Not taking any crap from these Guys" can sometimes take the place of really getting out there and doing something worthwhile for us "Masters" and I want to make sure I don't get trapped in that particular swamp. I do a ride with some faster, mostly much younger riders occasionally and even though it's not their "hard day", I am just hanging on. It's challenging and a chance to actually get some benefit from whatever elevated skills I might actually have and those people have been super nice and encouraging to me which has been cool. It hasn't made me start thinking about getting a license again , but it has helped me keep looking forward to the next adventure. I appreciate that. I should probably try to be a little more like that myself...

Gravitational Amnesty and The New Way Of Everything

I fell off my bike the other day. I seem to do that a few times a year and it's usually not a big deal but this time I thought it was going to be bad.

 It was a combination of going a little too slow on a steep downhill turn and finding the gravel to be a lot deeper and looser than the last time through. More speed and I would have just rolled a bit wide, maybe slid the rear wheel out in a dramatic spray of rocks but certainly not dug in like I did, ending up in a textbook "High Side" dismount. That's where you fall toward the outside of the turn, accelerating as you launch over the bike and head for the clouds in the "Superman" pose (toes pointed-arms outstretched-stern look)  instead of the more benign "Low Side" where the bike slides out from under you, and you grind your speed off feet-first. Neither are any fun but if you have a choice, take the low road. I think I gained more altitude than I did distance this time, and in that discreet little span where time seems to slow and the individual leaves on the trees popped into sharp focus and the birdsong blended with the sounds of the stones I sent skittering across the road, I thought to myself; "I am about to break my collarbone and 7 fingers", and then, "That Poison Ivy on the barb-wire I'm going to crash into is such an incredible shade of green". And then I was running down the hill in the middle of the road in that bewildered way of a child waking from a fever.

 And I was fine.

Not a mark. Well, nothing other than bleeding from the corners of my eyelids from them opening out over the top of my head in terror when I was in midair and anticipating getting killed in the face with a dirt road. I wasn't even sore the next day which is un-freaking-believable considering the high-G maneuvers I had to have executed to land on my feet pointing roughly in the direction I was going. My bike even came out better than could have been predicted, just a torn brake hood, a scratched fork and scraped fenders. The saddle was covered in dirt and had some grit embedded into the leather but no gouges or scratches, almost like it bounced(!?) off it.

It's as if I got some sort of a pass. I drew the short straw for the suicide mission at the moment the war was called off, had the trapdoor of the scaffold drop out from under me as a runaway cart of mattresses rolled underneath. I can't explain it, it certainly isn't the product of clean living. And while I know this crazy turn of events is just a coincidence of a thousand factors coming up in my favor, it SEEMS like something more, something Cosmic or Divine. Like this was a sign, you know? I mean, one moment I'm resigned to a sudden painful stop and a lungful of rocks and five minutes later I'm back on my bike, sipping from my bottle and trying to remember what John Calvin said about predestination. Or maybe it was Camus.

 I'd like to say I'm a Rationalist, that I'm not superstitious. But if you know me, have hung out with me, have seen the books on my night stand you know what I really am. I'm a Romantic. Yearning for the mystical, susceptible to the promises of religion, spirituality and revolution, a lover of Thomas Merton, George Eliot and Cervantes. Of all the people you will ever meet, of all the dudes standing on the sidewalk, gawking up at the buildings as you step around, I am the one most likely to come away from an experience like this with a message, an altered perception. A man with a new and radical plan for myself and the rest of the world around me. A mission.

I just need to decide what message to take from my near-near death experience. I'm pretty sure it's about bikes. I know it's going to change the World. I'm convinced it's too big to be stopped and I alone have been chosen to bring this revolution to fruition. This Revolution that will bring about The New Way Of Everything. I might be about to force Mandatory-Helmet-Usage-For-All-Outdoor-Activities-At-All-Times down the throats of all the warm blooded creatures of the Entire World or it might be a FER REAL Total-Solar-System-Wide Helmet-Ban FOREVER. I'm not sure which, but it's coming.

 I'll be in touch...

Double Metric Firewood Century

What did you do yesterday?

I was going to get up early and do a Double Metric Century on my bike. That's 200km, or a bit over 120 miles. I've done that distance a bunch of times over the years and It's just about at the limit of what I can readily do on the spur of the moment, by myself, without any preparation. It's doable and "fun", but not something you knock out in a couple of hours and then go about your bidness the next day like nothing happened. At least not for me anymore.

Spur of the moment in this case was realizing on Friday afternoon that my project for Saturday, replacing the waterpump on my wife's Bentley, wasn't happening because the "Bombe de Aqua", as it's called in Spanish, hadn't come in("Bombe de Agua",I really like that. What if we ditch "Waterpump" all together and just go with "Bombe de Agua" from now on?). I figured if I was all casual and did the "Yo Baby, maybe I'll do a ride in the morning before it gets hot..." thing, I could take off and do a nice long ride, be back by mid-afternoon and still get a couple of things done before the "Lovely and Talented" figured out I wasted a whole day screwing around on my bike. But by nine o'clock on Friday evening I was starting to have second thoughts. Guilty thoughts. Winter's coming and there's hardly any firewood thoughts. Once the guilt gets up about ankle deep it takes the fun out of things, and it was sloshing around approximately waist level. So instead of getting up at 5:30 and getting the bike out to go ride a "double", I "slept in" till 6 and hauled out the chainsaw to go spend the day cutting wood instead.

And it was OK. In fact, it actually wasn't that different. Really.

You see, they're pretty similar activities in a lot of ways: A) They take about the same amount of time and effort, 2) I go out in public in some remarkably unbecoming clothes, and D) I get to eat more snacks and drink more Cherry-Limeade that I normally would in a couple of weeks. Oh, and wear some marginally useful safety gear that in the event that something dreadful happens, will simply make me appear to have been a more careful, if no less unfortunate, dope than if I had gone out and done it in my underpants and flip-flops. The equipment's similar too in that there's all sorts of messing around that can be done if you want, changing the spark-plug and touching up the chain on the saw with a file accomplishes about as much as replacing the pads and lubing the chain on your bike. Especially if you don't really know what you're doing and are just copying the Guys that do.

Anyway, I went down the road to the Cemetery where they'd cleared out an old fence row to expand the grounds(it's getting a bit crowded, folks are DYING to get in there you know(!) (I love that joke SO much, I work it in somehow AT LEAST twice a month)) and got started. They ripped everything out with a Dozer and a Track-hoe, pushing all the brush and wire and rocks up into a huge pile to burn this winter when the risks of a fire are lower, and "stacked" the hardwood in another pile for me. It was sort of a mess with 1000 lb. logs jumbled up in a pile 6 feet high and 30 long. A bajillion tons of energy stored up ready to tumble down and mash everything in it's way. It's safe enough if you know the basics, have the tools to move things around without climbing on or under anything, and keep your brain turned on. You can still get hurt but if you're careful you probably wont, even if you do it your whole life. But it could. Sort of like riding your bike.
 I only got half the pile cut up into ready to split billets, but every log is on the ground in 10 foot sections, spread out safely and I'll be back over the next couple of weeks to finish cutting it into 24" chunks, then back with Bruce's splitter(I replaced the valve body and fixed the flat tires in exchange for using it on this job) to split it up and get it all ready to haul 2 miles to my house. I'm not exactly sure how much wood is in that pile, I don't do this enough to be an expert but it's easily all we'll need for this winter and most of next if we don't have another horrible one like we did 2 winters ago. Maybe there's more than that. We'll see when it's all split and stacked.

We don't heat just with wood but it saves enough money that it helps make up for me not having gone to Medical School or whatever I gave up to be whatever it is I am. Sometimes I wish I had a job that let me spend my way out of more problems but I don't, and it really only means I do things like cut fire wood and do my own plumbing and car repairs instead of riding my bikes all the time or going Rock Climbing or Golfing like my friends who listened to their Parents and went off to the Dental Mines or the Counting Houses. At least I work indoors now and can go home at the end of the day without having to scrub off all the grease or shake the welding slag out of my hair anymore.

I spent enough years doing donkey work that  spending a Saturday cutting wood doesn't seem like a hardship. But it does to some of my friends that I ride bikes all over creation with, just like spending a whole day riding a bike sounds like a daunting challenge to some of my friends that spend their days hanging sheetrock or roofing houses. Jobs that are just plain hard that they just do, getting used to and getting satisfaction from doing well in a way that should let them see that a hundred miles on a bike isn't anything you have to "train" for, you just have to want or need to do it and go out with the minimum of appropriate gear. And realize you're going to be sore and a little uncomfortable till you've done it a bit and learned the tricks.
Just like what they do most other days.

Most jobs are like that too I suppose, I worked on a geological drill for an Engineering Company for a while, really long days doing crazy hard work out in the boonies. It was absolutely the hardest work I'd ever had to do but after a couple of weeks it was just my job. A 10 hour day made you tired and a 14 hour day made you REALLY tired but you still got in the truck the next time feeling like you could do another day. It was a lot like how I felt after doing 200 Miles in a day back when I was a few years younger. But the drilling job was at a point in my life where I wasn't riding bikes anymore, and when some of my old Racing Buddies tried to get me to go do a 100mile ride with them I begged off saying I couldn't get away, but inside I was thinking to myself there was no way I could ride a bike that far anymore. I think I was 31. One of them told me later he was thinking "I can't understand how he can do that job, I never could", about my drilling gig. But he survived a Residency where he had to do 72 hour shifts in an Intensive Care Unit. It seems funny now.

I know some people would read this and say "Duh." And I guess it is sort of self evident to most people, but like a bunch of things that many of us learn when we're 15 in Marching Band or Girl Scouts or in the Gym, others of us learn it later, and I'm one of them. Some of this didn't sink in till I was way too old for Girl Scouts, I would have had more fun if when I decided to quit pretending to be a Bike Racer, I would have just kept riding because I loved it, and not wandered off and done all my sweating in welding shops and the cabs of stinking diesels, giving up on things that just seemed too hard and going off to do just as difficult things because I didn't realize I could choose. Oh well, I finally learned some of that stuff. I'm glad I did because it made what I did yesterday feel as satisfying as what I had to postpone, and it's why it's going to be so nice in a week or two when I do get up early and go blow a whole Saturday out on my bike.

 I wish ya'll could come too, it's going to be great...

"Excuse me, could I have your autograph?"

Jimmy Carter is getting treatment for cancer, I suppose the fact he's spending some of his time in Hospital shouldn't surprise anyone since he is 90, but still. Oliver Sacks has been saying his goodbyes and working on some important things as well as he deals with the cancer that's going to punch his ticket. I'll be sorry when he's gone. This is on my mind because they are both people that I've admired for years and whose writing I've benefited from reading, and, this is sort of embarrassing, they're both people I hoped I might get to meet someday.

I'm really not one of those "Can I have your autograph Mister?" sort of persons and it's not like I thought I was going to make a new Best Friend and start sitting in on patient sessions with Ollie or goofing off pranking the Secret Service Detail with Jimmy or anything like that. It's more like secretly nurtured hopes to bump into Mr. Carter in an out of the way part of the National Gallery on a rainy afternoon(He does Paint after all) or find myself in line behind Dr. Sacks at a vintage bookstore somewhere. You know, a setting that would automatically define me as a thoughtful, insightful person, a person you might want to extend a hand to and engage in conversation with when I shamble up and ask "Can I have your autograph Mister?"  It's not exactly hero worship but it's more than just "Hmmm, that Dude makes some interesting points, I wonder what he's like to talk to..." 5 minutes chatting with either of them would be a big deal to me and put a finer edge to the satisfaction I'd get reading their work for the rest of my life.

I was thinking about this the other day in the bushes outside the White House; What is it about some people who we'll probably never ever meet, that makes us want to connect with them somehow? And other people who write just as well, sing or tell jokes just as well or whatever, can stroll past in the Airport and we don't do more than jab our partner in the ribs and whisper, "Check it out, THAT'S HER!... you know, the one that does that thing! On TeeVee..." For example; I really like reading E.O.Wilson but have never been tempted to write him a letter or plan what I would say if I ever bumped into him at Wal-Mart. Same with Stephen Jay Gould, I've read at least a dozen books of his and got something worthwhile out of every single one of them but when he passed away I wished his atheistic soul farewell but never thought "too bad I never got to meet old Steve". In fact, I once passed up an opportunity to hear him speak in a situation where it might have been easy to meet him after the lecture and ask him to sign a copy of whatever book he had just cranked out, but I passed it up to go see Russ Myer's "Faster Pussycat, KILL KILL!" with some young ladies my Grandmother would describe as having "Fallen short of the Glory". No regrets on that one.

When I was in college I went with some friends to hear Betty Friedan speak at Hollins College and had this startling realization about why I kept finding myself trying to date Feminists. I'd read "The Feminine Mystique" and it had all sort of gone over my head, but after hearing her speak from 20 feet away, I started trying to unravel some thought I'm still untangling today. There are other Writers who plow that same field that I respect and admire but I'm content to engage them in print, but if she were still around I'd like to go get in Ms. Friedan's bubble again. That was a powerful experience and I still feel a bit of it every time I read something she wrote, see her photo or hear her name.  It's not just Writers I feel this way about either, there are some Artists and Musicians(Chrissie Hynde from "The Pretenders", Buddy Guy) a VERY few politicians(who, like President Carter, get on the list because they have something useful to say AND can write really well) and a couple of spectacularly squared-away people who don't really have a catagory. I'd really like to spend half an hour asking any of them some questions and getting a sense of the person behind the work.

There are a few people that are important to me that I would avoid if given the chance. Christopher Hitchens for example. I can't think of anyone else that is as challenging, as thought provoking or so able to make me want to go brush up on some subject as he was. I agreed with him on a great deal but could never come around to some of his other positions and would have liked to have had the opportunity to ask him some questions.Or maybe not. Really, I don't think I would have ever willingly taken a seat next to him. Perhaps somewhere conversation would have been impossible(a Tractor Pull perhaps?) but where I could have gotten my picture taken beside him to hang on my wall. I think engaging that guy in a discussion about anything he gave a Damn about would have been like walking up to Blackbeard and asking if he might show you his Cutlass. Risky. Very risky.

Anyway, this was supposed to be about Jimmy Carter and Oliver Sacks. Both of them have helped me understand things that I needed to get a handle on. Things that have helped me reconcile the crazy assortment of things I believe and wonder about and hope for, and also things that have helped me be a bit more content when there is no way to reconcile those things. Anyone that does that for you is a friend and you can be forgiven for wanting to shake their hand or give them a pat on the shoulder as a way to connect and keep a  bit of that friendship, or whatever it is, alive when they've gone. I suppose I need to give up on my hope to share a sandwich with either of them so I'll just say what I would then, now.

Thank you Mr. President. Thank you Dr. Sacks, you've both been good to me and I won't forget.

Peace and Blessings on you.

Spindizzy

I Heart Coaster Brakes (and so should you).

When I was about 9 or 10 I took apart the coaster brake on my Stingray and became not just a person who liked riding bikes, but a person who LOVES BIKES. I'm not sure if there was a problem with it or if the temptation to take it to bits was just too strong to resist. I do remember that it was the same day I found my first 8" adjustable wrench on the road, so the old Schwinn was going to get flipped over onto the seat and handlebars and dissected in any case. Call it fate.

Coaster brakes are not particularly complicated, but there is a gratifying degree of sophistication and elegance to how they go about their business if you're sensitive to that sort of thing. I find them particularly satisfying little devices and even now have a big box of them under my workbench. You really don't have to be very mechanically inclined to get one apart and back together, but, if you're a "nuts and bolts kind of person", this might be when you discover it. That's the way it was for me. The instant I had all the parts spread out in the dirt it all made perfect sense to me, and so I naturally considered myself to be a "Fully Qualified Coaster Brake Expert" and made myself available for troubleshooting and lectures on the subject from that moment. The fact that my bike was as likely to fall over from my coasters bearings being impossibly tight, as it was to weave about as the hub wandered aimlessly back and forth across the axle from being comically loose did nothing to shake my faith in my abilities. I think that sort of confidence building is a good thing for a kid, delusional or not.

Anyway, as soon as the workings of that beat up Schwinn stopped being a mystery to me, I started trusting it to be able to take me farther and farther past the end of our road(to the dismay of my Mother), and still get me back again. Because of bicycles, my personal territory started growing and growing, and still is to this day. I hope it never stops even if  I get so old it only keeps expanding in  my imagination. Maybe when I'm a hunnert' and five, grumpy and covered in Chicharone and bacon crumbs, I'll have to resort to riding a coaster brake as only my very oldest muscle memories will be left. That would be sort of cool, get started on one and spend the next half century working my way up to ever more complicated and expensive gear and then 50 years working back to where I started. About the time I have to resort to a scooter to get around I'll likely be about finished with the whole endeavor anyway and be ready to go take a nap and be done with it.

I'm glad coaster brakes are simple enough for even a 9 year old to understand, because if it would have taken more than another year or so I think the magic might have seemed too small and not been sufficient to capture me. As it is, the Magic of the Coaster Brake seems to be at just the right level of simplicity while also being capable enough to challenge a curious, willing young person to go "just a little farther". Of course being able to lay BIG SQUEALING SMOKING SKIDS is also pretty cool and has been enough to turn a bunch of Girls and Boys away from Soccer and Basketball and that sort of thing before it could get out of hand and turn to Golf later in life. That's what a Coaster Brake can do. They've been doing it for over a Century too. Did you know that? It's true, they were one of the very first "Trick" parts and they're still making them today. Like right now. In the time it's taken me to write this(weeks and weeks actually) the factories have filled another shipping container with everything from the crappy ones on those Wal-Mart bikes that will give you Tetanus, to Multi-speed internally geared, alloy-shelled beauties that carry the flag with head up and fists in the air.They can seem invisible but like some other "obsolete" but really useful things(axes, manual transmissions, wooden pencils and maybe pink plastic Hair Curlers), enough people still want them bad enough to spend money on them in the face of all the "better" alternatives so we probably don't have to worry about them disappearing  anytime soon. 

In spite of all this cheerful propaganda, I think part of the reason I still like messing around with them is the sinister reputation the venerable Coaster Brake still has among those of us who grew up hearing the dire warnings about the other, darker side of the Coasters friendly personality. All those Urban Hipsters who jumped on the Fixed-Gear bandwagon a decade ago may have thought they were Bad-Ass but they had NOTHING on those of us that rode our Wheelie-Bikes to adventure and glory back in the dim past...

You see, the lore of the coaster-brake is rich and varied, and we need to see that it's never lost. We need to keep telling the tales of ghastly tumbling wrecks caused by broken chains that started halfway down huge hills and finished part-way up the next, the stories of brush fires started by overheated Bendix's that burned entire counties, or the old Nightmare of the kid who, after flipping his bike upside down to work on it, gets his finger caught in the chain and due to not being able to backpedal to free himself, has to drag the bloody bike into the house and wake his sleeping Mother to get help! That one really happened, honest to God. It was my Neighbors cousin who lived like two towns over. Really.

So the next time that nice old man in the Sweater and Velcro Sneakers tools past on a bike with no brake levers, don't wave and smile, get off the sidewalk. Because with a coaster brake, anything could happen...

Thanks Coaster Brake!

There's a snake in my car.

Sunday evening after stopping for ice cream, my Wife and I walked over to my Blue 1990 Mazda Miata, which I love as much as a person can love the car that is standing in for the Aston Martin one richly deserves but forgoes out of love and concern for ones family, and as we were about to get in, she leaped up in the air, threw out an arm in a dramatic gesture and spooled up to a High "D" which she held, without taking a breath for at least 12 or 13 seconds. She also managed to suspend herself  11 inches(!) off the ground for that little moment in time. The very INSTANT she hit her panic button I thought to myself; "Snake!? How can there be a snake!? There must be a snake!". I ran over, put a hand on her shoulder to calm her and draw her back to earth before she could gain more altitude and slip away, glanced down onto the floorboard of the car and saw the snake that I knew was going to be there but could not believe was going to be there.

 Tiny little grey thing, 8 or 9 inches and no bigger around than a french fry. All curled(not coiled) up with it's little paws over it's ears and an astonished expression on it's cute little furry face. Well, if it had paws and ears and fur. It was absolutely as harmless in demeanor and equipment as any creature can be. But having been through all this a number of times in the last 19 years, 11 months and a few days for Cleopatra and I, and innumerable times since "The Fall From Grace In The Garden" for our little serpent, we all knew our parts and dutifully followed the standard script; She, shrieking her lines in that glass-shatteringly calm, matter-of-fact way of hers, stating that she would not be riding home in that car, today, tomorrow or any day before the end of time, Me, standing slope shouldered, muttering, sotto voce, words of common sense and wisdom, uselessly, to the wind, and the Snake? The snake darted off stage via the opening in the carpet for the seatbelt bolt, with a flip of the tail and a cheerful "Later Losers" to the delight of the audience.

So let's just go over our respective roles in this tragic comedy before going any further, just so you can concentrate on the action without worrying about how the plot is going to develop...

Cleopatra, my lovely Wife(and she IS a fabulous Babe, BTW), aggrieved Heroine,guaranteed to end the play recumbent on a pallet of satin cushions, blowing kisses to the crowd who shower her with roses and applause.

 The Snake. Noble Trickster, will show itself to be equal in wit and humanity to the rest of the cast, impossible to outsmart and invariably able to turn all attempts on it's life and person back onto it's reluctant assailant with uproarious comic genius.

Me. Shlub. I will end the play barefoot, covered with soot and holding a smouldering steering wheel, spent airbag draped at my feet.

How can it be otherwise? All I have to defend myself is common sense and reason against all the forces of Nature and Culture. You have no idea how my life has changed in 4 days. Absolutely nothing is as vital as proving to my Wife that the snake is gone and will never come back. And I will still have to burn my car to the ground even if I can produce a snake cadaver of the right size and description. I may have to burn her Packard too, as a preventive measure, then buy her another one and possibly burn it as well if that one does not feel sufficiently snake free over time. You see, this is not the first time. This spring in Florida we all watched in disbelief as a 3 foot black snake shot across my In-Laws yard, up the front tire of the knackered old Bentley we bought for our oldest Daughter to drive, and into the engine compartment. I, as the responsible Husband and Father, got the hose, opened the hood, saw the serpent nestled under the intake manifold plumbing and sprayed it with a good blast. Knowing, KNOWING, we were going to see that bad old snake drop to the ground and take off for the everglades. Alas no. It did disappear but it did not drop to the ground and slither off. It just, disappeared.

 I, as many of you will know, am a Liar, so you will not be surprised if I tell you that I, for the good of my family, lied and lied and lied over the course of the next 24 hours. "No, there is NO POSSIBLE way for a snake, OF ANY SIZE, to find it's way into the passenger compartment from under the hood", and, "I can ASSURE you that that snake crawled out of there as soon as the coast was clear since it's a SCIENTIFIC FACT that snakes are repelled by the smell of automatic transmission fluid", or, "There's NOWHERE for him to hide! We'd be able to see him if he was still in there!". I'm pretty sure he's still in there. All the way back to Virginia I was dreading the moment when a sleek, glossy, indigo head was going to emerge from a dash vent leaving me speechless and alone in a speeding station wagon, with only my snake and the empty seats and broken windows where my wife and daughters were just before the "Rapture".

Also,We almost had to burn our new house down because there was a wee little 5 foot snaky thing under the dining room table one afternoon a year or so after we moved in. That was an eventful day. I was able to rescue that guy and put him out in the field with instructions to never come back if he wanted to preserve his cool dry skin and high frequency hearing.

You see, I don't mind snakes. I'm not especially into them or anything, for romping and playing catch in the yard with a Frisbee I typically prefer a dog, but I don't have anything against them. I mean, The whole garden of Eden thing is so far in the past, and really, Serpent or no, we were eventually going to get around to consuming everything glossy and bite-sized within the walls of Paradise anyway so let's just shake hands(metaphorically speaking) and give it a rest. Of course the rules are different with venomous types, I'm really going to have to insist you stay a long rifle shot away from the house, but provided you do that I promise to watch my step out in the wilds and not be all injured entitlement if you sink a fang in when I tramp on your tail.

So I really don't want anything bad to happen to this little dude. In fact, if it was just me, I'd leave him alone. Let him stay as long as he wanted, maybe even have a chat and a laugh on a Sat morning going to the market with the top down. He could keep any mice from moving in and prevent me from having to do to my Miata what my friend Bruce is having to do to his, rip out all the seats and carpet AND the dash assembly to remove the mouse nests and tangy smell that accumulated while the car sat idle for a couple of years in a carport. I think it's sort of a settled issue in any case, it's moved in apparently. I've seen it twice since then, once yesterday sunning itself across the rear of the console when I went out to go to lunch and this evening I think I saw it's glittery little eyes peering at me from under the passenger seat as I waited for a light. It gives off a sort of domestic, proprietary air, as if "this is my Home, you know? And why do you have to keep trying to grab me or lure me into little Tupperware containers with the lid propped open with a stick and a string like we were living in some ridiculous "Road Runner Cartoon?"

Indeed.

 I've thought about just telling Cleo that the snake is gone, "I totally saw him sliding out the wheelwell with an overnight case and a garment bag", or scouring the road for a dead one of approximately the same description and planting it under the seat or whatever. 'Problem with that is the whole "Everybody knows I'm a big fat liar" thing, so I'm probably doomed to going everywhere in that car alone until she finally drops a match in the trunk herself. What should I do? What would YOU do?

Oh well, time will tell how this play ends. Updates as events unfold...