'Tis the season...and all that...

Since it’s the Christmas season, (and I happened to be awake at O’dark thirty again) I was pondering what it all meant to me….and decided to favor you, dear reader with this mistletoe missive. (That was bad, huh?)

As I sat down to write how I feel about Christmas, I realized – I don’t really know.

I suppose my perspective stems from my past experiences with Christmas. I’ve been told (by Hallmark, mostly) it’s supposed to be about the traditions and memories, but I don’t really have any of either.

I do remember once, when I was about 5, we spent Christmas at my grandparent’s home in Woodgate. We had snow, a fireplace - the works. What I remember most, though, is that, more than anything else in the world, I wanted a car carrier – you know, the truck that brings the cars to the car dealer? I got one, little cars and all. For a little while anyway, my little world was complete.

Year after year, I would study the pages of the Wish Book and pore over the details of all the new toys until the pages were almost blank. I knew I was never going to have any of them, but it didn’t dissuade me. My grades in school were pretty lousy, but if they had tested me on the contents of that catalog, I’d have aced it.

I don’t think there was too much money to spare in our household. We were never left wanting, but there was seldom money for “extras”. My friends got the Hot Wheels tracks and stuff, but I never did.

One Christmas, Dad must have gotten a bonus or something, because there were quite a few gifts that year – including a Cox airplane for me - but that was the exception, rather than the rule.

Christmas got the axe when I was about ten or so. I vaguely remember being told that, since I wasn’t a little kid anymore, they were kind of pulling the plug on Christmas. No tree, nothing.

For the next few years, I remember Christmas being just another day. Once in a while we would have something special to eat – lasagna or calamari come to mind.

At 17, I began spending Christmas with my girlfriend’s family. Boy was that a one-eighty from what I was used to…

In her family, it was all about the gifts.. Her mom starts shopping in, like, August. There were usually several trash bags full of presents – both at her house and then again at her grandmother’s. They meant well, but there was so much stuff, it was embarrassing, to say the least. In many cases, little-to-no thought was put into the selection: “Gee a Chia-Pet Elvis…how did you know?” Quantity was favored over quality. They completely and utterly bought into the whole Madison Avenue/Hollywood version of Christmas. They bought presents for people because they were supposed to, not because they wanted to. (My question “if you don’t know Uncle Mike well enough to know what he’d like, why are you buying him anything?” was met with mumbled excuses). They did things not because it meant anything but because they were too sheep-like to come up with anything original. Some sort of Pavlovian response ran through the family, only instead of the Salvation Army bell triggering drooling, they went into zombie-like “Must…..buy….” mode.

For the next 20 years, that was what Christmas was: a veritable orgy of gift giving. The only change was that, as her sister’s family grew, the Christmas “celebration” at her mom’s got louder, with more bickering. Fortunately, we lived next door, so when it got to be too much for me, I could just go home.

Let’s pile on top of that the amoral feeding frenzies in the stores, the ever-increasing desperation of retailers, the hypocrisy of those who preach “peace and joy and love” but practice anything but… and, since it’s Christmas, I’ll throw in a freebie: all those who go to the multimillion dollar mega churches….ostensibly to celebrate the birth of someone born in a stable – and the irony is completely lost on them.

Is it any wonder I view Christmas with a mixture of a strange mixture of ambivalence, disgust and bemused apathy?

I guess after all this time, I’ve come to terms with the holiday (who am I to turn down time off from work, huh?) and celebrate it in my own simple way: a few gifts carefully chosen for those who mean the most to me, and a special meal.

For the three people who actually read this (because they mistyped “middle aged porn” into Google) my gift is just a wish:

Peace

In Stasis

Yeah I live just around here

And I sleep just around here

And I wake up every day

And my feet hit the floor in exactly the same place

(Matt Good - "Empty's Theme Park")

We Gotta Get Out Of This Place....

....if it's the last thing we ever do... - Eric Burdon and the Animals.

So it seems that the basic premise of this whole "work" thing is that you trade something you have -"your time" (which equates to "your life") - for something you want - money- to buy what you need. (Or THINK you need) .

Well, less and less these days do I think that the trade is worth it. In fact, I've begun to resent that I am pretty much forced into such a transaction. Maybe it's because I realize that I have less and less "time" to give away, and, like any other resource, as it's availability decreases, it's value goes up. (And you try to be more frugal with it).

Therefore, I am going to forsake all my worldly possessions and go live in a refrigerator box under an overpass. Or sell flowers at the airport wearing a recycled burlap sack and sandals. Or something.

Now, we both know, dear reader, that those aren't really viable options. I like my creature comforts and "stuff" as much as anyone. (And burlap is wicked itchy).

So what is the answer? Why am I asking you?*

I guess the first step is to reevaluate what I really need and what can be cast off as "not really worth the "cost" it would entail". Food, clothing, shelter and health care are pretty much non-negotiable. I've definitely lowered my sights in almost every other aspect. I look at something like a new car... but then I realize that replacing it would entail a car payment and further reinforce the shackles. (I know it makes me a bad consumer, but I guess I'll keep driving what I have, until it rots out from under me).

As one who is a slave to a time clock each day, at a place I really don't care to be, I've gotten extremely good at "compressing" my days. I work in a room with four people who don't talk to each other. My usual tactic is just to put my head down, do as little as possible, and turn inward, thinking about things I've done, things I'm going to do, things I'd like to do.... "Working from the neck down", to paraphrase James McMurtry. Pretty soon, it's break time, then, it's lunch time, then break time and then time to go home. Once I DO get home, 80% of my time is spent doing things to get ready to go to work again.

Before I know it, it's Friday. Woot! Time off ! But.... not really.

This propensity for speeding up time spills over into my own time, albeit in a slightly different fashion.

I charge around all weekend doing all the things I need to get done that I won't have time for during the week. And before I know it, 48 hours are shot in the ass and it's Monday again.

Why the hell am I in such a hurry? To get to the end?

I was at my camp a couple of weeks ago, and had a bit of an epiphany. I was out walking with my dogs through my beloved woods... and I realized I wasn't seeing anything. My brain (such as it is) was already back at camp, doing stuff that I thought I needed to do. I'm walking along through this beautiful woodland and I'm looking at, but not really seeing... anything. I stopped for a few moments in a clearing, surrounded by tall maple trees and thought about what it would be like to be one of those trees - trees who measure time in seasons, not ticks of a time clock.

So I'm thinking it's a fourfold approach: reduce the amount of "things" I "need", feeling like I'm getting more of a return on my investment - my time- by doing something I enjoy, at a place I like to be, casting off ambitions that are not important and being more "in the moment":

• Yeah, I like my "stuff" (says the hypocrite, typing this on an almost brand new computer), but I will look at my purchases with an ever-more critical eye.

• I'm looking around at a career change and getting ready to do what it will take to make that happen, to find a place I'd much rather be. (Yeah, I know, no workplace is immune to BS, but I can at least be someplace different).

• I've also started to be less... anal? driven? ... about things that I think need to be done. Yeah, a freshly trimmed lawn looks nice, but is it worth the "expense" of giving up a bike ride? No. (If the neighbors are that concerned about how my lawn looks, they can come over and mow it for me. Otherwise they're just going to have to wait until I get around to it).

• I've promised myself I'm going to try and live in the here and now much more than I do. Somewhere there's GOT to be a balance between looking/planning ahead and enjoying the moment. The past is gone and the future isn't guaranteed, so the only thing we truly have is right here, right now. I'm going to try and pursue my photography hobby more. THAT requires you to truly open your eyes to what's around you. Maybe that mindset will tinkle over into my "regular" thinking.

This came up on the iPod the other day and for obvious reasons, I can't get it out of my head:

So I just put my heart on ice,

thaw it out when I'm home

'cause it just might need the rest

....and I think I can't take another day,

but I have to press on 'cause there's no other way

I gotta' work and I gotta' get paid.

(Supersuckers - "Paid")

How's it all going to spin out? I don't know. I do know that it won't be an overnight, quick fix, but an ongoing "battle" - a battle I can't afford to lose.

*Blazing Saddles reference.

What in THE HELL is wrong with me?

I've committed to doing a marathon next March.

How in the hell am I going to stay motivated and get the miles in before then? In Central New York? In the winter?

Stay tuned folks. Mr. Open-Mouth-Insert-Foot has done it again. (I do that often enough, I'm surprised I don't have Athlete's Tongue).

...and I don't even like running....

A "No Chain Day"....

...that's how Lance Armstrong refers to those extremely rare days on the bike when the pedaling just seems so effortless you swear there's no chain. They're a gift from the gods and there's no way to make them happen or even predict them.

I had one of those a couple of weeks ago.

Weather and work schedule together conspired to pretty much keep me off the bike for almost two weeks. I think I was able to sneak in one or two commutes, but that was it. (OK, so I'm a wuss and don't ride in the rain...)

I had planned a ride around Oneida Lake with a friend, for the Saturday following that two week layoff. I was looking forward to it, because it's far too rare that I get to spend four hours on the bike and not having done any real physical activity for two weeks, I was starting to get twitchy. The weather looked like it was going to be stellar. (This, in a month where it'd rained every other damned day, too).

As per her usual style, she showed up late. We switched her seat and pedals over to my Felt. I did this with the supposed intention of being a nice guy. My ulterior motive was far more sinister: it was a sales pitch.

We hit the road.

I took a lot of the back roads through the scenic mucklands. There's no shoulder to speak of, but there's also little to no traffic. We finally picked up the state route with it's wide shoulders and whizzing cars, in Lakeport.

Normally, I circumnavigate (and ride around) the lake in a clockwise fashion. Heading west first usually means on the return leg, you have a tailwind. This particular day, there didn't seem to be much of a breeze, so I was immediately suspicious. I thought "Uh-oh, that means a headwind on the homeward bound side...."

Looking down at the Garmin seemed to confirm my misgivings. I was holding a steady 20-21 MPH easily. I figured surely we must have a tailwind. I kept checking flags and trees looking for a sign of wind direction, but everything seemed dead calm.

At our first pit stop in "downtown" Bridgeport, I threw a small piece of paper in the air as a telltale, but it seemed to indicate that we were heading into what little breeze there was.

As we left the pit stop, she bolted ahead of me and said "County line! Two Points!" as she crossed the Madison/Onondaga County line. It went over my head. I was too busy setting my sights on a cyclist off in the distance. I said: "I gotta'..... He's mine...." I dropped the hammer and took off after him. (I'm a sucker for a "rabbit" off in the distance). I caught him and then sat up enough for my riding buddy to hook back on.

We finally got off Route 31 and down onto the lake shore - one of the portions where you can actually SEE the lake.

My Garmin experienced a bit of electronic flatulence (and I forgot to hit "start" until we were a ways from our stop) so I didn't have a real good handle on where we were, time-wise, but it seemed we were ahead of my usual pace for the ride. I was showing a 21 MPH average for the first hour. Unheard of for me.

We made our second pit stop in Brewerton. As we crossed the bridge over the Oneida River in Brewerton, she again jumped ahead of me at the county line and claimed her two points. Ok, that's enough of that shit - now I'm onto her game. Bad move on her part - I know exactly where the remaining town and county signs are; I've done this ride a bunch of times.

Up County Route 37 and made the right turn onto NY 49 to start heading east again.

I told her about my ride through there a couple of years ago: It was the weekend after 4th Of July. As I turned the corner onto 49, I saw people all lined up on the sides of the road and assumed it was for a late Fourth parade. I said to one guy standing on the corner "Wow, is all this for me?" He looked at me kind of funny and sort of laughed. I rode on, seeing more folks lined up on the sides of the road. I saw a sign in front of a church that said "God Bless Major Phillip Dykeman USMC " and it started to sink in what I was seeing: folks gathering to pay their last respects to a soldier coming home. I felt like a complete asshole. Yeah, I didn't know, but still..... When the cortege approached, I stopped and took my helmet off. THAT ride took on a whole different tone after that....

I also told her that the pavement between Central Square and Constantia was pretty ratty. I neglected to tell her that drivers on that particular stretch of road seem to be more hostile to bikes than anywhere else on the whole 60 mile route.

True to form, we got many requests that we vacate the pavement while we rode through there. We smiled and waved.

My earlier suspicions were confirmed to a degree - we had a slight headwind, but not enough to really be a factor. Speed dropped down into the 18-20 MPH range, but it still seemed FAR too easy.

Being the complete, competitive jerkwad that I am, every time I knew there was a town sign coming up, I ramped up the pace and rode her off my wheel- so that when we got to the sign, there was no sprint to contest. West Monroe, Constantia, Bernhard's Bay, and Cleveland, were all "mine".

We stopped again in Cleveland. We got drinks and hung out for a while. Little did she know, I was calculating the sprint to the next county line, and I knew exactly where it was - I know someone who lives directly across the street from the sign! I bagged that one easily.

By now, she was really beginning to fade - probably still feeling the effects of a triathlon she'd done the weekend before. I sat up a bit, but still pushed the pace before the remaining signs in Jewell and North Bay.

We dropped down into Sylvan Beach and I led her off the main highway down Lakeshore Road where I used to live. (Much more scenic). We did a little cyclocrossing through Verona Beach State Park and back onto Lakeshore on the other side of the park. Lakeshore eventually dumps you back onto Rt. 13, and I knew that, as soon as you made the right turn onto 13, the Oneida/Madison line was about 50 yards after the turn. Jerk that I am, I took off and bagged those two points too.

We made the last turn onto my road.

I know that from there, the road drops, levels out for about a half mile, then drops again, just before the house. If I can keep my speed from the first hill to the second, I can fly those last couple of miles.

I went down in the drops and cranked. The speed from the first hill began to ebb before I quite got to the second, so I stood and hammered for all I was worth.

In my body's first display of the effects of the ride, my right quad immediately knotted up and dropped me back onto the seat. Still, when I rolled into the driveway a hundred yards up the road, I felt like I could do it all again.

Epic, absolutely epic. That was one for the record books.

"Suddenly You Were Gone...."

"....from all the lives you left your mark upon...." - Rush "Afterimage"

How bizarre is it to have a bunch of friends you've never really met?

I have been a member of the Bicycling Magazine Love forum/cult/clique/dysfunctional family for seven years now. Forum members have come and gone over the years (in some cases their leaving was a GOOD thing....) but there's a core group that, through our exchanges of postings, dirty jokes, emails and sniper fire, we have come to know each other fairly well.

The postings are all pretty short, many of them inane, crass and/or in questionable taste, yet from them, we seem to have come to know each other pretty well. It's like a bizarre little family.

Still, it just seems so odd to me that, when someone on the forum celebrates a milestone, or loses a pet or a loved one ,that everyone can actually care about someone they never met.

Some time ago, one of our forum members posted about going through a divorce - and he was taking it very badly. The outpouring of support was incredible. The post went on for pages and pages. Poster after posted offered advice, and support: "...don't give up, it WILL get better....".

Sadly, he didn't seem to listen. He told us he was going away from the board for a while and asked the moderator to remove the post.

He basically just shut down.

Next thing we heard was that he was killed in a head on car crash with a semi.

Folks on the board were just devastated.

Poof! Just like that, one of the biggest goofballs on the board was gone. The guy who was famous for his gaudy shades and his love of anything yellow was no more. No more would I wake up early here on the East coast, only to find that 007Webgod on the West coast had already filled the entire first page of the forum with nonsense posts like "There's a Donut On The Counter - Should I Eat It?" Time after time, I took some good-natured potshots at him and he took it with grace and aplomb, not getting upset, just dishing it back.

This was probably a month or so ago, yet it still upsets me.

So now I have a little yellow tape on my bikes, eat blueberry Clif bars and think about him often when I ride...

...all for a guy I never met.

I hear the echoes

I learned your love for life,

I feel the way that you would

I feel your presence

I remember

I feel the way you would

I feel the way you would

I feel, I feel the way you would

This just can't be understood

Tried to believe but you know it's no good

This is something that just can't be understood

Godspeed, Webby....and wherever you are, may it be nothing but sunshine, tailwinds, downhills and old, lazy, toothless dogs.

I Said Goodbye to an Old Friend Today.

I know I "threatened" to sell it last year, but this spring I actually wrote the ad and put it in the Swap Sheet.

The phone has been ringing off the hook, so the odds are very good that it will be sold shortly. I have a very interested buyer coming to look at it tonight.

Granted, it's a Honda GoldWing and they're pretty much bulletproof, but it IS still a 21 year old bike. The luster has worn off; it needs some TLC, and some money thrown at it. 68,000 miles is not a lot for a GoldWing, but she's not what she once was. (But then, neither am I). Some of the aluminum is pitted, the paint is faded, it needs mufflers and tires (to about the tune of  $1000). I don't use it much anymore - not like I used to- and it's become one more thing that adds to my "to do" list: Oil changes,  tune-ups, winterization, registration, insurance.... The amount I use it these days just doesn't justify the headaches.

I am probably the LAST person on the planet who attaches any degree of sentimentality to an inanimate object and, in my little world, if something doesn't get used and/or becomes more headache than it's worth, it gets the heave-ho. No muss, no fuss.

So why do I feel like shit about it?

I feel like I'm turning my back on an old friend or that I'm selling off a huge chunk of my life and part of myself - all for 30 pieces of silver.

That bike has seen me through about 15 states, a couple provinces of Canada, 20+ years of Americade rallies, club rides and 54,000 miles. Wind, sun, rain and even a little snow. It never let me down.

More importantly, though,  it was my escape pod through some of the toughest years of my life. Mile after mile passed under those Dunlop Elite tires as I rode, often  just to ride, just to be in motion. The further my personal life went down the toilet, the more I rode.  I'm not sure if I was running away from something or running toward something, but I lived by these words:

"See it used to be I was really free 

I didn't need no gasoline to run

'fore you could say "Jack Keroac"

You'd turn your back and I'd be gone

But nowadays I got me two good wheels

and I seek refuge in aluminum and steel

Ah it takes me out there for just a little while

and the years fall away with every mile.

I'm back out on that road again

Turn this beast into the wind...."

(Steve Earle - "The Other Kind")

My bike was my companion at the absolute lowest point: I was riding home from work and was caught in a thunderstorm. The storm was so close, you could smell the ozone from the lightning strikes. For a few moments, I panicked  - "I'm going to DIE"- I thought. Then a strange calm came over me as I realized I didn't care. The bike got me through that, too.

When things began to take a turn for the better, the bike figured prominently in that too. I rode a lot, but this time, not alone. 

Life still revolved around the bike: rallies, group rides and just general enjoyment of the bike, the scenery, the motion and, now, the company.

So what happened?

A lot of things, not the least of which was that for the first time in 20-s0me-odd years of motorcycling, I hit the pavement. A stupid little accident - I hit a basketball rolling across the road - no real damage to me or the bike. My confidence was the biggest casualty. Prior to that, I rode with joyous (not stupid) abandon. I had several people tell me that they "had no idea you could do that on one of those". The bike and I were one and we rode for the sheer joy of flaunting the laws of physics.

No more. 

All the joy had been sucked out of riding. My bike and I were now uneasy companions, neither one trusting the other - like two dancers who don't know each others moves anymore. 

My whole life had revolved around riding. Riding was all that really mattered. Vacations were planned around rallies, my friends were other bikers. Winter was an excruciatingly long interval of ride deprivation and after that first ride of spring, it took two weeks to wipe the grin off my face. Riding a motorcycle wasn't just something I did, it was a huge chunk of who I was. I was a biker - not just because I owned a bike - but because I "lived to ride and rode to live".

In the years since, I've ridden progressively less and less, either making excuses or just not having the time. There's still a big part of me that's proud to be called "biker", because I put in the miles and earned the label (not just because I dressed like an extra from a Brando flick or have the requisite tattoo, chrome and flames). 

Part of me hopes that the bike won't sell. Part of me is looking at another, newer bike.

....to be continued....?