Have a very Merry Christmas
Category Archives: Personal
The Festival Express
Temptation
All right, so I’m weak. Sue me.
I hit the road a tad earlier than Wednesday.
The weather was good – clear blue and plenty of sunshine with temps in the low 90s. In other words, excellent riding weather. Neither wild horses nor a fine woman could have held me back.
I was sorely tempted when I kept seeing this sign. The 15 south starts at my front door and rolls all the way to Mexico and the Baja, and even though it’s hotter than Texas tar in those parts now, once you get on the coast there’s a nice refreshing breeze.
Maybe next time.
Yeah, yeah, and I’m still weak, but I headed east on Montana 200 out of Great Falls. I still think 200 is a great little two-lane stretch of blacktop. It runs through some pretty nice country, and at this time of year everything is green, except for the canola which has stared to bloom its vibrant yellows. Back in September, the landscape here was all brown.
This time I’ve stopped at a mom and pop in Lewistown called the B&B Motel – 51 bucks a night, tax in, and with wireless to boot – and it’s extremely clean, neat and well kept up. Mom is a former northern California farm girl who’s been living here for 30 years. I can tell by the shape this place is in that mom is one of those people who cares.
A couple of hundred early miles tomorrow morning and I’ll hook onto the boring 94 headed for Minneapolis, good for making time, bad for interesting places and people.
I did a hard and fast ride today. The bike is running well.
And so am I.
Every sign I see says “South”.
What’s with that?
Perhaps it’s an omen.
Ready, set…
I’ve got cash in my pocket.
I’ve got gas in my tank.
I’m ready to go like a god-damned rocket!
Oh yeah!
Gypsy, tramp, nomad…
With a 2,300 mile ride coming up on Wednesday morning, I’m starting to get a little edgy to get on the road. To take my mind of the fact that the trip is still three days away, I’ve been prepping the bike. Nothing serious, of course, since I believe it to be well-maintained by yours truly:
- cleaning and oiling the air filter;
- draining the carb;
- checking primary chain and drive belt tension;
- taking a look at tires and tire pressure;
- checking my route on a map.
How I love maps. Even if not going anywhere, I can pour over an atlas for hours at a time. In East Africa I had the only map of the area — a Michelin road map, believe it or not, that showed no actual roads, but only trails. To this very day my faith in their maps remains inviolate, particularly as their accuracy pertains to that part of the world.
Occasionally in a book store I’ll pull out the most recent version of that old Michelin map, open it up and discover that the old routes haven’t changed any. They’re still marked as trails, and trails they were, heading mostly north and south and plied by camel caravans and nomads on foot migrating from point to point depending on the season and passing by our campsite, stopping only for water.
I miss those old and still-familiar days as though they were only a yesterday away.
The optimism tax
I’ve paid this tax more than a few times in my life, the first as a youngster when I sent home via a friend and his vehicle a couple of sleeping bags, a ton of photos from flight school and some clothes. They never arrived.
Don, the flight-school friend, had been just another Canadian who went down to the U.S. to enroll in the Army in order that he might fly helicopters in Vietnam. He swallowed the recruiting station line, and ended up sitting on an airport fire truck at a domestic Army field somewhere in the southeast. Not satisfied, he jumped ship and hightailed it back to Canada where he saved his cash and ended up with some of us at the same flight school.
Of course, I didn’t learn any of this until one night when some of us piled into Sok’s Chevy and shuffled off to Buffalo, the land of cheap beer and friendly women. While we were watering down a wall framing one of the more cheaply financed sections of Buffalo (there were many at the time), a cruiser pulled up and we were confronted by a couple of Buffalo’s finest who took some exception to our need for urination.
Fortunately for all of us, a radio call ended up dispatching the officers to a more pressing matter of a break and enter, and we thankfully piled back into Sok’s car and headed north where we belonged. It was during the ride home that Don regaled us with tales of his bitter disappointment in the U.S. Army and his subsequent jump from active duty to Canadian reservist, so to speak. If anything, that should have told me all I needed to know about Don.
Ten years later, I ran into Don while we were both flying on large fires in northern Canada. He was still shifty-eyed. Needless to say, while we were in the fire camp we never spent any time reminiscing over the good old days.
Occasionally, I still pay the optimism tax when someone takes advantage of my trust in humanity, but there’s no point in worrying about it. It’s simply not worth it, although I must admit that I still miss those photos and the accompanying negatives.
I’ve never missed Don, and the sleeping bags and the clothes were all replaced.
Fear and loathing in the valley
She was hired to sell biker clothing, and she was good at it. Prior to that she was somewhere down the hill, at a discount mall on the way to L.A.
I don’t remember exactly when I started paying attention to her, but I first noticed her for her saucy walk. It wasn’t overtly sexual – nothing like that at all. It was just, well, saucy. Her long, dark, thick straight hair would swing with her every step. She had bangs that covered her forehead, cut to a perfect line. Her eyes were the darkest brown that I’ve ever seen, and believe me on that, because I’ve seen my share.
She was intelligent, and could talk knowledgeably about almost anything. She had a degree in something, but I’ve forgotten now. She spoke Spanish too. I thought that was pretty cool for a girl from Arizona who left home when she was 14, moved west, went to high school on her own and then university.
She had traveled a bit. North to Vancouver, where she got bored out of her tree and then headed back south. Imagine that — bored in Vancouver. We laughed about that.
I was afraid of her, mostly because I knew inside of me that it would be a long, hard fall and I wasn’t certain I wanted that again at that stage of my life. Then I got involved with someone else and put those thoughts away.
For a while she dated one of the sales guys, got to tweaking with him, and I mostly forgot about her. Well, let’s say that I forgot about her as much as one could while still laying my tired eyes on her every day at the shop. I remember one quiet lunchtime when she told me she had a splitting headache, and one look into her pinprick eyes told me it was from tweaking. I wanted to kick her ass, but of course I didn’t. I hoped she was smart enough to figure it out for herself. Eventually she did, and the salesman with the dyed hair left town.
I still wonder what I would have done had she not stopped on her own.
Much later, just prior to my leaving, we went down together to see the Bettie Page movie. We made plans to attend the film noir festival, but it wasn’t to be. A few days later, she was gone, and then I was gone, and I never saw her again.
I trust you are well, Delissa, and happy.
And one more thing: Thank you.
I am saddened to add that Delissa is no longer with us. This amazing and wonderful woman was murdered in 2016. I do not have many regrets in ife, but Delissa is one of them.