White Beach

Morning

I climb out of the saddle and wipe the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. The day started out cool enough, with a nice little northeast wind. My ride south had been brisk and slightly chilled in the early light of dawn and I had the world to myself, it seemed: the birds were singing their asses off and there was the scrabbling of small animals in the undergrowth along the shoulder and the road was empty and all mine. I had planned to do my usual twenty-four mile loop that I call my daydream ride but the morning planet was so new and fresh and enticing that I turned right at my usual left hand turn and rode still further into the forest.

All these roads I use for this quiet loop were gravel or dirt  up until a year or so ago. Then, for a brief and magical break-in period they were pristine blacktop, smooth and serene and like a gift of some kind. I never saw another cyclist except once, but now I see them every time I go that way. Group rides are common and a group passed me this morning. I thought about trying to keep up but quickly abandoned the idea. I am out of shape these days and riding single speed and anyway, today was a long day of saddle time and exploration, not speed.

The morning cool has collapsed into another Florida day of heat and sweat and I shoulder my bicycle and clamber over the huge mound left by the new trench down the middle of White Beach Road.

Open Heart Surgery

What the hell happened here? This little trail was a kind of road through the woods to a place on the river the locals call White Beach. For all I know, the property was at one time owned by someone named White; but we call it White Beach because after you pedal through several hundred yards of woods, you break out into a fantastic place on the Indian River that is a football field-size expanse of glistening white sand, clusters of palm trees and a dark deep woods.

For many years (decades) this has been a bonfire and hell-raising spot. It has been a prime weekend destination for boaters looking for a place to picnic and stretch out on the sand. It is a very private property, too be sure; but that never seemed to matter until seven years ago when a big development company out of Orlando bought the place with plans to erect a nineteen story waterfront condominium tower. They immediately put up a six foot fence around the whole property and tore down the ages-old wooden gate that had long ago become more of a symbol than a barrier, replacing it with a stout steel locking gate and a big stout padlock.

With A Rebel Yell

That fence and that gate suffered all manner of vandalistic humiliation over the years as outraged locals, refusing to accept the loss of what really was a beautiful spot that had been forever wide open, alternately plowed through the chain link with four wheel drive trucks, stole and scrapped the gate for money, cut and used for a bonfire the tree the owners had felled across the road and fought authority with relish and the eternal rebel/cracker energy that makes us who (and what) we are. Meanwhile, the faceless corporation behind this little war was fighting a separate battle with the zoning board over their planned gargantuan project. A nineteen story condominium in an area where the next tallest building would have been one story tall, had there been any other buildings in the area. This was just...awful.

It was a ludicrous struggle but as usual good prevailed over evil, if a jackass multimillion dollar development corporation counts as good and frustrated village vandals should be considered evil. Yeah, the county council approved the plans for this dark tower and then the recession hit and it all became just another crazy Florida story.

It's Mine! I Mean Ours! We Mean...Business!

But for some reason, this corporation was adamant about keeping out the riff-raff and now here am I, crawling over a big pile of sand with my bike on my back, scrambling across the bottom of a four foot deep ditch down the center of the old road, then back up the other side, using one hand to steady the bike and one hand to claw my way to the top of the diggings.

'What the hell,” I muttered (out loud this time). It didn't make much sense. This beach is readily accessible by boat; what would be gained by digging this ugly gash along the old forest road? They must really want to keep us out. But why? Now NOBODY could get in there, at least not by car or truck. For a realtor to show this property (and there is a big For Sale sign out front) they would have to bring prospective buyers in by boat. But then again, this is Florida. Anything goes.

Down to the River to Pray

I lean my bicycle against a handy palmetto and brush off the sand. The day is really warming up. I walk down to the river and wade out to where it is knee deep. The place seems different. It feels different. Across the river I can see Boy Scout Cut, a place where the water rolls pretty quick on a falling tide and it is deep and cool and a place of snook and trout. The Cut leads around a big spoil island to the flats on the backside; many, many square miles of crystal clear water only inches deep and it is a place of magic. It is only inches deep and it takes a boat that can be poled or paddled to get in there and move about. It is holy and there are redfish there and roseate spoonbills and water fowl and fish hawks.

I could stand here in this water all day. I have waded here and fished here; I have come here in my old boat with my old dog when she was a puppy and let her run and learn about fire and beer and shallow water and other dogs and the joy of the shallows and chasing all manner of small fry...this was and will forever be a place of my heart. There have been ashes scattered here. This is the Indian River and this is Old White Beach.

And So...

I turn from the river and (of course) stare for a moment at my bicycle, trusty and solid and ready and waiting. Made of steel and already old when she became mine, we will be together for a long time. There are all too few constants in our lives and we lose everything we cherish sooner or later, or they lose us. But somehow, through luck good or bad (it is hard to know) I have once and for all learned and gained the bonding with something that will not die or leave for another or simply turn away. With a minimum of care and a little love there will always be a bicycle to turn to, a bicycle to ride, a bicycle to get out there on and see the world both inside and out.

The dirty work done by these new owners can stop a four-wheeler, but a man and a bicycle are a different story. I gaze around at the scene of so many good times and then I walk over to my bike. I'm not looking forward to going back over that ditch. Did I mention that I am out of shape? I take a long, wistful look around.

 Yeah.

Oh, the Dichotomy of It All

I know I will see it again, coming in by boat. But I know this, also: I make my living working for condo developers. There is a damn good chance I will one day be down here wearing a hardhat and carrying a clipboard and doing my part to take away from my beloved Florida one more Florida place.

It is painful to think about. I long ago gave up trying to reconcile my trade with my love of wild outdoor places. I am a dichotomous sonofabitch but it is a condition that I have learned to ameliorate with a little money earned and a lot of beer and rum (drunk, dranken, partook of?) and long sweaty bicycle rides; here am I : Old Tim Joe, wandering about lost and found and seeking redemption.

I shoulder my bicycle, take a deep breath, and head back over this latest scar on the earth and on my heart. The day is young, even if I am not; there is more to see and my ride home will be mostly into the wind, as usual.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Forgive Us Our Trespasses

#105

Single Speed Slim

Hello my friends! Spambots be damned, here am I. These tales must be told and I am the man for the job. I think the “Authentication” process will filter the little bastards out just fine and if not I will strap on all manner of hardware and special goggles and dive into the screen and hunt them down one by one, if need be...I don't want to have to do it but listen, these machines have got to be tamed.

It's All About the Jumpsuit

I was reading somewhere the other day about these little, really little robot computer dinguses that they can inject into your blood stream and then roam around doing who knows what, sending messages about your health and using little laser beams to clear arteries and kick ass on cancer cells. It sounds just handy as hell and I remember a movie called Fantastic Voyage, I think it was, and I remember how well Raquel Welch's jumpsuit fit. It was really tight and it fit just right. Man! I think I was about twelve years old when that movie came out and if I remember correctly all hell broke loose and everything went wrong that could go wrong and the only way they could get out of the guy's body was through a tear.

I wasn't that poetic when I was twelve but I am now and the idea of a teardrop being a way to safety, or a kind of path to salvation just appeals to me, somehow. I like it. Crying helps, sometimes.

Raindrops Are Fallin'

Not right now, though, I ain't cryin' and while maybe I should be, it just isn't happening. Last week I pedaled my ass up to the VA Clinic in Daytona, leaving the house at five thirty in the morning, in the dark and in a misting rain. I had a cheap little flashlight taped to the handlebars with duct tape and a blinking red taillight hanging off my saddle bag. Quite frankly, I stole the taillight from off one of the grandkid's bikes. (He won't need it for awhile because he is grounded). Predawn and cranking fast on the pedals I hit one stretch of highway that is called the Three Bridges and listen: it was DARK. I mean so damn dark that for all I knew I was about to pedal off one of the bridges and plunge into the water far, far, below. Well, ten feet below...

So dark that I couldn't use the shoulder or sidewalk, I had to stay in the lane where the feeble light of my half-assed headlight reflected off the painted highway stripe. But, oddly and unexpectedly, I had the road to myself and about thirty minutes later the sun started sneaking up over the horizon and I gotta tell ya, sunrise on a bicycle...well, I want to do it again. I want a better light system and I want to get out before sunrise more often.

The Lament of the Soggy Cyclist

As things age (I am an expert on this) they wear out. That's one of the reasons I am pedaling my bicycle the twenty miles to the VA Clinic. While I can pedal twenty miles fast like nothin', if I stand up quick or just something like climbing a ladder leaves me out of breath. So I'm getting a check up and so on. But the worn out thing I am most interested in is my rear derailleur. No, I am not speaking figuratively, although my figurative rear derailleur is important to me. I'm talking about the one on my bicycle that died on the way home from the checkup forcing me to fork over a buck-fifty for a ride home on the bus.

I Hope This Works

So...I have now put on a new chain recently donated by Roadie Ryan and converted my beloved Schwinn to a single speed. She didn't like it, at first...she spit the chain repeatedly. The skewer just couldn't hold the wheel in place. The chain was coming loose. Then I grabbed a six pack of beer and a three-sided metal file and spent a mellow hour or so filing a diagonal groove pattern onto the dropouts.  I scrounged in my old parts stash and found a heavy but hardy mountain bike skewer and I clamped the rig together and now I am blasting around in one gear all the time. It ain't bad. I seem to be going fast as hell all over the place and the bike, stripped of the cassette and the derailleur and the shifters, feels about ten pounds lighter.

It Ain't Over 'Till It's Over, Rover

But yeah, things wear out. Moving at one speed might be the key to longevity; it is hard to say. Maybe an injection of microscopic robots would be a good thing, although it sounds less than appealing. Having Raquel Welch injected into your bloodstream would probably be a boost of sorts, I suppose, but still, it ends with tears. Somebody has got to cry.

Sometimes I wish I knew what I was talking about. I have a habit of saying things that don't make sense until later on, after the shootin's done and the smoke clears and I think, “Oh... I'll be damned.”

I think you know what I mean. Meanwhile I'm living on my bike and I have a bid in place for the first construction project in six years. It is a juicy one and I have no reason to think I won't get the gig. Let's face it, I need the dough. The only reason I'm not kicked out of the Park for not paying lot rent is...well, I'm not sure why. Borrowed time, most certainly, I'm treading water. So...

It looks like the cycle is about to renew itself and I will begin again. Spambots can't stop me and if I once again have to strap on and do battle, well..I ain't dead yet.

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Rumination Place

#104

WTF and gone

Sorry, guys, but the spambots seem to have found their way to the Park.  I am uncertain what to do about it, but my personal paranoia and general curmudgeonliness tell me it is time to fold camp.  I would be interested in hearing what process you have to go through to comment here, and any suggestions.would be welcome.  But nothing pisses me off more than uninvited ghosts and if I can't get this figured out by Monday we will have to reconvene elsewhere.  Nothing lasts forever.

tj

The Joy of Cooking

Rebuild

There is a certain danger in rebuilding a rear wheel while listening to foodie cooking shows on National Public Radio. Our friend Nicholas Carman, of Gypsy by Trade, is headed for Europe and planning, apparently, to make his journey as much about eating (or at least cooking), as about cycling. A visit to his pages will reveal some sound considerations concerning equipment and planning but what got his reader's blood pumping was cookware, discussion about the best pot for camp cooking when traveling by bicycle.

I have had some odd problem, lately, with a knock or thump or, well, a pulsing somewhere in my rear wheel and a cursory examination revealed nothing of note, which of course led by natural processes to me doing one of my favorite things: drinking beer and rum and taking my bicycle apart on a rainy Sunday afternoon, cleaning and scrubbing and fondling the various parts and handling them and rubbing them to a warm glow and yes, also finding out what is wrong; why there is something happening there, something that I am willing to spend all day, if need be, figuring out and fixing.

A Hard Rain

While I do this work I can hear the rumble of thunder in the far distance. This is Florida and storms are a welcome part of summer, they drench and nourish and provide exquisite drama to a simple cyclist who is having fun taking a rear wheel apart, working out on the trailer porch under a darkening sky. I have one of those hotly brilliant halogen work lights clamped overhead and it gives off heat. It makes me sweat and I have my ritual rags nearby, I am wearing my marvelously ill-favored mechanic's shirt and listening to NPR, listening to some lady talk about a dish she learned in Belgium. The dish is called “savage rabbit with white beans” and I giggle like a loon and take a double shot of rum chased with beer. The bearings are removed, now, sitting in greasy glory on the bench and this halogen lamp is so intense that it is melting the tired grease from the little steel balls and I wipe my forehead with the clean, damp face towel.

Ritual

The other rags are the clean dry polishing towel and the oil-soaked lubing towel and the dirty greasy gritty cleaning towel. This is a ritual process, and this shirt, these rags and the happy, calm, joyous voices on the radio are all part of the ritual. There is safety in ritual; I respect ritual as a way of not making mistakes. I have removed the cassette and placed it in a shallow bowl that holds lighter fluid, the kind you use to fire up the grill. I use whatever solvent I have. I have pulled the axle and cones, setting them aside on the towel I have placed on the bench in a kind of axonometric view of how they go back together. I have written about this before, I realize, but I am doing it again and the ritual must be respected.

Barbecue Is Important

Now the radio people are discussing barbecue and rubs and sauces and this is something I am very interested in, ribs are important. I am cleaning the interior parts of my rear wheel and having a blast and the way they talk about food and the process, the ritual of cooking, is very sensuous, pornographic almost, and doing this work on my bicycle is very much the same thing; a kind of love-making. My bicycle is my only transportation these days. While I have had many cars and trucks that I was very fond of, an automobile is, ultimately, a pain in the ass. Automobiles come with a lot of baggage: insurance, registrations, expensive and increasingly esoteric repair processes; sometimes you have to explain yourself to police and I won't start about the price of gasoline.

Not so with a bicycle. Bicycles have all their parts exposed and are relatively easy to work on. Bicycles are personal, the owner is the engine and anyone who has spent any amount of time on a bicycle will have developed a very personal relationship with their machine. At least I have.

And So...

Yeah, there is going to be a storm, I can smell it now and the sky is dark and the thunder is getting closer and louder. I have moved inside and all the parts are cleaned and polished. Somehow I have lost two hub bearings. No big deal, I have a stash of bearings. The last time I packed the bearings I used too much grease and it made quite a mess. Not this time. Like a boozed-up brain surgeon, my hands are steady and there is sweat on my brow as I carefully replace the bearings in a light bed of lithium grease. This time I am a surgeon and doing it right. I am using extra-virgin olive oil as a pre-coat, all these parts are glistening in the powerful halogen light and the radio cooking shows are ending. I'm hungry now but the bicycle comes first. I could have been a chef, I think, or maybe even a brain surgeon. But my dad joined the Carpenter's Union in Ft. Lauderdale and so did I.

Rain

Here it is. You know it is going to be a kick-ass storm by the sound of the first rain drops. These first drops are big and fat and very wet and now the first crack of lightning blasts away close by and the thunder rattles the windows. Living in a trailer is pretty cool. I am almost outside most of the time; my little tin shack rattles and shakes with the wind and the rain, all the windows are open and the rain beats on the roof and the wheel is back together. Working on a bicycle is a lot like preparing a fine dish for the table. My bicycle is a savage rabbit and I am white beans. Working on a bicycle is not brain surgery, but it looks like it.

Nicholas and Lael will be in Europe soon and sending back reports of enviable cooking and eating and they will tell us about dream rides. Me, I'm slamming beers and polishing my bike. The chain has been cleaned with Simple Green and water and then soaked in olive oil in an old pan that I have heated on a low setting on the stove. This sauteed chain will be drained and further polished and will dry overnight.

There is magic in a storm; power and nourishment and manic joy. The bicycle is clean, now, ready and possessed itself of magic and power and potential. The odd problem turned out to be a spoke that had somehow worked itself loose from the nipple. I thought the thunk and pulsing was reminiscent of a broken spoke, but as I said, it didn't show in a cursory glance...it had to be loved, caressed; I had to cook up a cure.

Tomorrow we will ride.

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Kitchen
#108

Third Rate Romance

Comstock Farms

Did I ever mention that I live in a trailer park?  If not, it's true: I do. Should I ever win the Florida lottery  (which is unlikely since I don't play), I will have to spend my winnings on some land so I can build my own "manufactured housing development.  Comstock Farms will have nice large lots and communal gardens and its own still and brewery.  There will be a bicycle barn and a swimmin' pond and a big picnic pavilion for Sunday cookouts.  Off in one far corner we will have a primitive camping area for visiting friends and diagonally across the property will be the parking lot.  No cars allowed inside the Farms.  The daycare center will be filled with furry creatures and hand-hewn toys and books.  The entire park will be fenced so that the community dogs can roam free.

Check Out Those Gourds!

Am I missing anything?

Sounds pretty cool, huh?  As a wizard of trailers, I will manufacture each unit to my own demanding specifications in a steel building down by the highway.  Comstock Custom Homes Manufacturing, Inc.  will be next door to The First Comstock Community Bank and Credit Union.  That's where ya go to finance your new home.  Across the way will be the Comstock Grocery Store and Pawn Shop.

Another Satisfied Customer. I don't know who the guy on the right is but I think he has a blackjack in his pocket

I think that covers it pretty well...Sheriff Tim Joe sounds nice, too...I'll have a flashing light on my bicycle and a water pistol loaded with The Scarlet Ink of Shame.  If you've been bad everyone will know...

Just another day at Comstock Farms

But I don't want to be sheriff.  Let's see...

Mayor?  Not me...

Wait...Head Librarian!  I'll be the Comstock Farms Librarian!  Now I'm getting excited

Fifty acres ought to do it.  Maybe I'll start a Kick-Starter campaign, whatever that is.

Here's the Thing:

I don't know what that is but my friend Agent KAZ, the Swell Guy, knows somebody who does and he goes by the name of the Minister of Mojo.  He is doing something or another related to Katrina and needs money to get there.  Look it up here and if the Spirit moves ya, kick in.  As always, I have no money but I have a lot of friends so I'll leave it to you guys to sort it out.

Speaking of Friends

My next tattoo

Remember Judi, of Miles and Madness?  She remains kick-ass as always and her and her husband Dom have opened a super-fine bicycle shop in Cincinnati.  They call it Spun Cycles and I am proud as hell of them for achieving such an enviable goal.  Drop by their site and say hi or, if you are in Cincinatti or somewhere close by. get over there and spend all your money.

That's All For Now

There's a lot to say about one thing or another, but right now I am immersed in fiction and murder mystery fiction in particular.  I simply have GOT to crank something out that people will pay for and while I always planned to be a Melville I will be more than happy to be a Hammett.  The problem is, everytime I sit down to type up a post, someone has to die or get stabbed in the back and some other guy has to do something about it.  There are bicycle chases and gunfire and sexy ladies who are up to no good.  I'm on the track of something, and I kinda-sorta want to serialize some of it on here.  But I also am reluctant to freak out my beloved readers.  But if writing doesn't start to trickle down some spare change pretty soon I am going to have to get a real job and I am VERY reluctant to do that.  I would much rather prostitute my art with hack writing and far-fetched tales.  

Did I mention that I live in a trailer park?

Sexy Lady Up to No Good.  Needs a Cheeseburger

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and House of Dreams

#103

Normalism

Off We Go

Being careful not to do any further damage, I gently fold the screen of my laptop down, wrestle the broken hinge into submission and slip the computer into my Goodwill messenger bag. I don't know how many more times I will get away with this maneuver before the screen just falls off once and for all. This seventeen inch HP Pavilion has been quite the loyal soldier. Seven years old, though, and compared to computers, dog years ain't nothin'. This baby is an antique. The “u” and the “y” keys are missing, giving the keyboard a definite trailer park look, like all she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth. But she is hanging in there. I wonder how many thousands of words I have hammered out on this old warhorse? More than a few, I can tell you that. She has served me well as my home entertainment center and web surfer and jukebox and she has suffered the millions of thick-fingered keystrokes from my gorilla-like carpenter's hands for lo these many years.

How It Ought To Be

No trail mix or bananas go into the bag today. I am only pedaling the three miles to the library. They have free wi-fi and a lot of books. My kind of place. If only they served beer. Free beer...

“Hi. I'll have a 16 oz Dewey.”

“Here you go, sir. I'll need your library card, please.”

“Here you go.”

“Thank you. I'll just swipe it here...Oh my! Did you really read all these books? You must be really smart!”

“Oh, I am.  That's why I have to drink so much beer. It keeps my brain from over-heating. Can you check on there? I think I've read enough books this month to qualify for the Frequent Reader two-for-one Decimal Special.”

Florida

The weather today is so right that I feel guilty about it, but not much. As I like to say, I live in Florida on purpose. Craziness and over-development and manic-depressive cops and sharks and alligators and mosquitoes and face-eating maniacs be damned, the month of March in Florida is NICE. There will be some long rides coming, I think. I'm living on my bike these days, like a dream come true. Of course, like any dream come true, there are caveats carping in the background, but right now I'll just keep dreaming.

One Day, Long Ago

On my quick ride today I cross an intersection a block away from the library where I lost a friend fifteen years ago. His name was Rusty. After he and I finished a lazy March day working on a waterfront house for some rich young guy, Rusty jumped into his little pickup and blasted away to a cookout at his girlfriend's parent's house. He never made it. Some doofus in a 5.0 Mustang ran a stop sign and t-boned my buddy's truck in the middle of the intersection. Hard. Plenty hard. Hard enough to do the job.

But that tragedy ain't today's story.

“You were his boss?”

“Sorta. We were more like partners.”

“Well...was there, I mean, is there any kind of insurance...”

“No, man. You have to understand, around here carpenters are more like pirate crews...”

“Yeah, I get that, but my brother is dead and...” The guy had flown all the way from Ohio to bury his wild brother Rusty. Wild people are common in Florida. The ones too wild for Ohio end up here. This isn't a conversation I wanted to have at a funeral home, though. I was here to say goodbye.

“I'm really sorry, man.”

“I went to his apartment and except for his tools, almost everything he owned would fit into one cardboard box.. What kind of life is that?”

“Uh...as a matter of fact, those are my tools.” I was feeling his grief. I was feeling a little grief myself. But somehow, this brother seemed pissed at Rusty for leaving an estate that would fit into a little cardboard box. I could definitely tell he was also pissed at me for not...I don't know what he was pissed at me about. But Rusty was my buddy and I understood completely his free spirit and why the hell should a dead guy have a bunch of stuff? Rusty was one of the most light-hearted guys I ever knew. He refused to take life seriously and was always available to lend a hand or go out for a beer. He lived in a little pool house behind this rich lady's place on the beach and I never asked what the arrangements were but I don't think he paid much in the way of rent.

The Way

Without even knowing such a thing existed, my buddy Rusty was living a minimalist lifestyle. I'm trying to do the same myself, but I'm a carpenter-sub and I need my gear. It fills an 8x8 room in my trailer. Tools and equipment cleaned and oiled and ready. I don't go in there and dust them, but maybe I should. Lately I have been thinking about selling them. Why not? I think I could get enough to put together a touring kit for my bicycle. I certainly don't seem to be using my tools lately but I sure do use my bike. A lot. That's the way I want it.

I own little else. I don't even have a wall of books these days. That's what the library is for, I think. But minimalism is a silly term. It should be called normalism. Having too much stuff should be called something else, like bag-lady syndrome or packratalism. Or not...I really don't care. For me, possessions are a burden and source of guilt. I always feel like I am a poor caretaker of these things I own. They get dust on them and I feel bad about it. The multitude of of personal storage centers around the country are a testament to the having-too-much that afflicts our sensibilities as a decent people and it is why so many denizens of third-world countries try so desperately to get over here: they want to have too much stuff too. Some of them would be happy just to set up housekeeping in one of those personal storage units. I've done that.

What am I talking about? Who knows? You guys should be accustomed to it by now.

But there is definitely something on my mind. I know what it is. I'm struggling with my inner Thoreau and the need to...I almost can't say it: the need to re-join society and I howl in despair at the thought.

So Anyway...

At the library, I plug in my dilapidated old computer and fire her up. There is a new ticking sound as she begins her dark journey back to life. It won't be long now before I find myself writing my booger posts with pen and ink, hunting down a Xerox machine, making magically fragrant copies and mailing them to my readers postage-due. While I wait the twenty minutes or so it takes Windows to wake up on my worn-out old laptop, I go over to the reference desk to get a beer.

Rusty would have approved.

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Wildlife Society

#102

The Mute Button

“What?”

“Bicycling Magazine has a contest about “Your Favorite Ride.”

“You mean that magazine I borrowed for you from the dentist's office?”

“Yeah.”

“You left it in the bathroom. I thought I threw that out.”

“You did. I got it out of the trash can on the way to the dumpster.”

“Whatever.”

“So if I win I could get a five thousand dollar bicycle as a prize.”

“Yeah, right. I'd like to see you do something like that.”

“Me too.”

“Whadaya want for breakfast?”

“Sausage sandwich and hash browns. And go tell the dogs to shut up. I'm tryin' to think up a five-thousand-dollar story.”

“Well, if anybody has five-thousand dollars worth of bull crap in 'em, it's you.”

#1

My favorite ride takes place not in time and space but is a place in my mind that I can find when alone out in that special place where just me and my bike can be together, alone. That place where we both cease to exist as machine and rider but instead...instead we both can, if only for a minute or an hour, disappear.

We can disappear and only on my bicycle on a quiet ride for a moment in time or on a mystical dawn float at slow speed, floating so slowly in the quiet of dawn that almost, maybe, we are not moving at all, we are flowing gently towards something and yet maybe not moving at all. This is a place I find only when riding my bicycle. It is a place where I feel that I know myself. My bicycle is a trusty friend and carries me to this magic place. It doesn't always happen, for time and space are elusive and the world is a tricky place. Favorite rides are hard to find. This is mine. It is the ride where I lose myself, the bicycle disappears beneath me and there is nothing there: I am a cyclist...

What a pile of woo-hoo, said the Voice.

“Ya think?”

Definitely.

“Well, it's only a rough draft...”

Very rough, said the Voice.

“Here. Those hash browns might be a little crisper than ya wanted. I gotta go get ready for work. You want some hot sauce?”

“When have I ever not wanted hot sauce? And grab me another beer, will ya? I'm trying to find a groove here.”

#2

I climb into the saddle from the top step of the porch so that the morning dew does not dampen my shoes. There is a kind of magic in leaving home when your feet never touch the ground. However far I ride today, I will not touch the Earth. I will float above it, a flying spirit at dawn on my bicycle. The mists of sunrise and the sound of the planet awakening all around us create the music and mystery that make this something special. Sunrise! This is my favorite ride. I am a cyclist.

Coasting slowly towards the river, I adjust my glasses and my gloves and twist around a bit in the saddle, getting ready...

“Dammit Toby! Get off my leg! I swear! If you don't quit humpin' my leg! This is my big chance to get a fancy bicycle! Stoopid dog.”

“It is by riding a bicycle that...”

“Oh great! Not only do I have a dog humping my leg and burnt hash browns for breakfast and now you're here”

“One true sentence..”

“Ernest, once and for all, please put a sock in it! You know how much crap I take from the Voice about simple declarative sentences?”

I've always encouraged you in your work, except for when you indulge in too much woo-hoo.

“I wish my head had a mute button.”

#3

However crazy the world around you feels or the time of day, the act of riding a bicycle is a thing that can be done with minimum effort, little expense and maximum pleasure. This is one such ride. I call it the “Mute Button...”

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Literary Society

#102