Where It Hides

Yesterday I went down to my workshop, which I rarely do anymore, and decided to make something to hold my daughter’s swords.  A word of explanation – she’s done some stage work, and one sword is a professional (albeit plastic) sword for stage combat, which she is trained to use; the other is a wooden one with a wooden sheath.  Both sit mostly on her dresser, crowding out those more girlie thingies.  Seemed to me that there could be a better arrangement.

So I thought I’d make a wall rack.  I rummaged through the scrap wood and found a nice piece of maple,  just the right length.  I dusted off the router – reminding myself how to use it – and put a trim edge on the board.  I sanded it, and put on a coat of pre-finish – I’ve learned from experience that maple tends to blotch otherwise.  Then I stained it, a nice maple gold.  Sanding required me to get out the power sander, and the pre-staining and staining required label-reading and brush-finding.

As I puttered around with this absolutely unnecessary and certainly non-artistic work, I realized I was happy.  Not ecstatic, just happy.  Maybe content is a better word.   I might have even tried to whistle. The happiness flitted around the edge of my awareness as the project went on, a sort of byproduct that I was able to notice and let go.  All my deliberate conscious attention was on the project – does this work?  Where did I put that?  What would happen if I let my finger slip into the router?  (That last one didn’t really happen, and I felt no need to test it out).  My thinking world shrank to the manageable technical stuff.   

When I reached the point where the stain had to dry, I went upstairs, and decided to mow the lawn.  I wore earphones and listened to whatever I could find.  I ended up with NPR’s “The TED Radio Hour”, which coincidentally (synchronistically?) had a theme about happiness.  One speaker was a researcher who got people to use an app that periodically asked them a series of questions about what they were doing, whether they liked it, whether they had to do it, whether they would rather be doing something else, what they were thinking about when the app asked, etc.  One theme that seemed to evolve was that people were generally happiest when wholly occupied with what they are doing, whatever it is. 

Something inside me went, “aha.”  I have a friend who is a veteran yoga practitioner, and his theme is mindfulness –focusing on what one is doing, whatever it is.  Because his approach also involves deep meditation, and I tend to fall asleep when I try to meditate, I’ve never been able to follow him.  I sometimes try mindfulness on my own, but my mind usually just fills up with itself, and mind-filled is pretty much the opposite of mindful.  So I more or less gave it up as being his thing, and alternately envy and resent him for it.

But I seem to have tricked myself yesterday.  I didn’t go to the workshop to get happy or to do something important, I went to make something simple.  And I stumbled into happiness.  I became wholly engrossed in something manageable and absorbing, focused on it, and happiness grew out of it. 

I didn’t transform my life yesterday, and the happiness has flitted away.  But I know where it hides.

One Ride, Two Ways

Someone else's Red Bilenky-- just like Racer

Saturday afternoon Anna -- who thus far has passively but adamantly refused to consider a driver's license -- needed to be picked up from her rehearsal at the Young Shakespeare Theater, about 4 and a half miles from home.  It was a nice day and I had time, so I decided to pick her up on Racer, the tandem.  A simple idea except that I had to somehow get the tandem there.  Loading it, driving it, and unloading it was a complicated and quickly-discarded option.  Besides the hassle of loading, the problem of shuffling cars around would remain. The only cchoice was for me to solo from home and let her ride back with me.

Certainly theoretically possible.  While Racer is heavy -- 44 pounds -- he's also very nicely geared and I've heard stories of people using these bikes to haul groceries, etc.  Still, there are a couple "nice" hills before one arrives at the Bike Trail, and the simple uneasiness about the unknown. Once on the way, it would be hard to change one's mind.  On the other hand, it wasn't like a trip in Darkest Africa, and I had time. And a one-manned Racer would have to be easier to ride than was the huge, black, heavy, single-speed Chinese-made machine that I pedaled around Kabul, Afghanistan nearly 40 years ago -- though I didn't try any hills there -- and of course I was nearly 40 years younger.  But as I recall I was pretty nimble, especially going through those traffic circles wherein the cars and painted trucks and motor scooters zoomed around with horns blaring and nary a glance at other cars, much less a bicycle.  If I could survive that . . . .

Round and round we went in Kabul

So off I went.  And it went surprisingly well.  Hills were easily manageable though I didn't break or even threaten any speed records.  I got a few looks as I went down the Southwest Trail, but no one called out to "advise" me that I was missing a passenger.  Which disappointed me, as I was primed to be irritated by the remark.  Still, it was kind of spooky seeing the empty seat and pedals in front, especially when the pedals moved once in awhile, ghost-like.

On the ride home I was surprised by the different feel of the bike with a passenger -- for the first time I knew that the stoker makes a real difference.  Anna describes herself as a front-seat driver, and it's true that she sometimes tells me that I'm in the wrong gear -- and she's usually right about it. 

I suspected it, of course, from my brief rides with Daniel -- he never pedals so it's like pushing 100 pounds around; his bad hip and shorter leg, of course, make it harder for him, but in any event he's not really one for physical exertion.  It had been my plan to have Dan and I head off for adventures, with Anna riding wing on her own bike.  But other than an initial flash of excitement -- "Hey, I'm riding a bike!" on that first trip, he's approached the same way he's approaching next week's Easter Seals Respite Camp -- with quiet resignation and looking forward to being done.

Not  necessarily Daniel's favorite hang-out

Mille Bornes

Actual French milemarker -- though I presume they use kilometers.

There's a card game called  Mille Bornes, French for "thousand miles," and as I recall it consists of accumulating cards with mileage markers, while avoiding hazards played by your opponent, until one player's total reaches 1,000.  I vaguely recall the first time I played it, when it was new discovery by my cousin Linda Olson, back in the early to mid-1960s. 

The game came to mind recently as I was down in our company "gym", using the stairstep machine.  I noticed that my water bottle was one that I got for participating in the 2000 Corporate Cycling Challenge, in Omaha, and my t-shirt was the one I got for participating in 2010's Centurion race (shortened to 50 miles because of storms), here in Madison -- or, rather, in the hills surrounding nearby Mt. Horeb. 

There's a lot of distance between those two markers, considerably more than ten years and 400 miles.  Things that have changed, and things that stayed the same.

I don't recall much of the Corporate Challenge; I know we assembled on a gray morning in north Omaha, in the shadow of the old Florence grain elevator. 

The Florence Grain Mill

I know Mark was there, and Paul too.  I remember that Paul's wife Mary was there to see us off, and I think she met us at the finish line.  In any event it was one of my first organized competitions, though of course I'd been riding for several years.  That was before Rocinante, so my mount must have been good old Adastratus, the silver 12-speed from Specialized, I think.  (Adastratus derived from the Latin phrase, Ad astra per aspera, "to the stars through struggle").

The species of Adastratus, I think.

 I recall talking briefly to a rider beside me, a sort of gruff and apparently determined rider.  When the start signal was given, I leaned slightly toward him as I began to ride, he swerved and hit the curb, and went down in clatter of cursing.  In my mirror I saw him remount, but I never saw him again -- and never wanted to, lest he have hard feelings.  I  don't recall much else of the ride, which I believe ended down by Missouri River.  I know I was nowhere near the front, nor did I expect to be.

As for the Centurion Race a decade later, that's been chronicled elsewhere in these pages. We went into that more confident, and came out more chastened, Rocinante and I.   The hills took their toll, and we limped home.  So if I set my mile-marker at 100, I failed; if I set it at 50, I succeeded.  I'll take the 50.  That's one thing about milestones -- they're just there; it's we who make something of them.

Thinking milestones also reminds me of a time long ago, in the early, early 60s, BB ("Before Beatles" -- my temporal milestone).  JFK had just been elected President, and he was pushing physical education; he happened to mention a Marine Corps requirement that a healthy man should be able to walk 50 miles in a single day, so distance walking became the rage.  The local teenybopper radio station, Mighty 1290 KOIL,  sponsored a walk one Saturday, and covered it.

I listened from my bedroom, and I remember that one group was planning to "twist" all the way to Lincoln, and it started out as a raucous crowd.  And a couple hours later I recall the announcer saying that it appeared people were beginning to realize just how far the walk was, and beginning to drop out; I don't know if anyone actually completed it. 

My point -- and I do have one -- is that sometime milestones take on an illusory magic of their own, become an abstraction devoid of reality, until one begins to try and reach it.  Then it all sinks in.

Of Bridges and Bearskin

Stayed on Lake Minocqua over last week, in the wilds of northern Wisconsin, and Rocinante came along.  The weather was warm, alternately cloudy and sunny.  Our big concern had been mosquitoes, reported to be the worst in years.  But apparently a big explosion in the dragonfly population meant an equivalent collapse of the mosquito kingdom -- I got nary a bite during the entire week.  Except when fishing, there I got lots of bites and a few keepers.  But that's another story.  This is about the bike (regardless of what Lance says).


Tuesday afternoon I finally climbed onto Rocinante and headed out, intending to ride the entire 18.2 miles of the Bearskin, which starts just a few blocks and one long bridge from our resort headquarters.  Unfortunately, that bridge, across a narrow neck of the Lake, is on Highway 51, the main route up North,  built in the days preceding pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly engineering.  Nothing overwhelming, just disconcerting to have logging trucks and RVs rumbling past, with no shoulder at all -- there is a sidewalk, but it's raised above the roadway, so one either commits to it or the roadway from the get-go.  And because that is also the only pedestrian access into town, the sidewalk is usually rather busy.

Highway 51 Bridge -- not as bucolic as it looks.

Once past the bridge, and following a sharp left turn across traffic, tranquility suddenly burst into being.   Crushed red rock on a old railroad line, bordered by tall pines and birches, the chitters, chatters, and squawks of birds framed by the distant drone of outboard motors, the soughing of the wind and the smell of the outdoors.  What could be better? 

Not much.

 

A much friendlier bridge

 

The trail began with a long, pedestrian-popular railroad trestle, crowded with walkers and kids, darting about in the same manner as the smaller fish who clustered around the old wooden bridge supports.  The trail soon made a sharp turn off into the woods, and led off into the deep of the forest.  The first half-mile or so involved passing by various cabins and resorts, until they faded away and the trail the woods drew closer.  But never completely.  Just when it seemed to be real woodsy, another cabin appeared, or a cross-road.  Still, the further I went the fewer cyclists I saw, and most of those seemed to be coming from the other way, and none seemed unhappy.  About halfway through -- at the 9-mile mark -- I stopped at a conveniently placed rest area, and about a mile further came upon an old railroad rest station, a little wooden shed dated 1890 or so.  As I passed that I couldn't help but think about, and wonder about, the ghosts of the men who built the railroad, who risked their health, perhaps their lives, building, maintaining, and operating trains up here -- were they amazed or disappointed or jealous about the 21st century tourists who wander easily down the route they struggled so hard to make?

 

The sign speaks for itself.

At about the 10-mile mark I began to re-think my aim of riding the entire trail.  I have yet to ride further than 20 miles in a stretch yet this year, and despite the relatively easy grade, the gravel base was more demanding than asphalt.  The weather was threatening rain; Mei hates to drive the CRV -- and I had the only keys with me, anyway.  And I remembered the old 2-for-1 rule -- every mile ridden out requires the same number to ride back. 

 

At the 12-mile mark the path suddenly jogged into a sharp turn and a steep, asphalted, climb, down which came a pack of riders.  When I reached the top I saw an equally steep decline, followed by a long descent.  That decided it for me; I stopped for a few moments, turned around, and began rolling home.  I moved at a good clip, and easily smoked the riders who'd passed me going the other way; I felt good about it, though in all honesty they were casual tourists on rental bikes, but still .. . .  Before long I was back in the shallows again, midst the small-fry and the casual bikers.  And I knew that stopping at 12 was the right decision -- I got back on time, in good fettle, and the final third of the trail remains as a goal for next year. 

 

Oh, and just because they call it the "Bearskin" doesn't mean they encourage naked cycling -- this was, after all, the North Woods, where cycling attire is bad enough.  Besides, that would have proven far too tempting for those mosquitoes that had, somehow, survived the dragonfly assault.

 

This guy -- definitely -- should have known better.  For lots of reasons.

 



Ever Upward

TIME TO FACE WHAT LIES AHEAD

 

 

Last Saturday I decided to adopt the theme advanced by Scott Walker in his pseudo-autobiography, Unintimidated, in which he attributes his success thus far to his willingness to face and conquer whatever obstacles life and liberals have placed in his path.  Whether that is true, or whether he has instead been boosted over bumps by the Koch Brothers and their ilk is irrelevant -- there is a truth to his theme.

 

For me and biking, that obstacle has been hill-climbing.  To the extent possible, I generally try to avoid hills.  And judging from the scads of articles on how to be a better climber, I'm not alone in that.  And it's apparently long been part of cycling lore, not the least of which the peddling of the illusion of conquering hills without effort.  As illustrated by the following:

 

 

 

No matter what the copywriters contend, I don't believe that smug face.  Not, anyway, on a chainless bicycle.  I know my face is rarely anything but taut and tired after a long climb.

 

The issue of hill-climbing and my psyche became came to sharply to mind recently, and indirectly, when I listened to a recording of Jeff Shaara's book, The Final Storm, about the Marine amphibious landings on Okinawa during WWII.  In one particularly compelling passage, he describes the demanding personal physical struggle of one Marine, from the time he dragged himself through the surf and mud, up and across the beach, and the long, long, march and climb inland, carrying his pack and his rife, the way he had to move beyond his apparently utter exhaustion until finally reaching a point at which he could stop.

 

I realized that I have never been to where I had to reach beyond the point of mere discomfort, rarely moved myself beyond the point of mere discomfort; when my legs begin to not even hurt, simply express a bit of concern.  And that's primarily because I've never had to -- it's always an option to stop, rest, and remount or walk the rest of the hill.  A luxury but also an overwhelming temptation. 

 

Which brought me to the question:  if I were to really reach inside, what would I find?  After all,  Shaara's character was nothing more than a composite of the real men who made those lands, generally unremarkable men thrown into an overwhelmingly demanding situation.

 

As was my father. 

 

Dad served in the Pacific campaign, though, through no doing of his own, he was sent to Alaska's Aleutian Islands, and never saw combat.  As a kid, and, I must admit until recently, I tended to be dismissive of his service because of that.  No glamour, no glory.  But while reading Shaara, I realized that I was looking at Dad through the lens of hindsight.  When he landed at Adak, the presumption was that Japanese soldiers were waiting for them.  He had to prepare his gear and himself the night before, had to come face-to-face with his mortality and his fears, had to ride that LST to shore, jump out into that freezing surf, struggle onto the beach, drop down, wait, gather himself, and march inland, always expecting gunfire that never came.  He had to reach down and find something within himself, and move past it.

 

And he did.

 

 

ADAK LANDING

 

 

If he could do that, then I, his son, ought to be able to suck it up and climb a few  hills.  So when I went out, I decided to take the direct route downtown, to treat those few manageable hills for what they were, simple topographical deviations.  So I did, and they were.  Once I got downtown, the ride was mostly uneventful, save for one turn on the way home -- I decided to turn upward toward the lake, and found myself facing an unexpectedly short and steep climb, only a block or so, but one that demanded some deep digging.  I was tempted to discard the Adak analogy and listen to my legs, but to my right a troop of Boy Scouts were happily tramping up the sidewalk, and I vowed that I would be damned before I would walk it in front of them.  So I pushed and pushed and panted and climbed, passing them to the top of the rise.  Not the glory of Iowa Jima, I know, but an accomplishment nonetheless. 

 

As I rolled toward home, I had another decision to make.  As part of my brash declaration of unintimidation for this trip, I had considered making my first 2014 climb of Mt. Nemesis as a crowning closing climb.  But, on further reflection, I decided that had been crazy talk.  Not yet.  So I compromised, and took a less challenging route, though I took it without hesitation and without concern for what lay ahead on that route.  And I did it.

 

Nemesis can wait.  For awhile.  In the interim I'll bike and walk the stair-stepper (and the steps). 

 

Maybe this weekend.  Or the next.

 





Two rides, two ways

 

Saturday was a chore day, and I spent most of the day working inside and out.  I hoped to get a ride in that afternoon, if I got the lawn mowed on time.  The great thing about an electric, battery-powered mower is that it doesn't emit many greenhouse gases; the downside is that if you don't plug it in after a mowing, it probably won't have enough juice to do much.  And, son of a gun, I'd forgotten to plug it in.  After a couple hours the power meter barely rose above halfway, so it was obvious Saturday mowing was out.  What to do, what to do.

 

So I decided to take Rocinante out in the broad daylight that remained after dinner.  With nothing special in mind, I more or less let him have his head.  I found myself at the start of the Cooper bike trail off Old Sauk road, a trail I had taken once and had consigned to the useless, which I recalled as a short and inconsequential  little thing, but R wanted to go that way, so we did. It was the road taken, and that made all the difference.  We found a gently turning, mostly downhill, ride through tall old-growth trees, scented by wildflowers and someone else's new-mown grasses, robins hopping and flitting along, shafts of sunlight and rafts of shade, tranquility in the city.  I emerged onto a quiet narrow road that linked several older houses on very, very large and wooded lawns.  Ever and gently downhill, and I came out on Old Middleton Road, the winding, somewhat hilly main drag for the area.  To the right the trail led to the base of Mt. Nemesis, to the left . . . . R decided to turn left, and so we went up and over a bridge, past Kettle Pond, until we turned on Capital Road and came to its intersection with University Avenue. 



 

 

FOLLOWING  ROCINANTE'S  LEAD

 

 We sat at the light for quite awhile, until I realized it was one that would not change unless a car came along or I dragged R over to the side and pushed the button.  Unless I became one of those arrogant cyclists who flout the law.   As I pondered, a pair of cyclists came up, waited a minute or two and took off across the road; I followed, feeling there was safety in numbers when it came to scofflaws.  I followed a new bike trail out west, then down a long hill to Lake View Park, my old fishing grounds.

 

Not having the luxury of enough time to circumnavigate Lake Mendota's 28-mile circumference, we decided to work our way through Middleton and home. For a few minutes I found myself in the middle of the University Avenue at it's busiest time, and found that those drivers cared little about bicyclists; that's part of the paradox of Madison, either all gung-ho bikes or get out of the way, bikes. But soon enough I escaped that, and did something I'd always wanted to do there.  I biked down Hubbard Avenue, a wide and quiet residential street, framed by huge trees and big old houses, the kind that farmers used to retire to, back in the days when they could afford to do such things.  I wanted to do this because long years ago, while perusing a book on cycling across America, the author had a black-and-white photo of a street just like this, and I wanted to be that guy.   At least for a moment.  And I was. Check another thing off the bucket list.

 

If Saturday was a ride of solitude, just me and R, Sunday was the absolute opposite.  For the first time I went down to the "Ride the Drive" event, wherein downtown is reserved for bicyclists for several hours, and booths set up by various organizations.  One, the Wisconsin Bicycle Federation or somesuch, had poster that read, "Last year Nebraska had more cycling miles than Wisconsin."

 

 

2013 RIDE THE DRIVE (SANS ME), ON AN

OBVIOUSLY MUCH COOLER DAY

 

As though that were something to be ashamed of; and I told them so, that if they knew the other two of the tree amigos, it would not be unexpected -- or easily rectified.  The rest of the time I flowed with the crowd, people in funny costumes, hard-ass riders, kids on trailers and their own little bikes, tandems, all moving slowly along through intersections guarded by attentive police, some with their own bikes.  When I got onto some of the main roads I found it very hard to keep from sticking to the shoulder or bike lane, and from looking over my shoulder when I did venture out.

 

The day had opened with spotty showers, but matured into a hot and sunny morning, so much so that when I stopped for a few moments, for water or conversation, sweat dripped down my face, into my eyes and onto my glasses, which took away a bit from the fun; fortunately I knew the directions home, so being blurry-eyed made little difference.   R and I cut through the cemetery on the way home, and I stopped near the giant Baker memorial I see every day when I drive past.  Obviously none of my family -- except in the broad Biblical sense -- but I wanted to see it up close; old, old tombstones in front of the family marker, lichen-covered to the point of being illegible, the newest I saw being in the 1930s, the oldest in the mid-19th century.  I'm not the maudlin type, but I am aware of my mortality, and of the fact that I am nearer the end than the beginning, so I felt a bit as though I were communing with them.  But R got restless, and I got back on, finding my legs beginning to stiffen.  Dark clouds rolled in again, and a block and a half from home a massive boom of thunder shook the sky and big drops of rain began pelting us, the kind of rain you can hear coming, a sort of hard rustle.  It was nice indeed to roll into the garage and settle into the days routine.  Which included mowing later in the day, when the hot sun had returned and burnt off the rain.



Uncertain the Final Run to Shelter

 

 

SOMEONE ELSE ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE 

 

Memorial Day was alternately sunny and gloomy, with  forecast of likely rain and possible thunderstorms.  A good day for a relatively short ride.  I put Rocinante on the back of the ol' CR-V and drove to a parking lot just north of Middleton, to the beginning of a 10- or so mile trail, one that the State put in as a sop to the folks who had opposed the widening of Highway 12 -- when we moved here it was a winding and hilly road through some beautiful landscape, now it's a typical 4-lane after they blasted through hills and farmland. 

 

The trail is mostly straight, totally shadeless, has gently rolling climbs and descents, and ends abruptly on top of a rise, without warning or apology.  A half-mile or so further on there's a bike bridge across the highway, that goes from nowhere to nowhere, and the State has no immediate plans to do anything with or about it.   A good ride for a short and secure day.

 

As I rolled along I was inundated with the familiar smells of rural highway riding -- a not-too-distant feedlot, the grasses, and the insistent odor of roadkill simmering under the summer sun.  Not many riders, most of them seemed to be coming back.  In my mirror I saw the growing speck of rider fast approaching.  He soon burst past me, hunched over the handlebars, obviously on a training ride or simply determined to be fast.  No warning as he passed, and if I'd not seen him in the mirror I'd of been seriously startled.  That, unfortunately, seems to be the dominant behavior among the "serious" riders, and I wonder why -- what's the point of refusing a simple courtesy?  There's an ongoing debate here in Madison between bikers and drivers, and I keep finding myself on both sides.  Most bicyclists are decent people, but so many do seem indifferent to others (I'm especially thinking here of those students around UW who zip around at dusk without lights and in dark clothes).

 

Anyway, I was thinking about that as I ground up the last hill and climbed off the bike for a little R&R.  As I set the bike down and lay the helmet beside it, I felt like a grizzled veteran in a world of fancy riders.  My bike after all, nicked and scratched, was new back in about 1997, the same age as my twins, so with the water bottle; my shoes are almost as old, and I'm easily twice the age of most cyclists out here.  At least the helmet and shorts were new, a sort of concession to my 2014 renaissance.  But I wasn't sure about the veteran part, since I'm more of an occasional biker, certainly not anywhere near hardcore.

 

I looked around me, and saw a typical Wisconsin rural landscape, rounded green hills, a blue silo poking up from behind one of them, and rounded, gray clouds beginning to pile up.  Seriously piling up.  I thought maybe I should start my final run for home.

 

 

 

THE GRIZZLED VETERAN

 

 

I'd carefully noted the absence of a tailwind on the way up, because I wanted to avoid finding myself facing a headwind on the way home.  But of course I outsmarted myself, the coming storm had swirled the winds and now I was going into one.  Not serious, but annoying.  And the clouds began to spit at me as I ground along.  The sun came back, and vanished again, a sort of peek-a-boo that promised nothing.  I began overtaking a couple riders, and felt pretty good, but then they kicked back into gear and into the distance.  The landmarks rolled by and before long I realized I was nearly back, and would likely beat the rain. 

 

I stopped at a traffic light -- a highway crossing -- and as I stood there I saw another biker pulling up behind.  He was nattily attired, and had an obviously late-model bike.  I turned to him and said he may as well pull out first, since he'd likely pass me quickly anyway.  He politely agreed.  But when he pulled past he kept having trouble getting his left shoe to clip onto the pedal, and soon I was passing him.  "Or not," I said.  "I'm having trouble with this cleat," he said, and I replied, "Maybe that's a peril of modern technology," and pulled further ahead.  I heard a click behind me, and a few seconds later he sped past me and out of sight.

 

 



NOT THIS GUY BUT SOMEONE LIKE HIM

 

 

I got to the car underneath a darkening sky, which suddenly broke into sunshine, and the promise of a wonderful afternoon after all