On the road

When I'm on my bike for even the shortest ride I will frequently imagine myself being on a long bike trip, heading somewhere distant by myself. I try to be a realist in my daydreams and think of the likely travails of lousy weather, getting sick and the dangerous riding on bad roads crowded with motorists. But yesterday as I explored in my mind this scenario I thought that these problems on the road would be preferable to the worries that I have now daily of being in debt and of the government's tax man looming. Maybe more existential problems of survival are what I need? What would be the worst that could happen to me while biking a long trip? I think that getting sick and injured would be at the top of that list, followed by running out of money. That last one is the rub. I could travel very cheaply on a bike; I would have no car that needs to be fueled, maintained. licensed and insured. I still would need food and shelter along the way. I picture myself pulling a 2 wheeled trailer, about the size of the ones that parents use to haul small children when they go riding, but in one of these I would keep most of the gear I would need, including a small tent and bedroll. That would help with the cost of shelter but would I be able to find a place at every night's stop where I could set it up, and do so under the nastiest weather? This would be a trip where I would need to be lucky, lucky to meet people who might let me stay in their homes for the night and lucky that I don't have my bike and gear stolen. The worst would be to become the victim of a violent crime. That's a fate that makes for the grist of so many ancient stories of travelers getting waylaid on their journeys'. I think my travel plans would be like becoming a hobo, except I'm not hopping freight trains but making my way by pedaling on 2 wheels. Am I up for that kind of life at such a late point in my life after living so long with running hot water and soft beds at the end of my day? I would be escaping from life with it's tax and credit card debts. What have I got to lose? In another 2 years I'll be getting social security and I'm only going to have that to live on anyway. I only need my son to find his own way because this is the end of the road trip for an old guy.

Miss Hollywood

Miss Hollywood was my 4th grade teacher. In my school it was always a relief to have a lay teacher rather than a nun. There were a few sweet and kind nuns but more often than not they were fearsome in their administration of discipline. The lay teachers were all sweet and kind, none more so than Miss Hollywood. She was everything you would imagine someone to be with that name: tall, soft complexion and with Grace Kelly blonde hair, except in her right hand she was missing her middle and ring fingers. My parents knew her a little because she had been a high school classmate of my older sister, and the story I heard about her hand was hard to comprehend. It was explained to me that she had a hobby of going to cemeteries and doing what are called "rubbings". She would take a piece of light paper and press it over the surface of old tombstones from the late 18th and early 19th centuries and make impressions of the artwork on these tombstones. One time as she was doing this a tombstone collapsed on her hand and crushed her fingers. To this day I can not imagine a scenario on how it would be possible for this to happen in the way it was described to me. It was a testament to Miss Hollywood that this disfigurement did not diminish Miss Hollywood's beauty in my eye. It may have been that I was so happy to have a lay teacher teaching the class, or maybe it was also that I was becoming of age to recognize that some woman were especially attractive but it was not hard to put her injury out of my mind. She spoke to the class with a soft and re-assuring voice and that was heaven for me. During the lessons she would take a piece of chalk and then curl her index and little fingers and put on the blackboard the most gorgeous handwriting.

My legacy

Satre said that a man doesn't begin to live until he truly recognizes his own mortality. I'm thinking that advice should not apply to a younger man or woman. Much of the enjoyment of life is in making mistakes. You do want to avoid making the ones that may put you into hospitals, correctional institutions or the morgue but you don't as a young person want to live your live so deliberate and calculated that you will not experience the joy of doing things successfully that are also risky. No, the advice is better suited to people like me who are further down in the life expectancy tables and who should be cognizant every day that time is running out. I have surgery on Wednesday where I will get general anesthesia and I have been thinking about the risk that comes with that. I fear death less than dying, that something should go wrong during my procedure I that it will leave me in a comatose state and a burden to my family. I only fear in death that I leave little in material things (meaning money or property) for my family, especially my son. That he, unemployed and still trying to get purchase in his personal and private life will be left adrift with my passing. At this stage of my life, how can I change that?