Bikes and The Whale 

 So here's a dilemma. A while back I was joking a little with Will and Julie about reading Moby Dick. Coincidences have a way of coinciding, and just after goofing around about reading The Whale I looked over at my bookshelf, and there the damn thing was: the same volume I slogged through fifty years ago, the book that taught me more about whaling than I ever wanted to know. 

Now it would have been all kinds of easy just to let the topic drift away. No one would have bothered me about it. No one would have posted a post on facebarf asking if I'd started or finished Moby Dick. Nobody would chide me for being a lightweight if I started it and gave up. The kids would not point and laugh.

And you know what's worse: Suppose I jumped in, read the whole thing, and actually, really for realz got into the book. Suppose I enjoyed the heck out of it. Who the hell are you gonna' tell? 

Try this: go up to your buddies, and say "Hey gang, guess what. I just read Moby Dick." 

One: Nobody is going to ask, "How was it?" or "What was your favorite part?" They won't care. 

Two: they're going to think you're bragging like you're trying to look all smart cuz' you read hard books.

So. I'll keep it brief. I just finished the book, and it was very good. It was not all that hard, and very well worth the effort. But I can see why I didn't get much out of it at twenty years of age. Moby Dick isn't Jaws. It's 19th century literature. Like the whale itself it is ponderous, dense, and slow. Compared to contemporary fiction, it's the difference between tasting a spoonful of soup, and putting a bouillon cube on your tongue.

Notes on The Red Bike

One of the joys of post-middle age is the perspective one gets on time. I found this old Starlet back in 1980, after searching for several years for a classic tanker Schwinn. That was forty three years ago.

 

The Starlet was made in 1956. It was twenty four years old when I bought it, and it had been brush painted bright red, right down to the chain and tires. I had to fix it up, some.

Twenty four years ago, in August of 1999, I bought my daily rider, the machine that I now call The Red Bike.  I had won a long battle with the school system that resulted in my being put out to pasture with an early retirement. My teaching career, and two years of legal bullshit was over. I was free, and I had a little money from the settlement. I had been talking pretty regularly with the gal who worked at Clayton's Framing, and Janet's Art School.  I was thinking about maybe asking her out, but I still needed some pretext, some excuse. My birthday was coming up. How about a new bicycle?

I bought this:

 

Dyno Moto 7

 

The Moto 7 was not a department store beach cruiser; Dyno built a high quality machine. It was an odd sort of hybrid, and they didn't make many of them. The Moto frame is a re-vamped version of a 1950's vintage Monark Super Cruiser, set up like a Klunker  for off-road riding. The Dyno was set up with sturdy mountain bike forks, low, tight handlebars, and off-road tires.

 

 Klunker style Monark

 

  Monark Super Cruiser 

 

But the Moto also came with an internal gear hub, and a roller brake, definitely an urban set up. I took the bike out for a ride, and just happened to ride by the frame shop, and Mary just happened to be working that day, and she just happened to want to go for a bike ride sometime soon... I rode the Moto 7 on my first date with Mary. We were married a few months later. 

The Dyno turned out to be a great ride, but I soon tired of the low, narrow handlebars, and tiny saddle. A trip to the local bike shop was in order. This was much more my style:

Our cycling got interrupted in the fall of '06 when I had an adventure in the cardiac ward. I escaped without injury to  the heart, but the bank account was a different matter. It took a while, but I got a job, went back to work, and we got back on our feet. During that time I had given the Moto 7 to my niece, but she never rode it, and my brother used it but rarely. I was considering a new bike, something light, and easy to ride. Lots of gears. Suspension. I bought the most god-awful ugly bicycle I ever owned.  (don't tell anyone:)

 

In one of those life changing coincidences, Mary and I were out riding at the beach when we ran into a fellow riding a beautifully restored 1930's Shelby. He told us about the Cyclone Coaster antique and classic ride ride in Long Beach. My old Schwinns had been crated up for years. It was time to break them out. Mary and I began riding with the Cyclone Coaster group. We made some friends. I even got a chopper bike, and  started going on some bike club rides.

Mary and I were having a lot of fun. But as much as I loved the Cyclone Coaster rides, I enjoyed the "Outlaw Bike Club" rides more.  

  The chopper bike was too slow and heavy for a daily rider, and the comfort bike was like totally uncool.   I traded the ugly comfort bike to my brother and got the Moto 7 back. The ol' Moto was in need of some work. A face lift wouldn't hurt either.

 

I did a re-build. I wanted to get the Dyno back to its Monark cruiser roots, so I took it all apart.

 I had the black and white frame powder coated red.

  The Felt bicycle company had just come out with a Monark style spring front fork. It was the perfect match for the Moto frame. Add some wider rims, and balloon tires.

 

I swapped out the seven speed roller brake hub for an eight speed with a coaster brake.

 

 

 The Brooks saddle is a lovely piece of 19th century technology:

It's also very comfortable, once the saddle leather is properly broken in.

 

Before:

 

After:

Mary and I decided to try starting our own ride, a monthly gathering like Cyclone Coaster, only with a Customs, Cruisers, and Classics theme. Here we were, eleven years ago at the very first So Cal RatRod Ride. Oh wait. That's just the bikes.

 
 We didn't get pictures of ourselves. More on this next week.

Another Post in the Rain

 

 

 

We had a one day break from the rain, Sunday, so I put a new set of tires on the cruiser.  I've been riding on  a set of cheapies  that I bought just when the lockdowns and mask nazi's took over the world. Even bicycle tires were in short supply. The La Habra shop had no ballooners, so I went to another shop close by. All the customers, and employees wore the face diaper. I refused. I walked in there bare faced, and got the stink-eye from a few customers. This shop had some Brand X tires in the right size. I bought the tires and paid cash. I've put three hard years on those crappy tires, and they were close to worn out.  I popped for a new set of Schwalbe Fat Franks, and a new pair of thorn-proof tubes. The Fat Franks are, no surprise, fatter than the tires I replaced. Standard balloon is 26 x 2.125", the Franks are 26 x 1.35", and they hold 50 psi. 

Sunday morning it was cold, but dry so I got to work on the bike.  Once I had the bike flipped over, and the rear wheel off, I pulled the chain, and flushed the sand and grit out of the links.  I gave the old cruiser a good cleaning. It's amazing how much difference a good tire makes. The Fat Franks ride smooth as oil, and they roll like soft skateboard wheels. I took it out for fifteen miles in the cold afternoon. Bike rides sweet, and life is good.

 

I try to get a post up every Monday morning, but it's like having a job without a boss.  No one there to tell you you can't take a day off. Mostly I rely on updates on the stone projects, but it's been rainy, and cold, and I've made no progress on the stone. But more than that, the post I was working on was starting to sound like a whole lot of stuff I read on line these days: a long list of things that are going wrong, bad trends, and ever diminishing hope. The daily  tour through the bookmarks yields plenty of stuff to make me angry, scared, or depressed;  little, or nothing enlightening, or edifying.

 

The World.> Hell.> Handbasket.

 

I get it. The free floating sense of dismay is pretty hard to avoid. I'm sick of it. So I nuked the post, and now I'm starting over.

  I've tuned out the signal when it comes to news and current events.  More and more, I realize that much of my reason for going on line at all was to see what what was new at VanderLeun's site. Like most of the gang, I keep clicking over there. I want see what's up with everyone.  But it's over. Gerard is gone. No one else could do what he did, and do it so well. We who found our way into the community of commenters there at American Digest experienced something new in the world. We've been a part of something wonderful. But that something depended on the extraordinary effort, and breath taking talent of one gifted man. His time here has passed.

I'd love to come up with some incisive simile.

 

 It's like going to[....] but [....] is gone.

 

 But it's hard to make a comparison. The internet is, as I just mentioned, something (relatively) new in the world. There has never before been anything quite like a blog, or a blogger. What can compare to an internet host and his following of readers?

 

Anyway-

For right now I want to put my focus on the Good.

Life has been extraordinarily good to me; I have a lot to be grateful for. 

It's Wednesday, the first of March. I came awake about quarter to four this morning. The house was cold. We got wind and rain again. As I got out of bed, Buddy the Cat, and The Most Mysterious Skinamalink charged down the hall, and waited all howling, and meowling in the kitchen. The cats get their fish before I get to make coffee. Shows you who's boss around here. Buddy sits at my feet  while I wait in the living room for the coffee. I have to bend over to scratch his old head.

 The machine slurps and gurgles in the kitchen. Coffee is ready. Step out on the porch for a w&b in the cold wind, and rain. Back in to the smell of coffee in the warming kitchen. Stop on the way back to the den; give Mary's foot a squeeze. She stirs.

Settle into the futon. Snug with a comforter, and sixteen ounces of hot black coffee. Rain, and the wind chimes singing in the dark wet yard. Furnace whooshing warmth into the room. Skinnies hops up, and curls up purring in my lap. Consciousness floats on the hot  coffee, while the sativa opens up like a lotus flower blooming in my head. Halfway between worlds, freefalling into that cascade of thoughtdreaming... drifting into prayers for the morning.

 Making some plans on the day.

And the day begins with a sense of gratitude. I'm warm in my home. The cat is snug in my lap. After twenty three years of marriage I'm still in love with my wife. Our needs are well met, and we have a simple, sweet life together. The creative fire is still burning, and I'm eager to get back to work. I have the bike gang. We have good friends. Happiness is not measured by the number of zeros in the bank account. When it comes to the things that really matter we are wealthy.  So that's about it, for now. 

 

Next post I'm going to talk a little bit about the Red Bike. It's been with me for a while, now, and it has a story of its own.

 

 

 Raven in Wyoming

 

 I was on the Hog, riding back to So Cal after a cross country trip that peaked with a week at the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. I rolled out of Cheyenne  early in the morning for the day-long trek westward along Interstate 80. I was headed for  Evanston near the Utah state line, where I knew of a very good restaurant, and a very cheap motel. It's as long and lonely a ride as you'll find anywhere.  You don't know how big the Earth is until you've driven across Wyoming.

 

Now this was back in 1993, so I had to look up the route to see if I could find just where I had my brief encounter with Raven. I did remember a long, u-turning on ramp that climbed pretty steeply up to the highway. A search on Google maps revealed only one such place along the length of the interstate, a census-named spot call Arlington, population 25. 

 

There was a couple of gas pumps, and a C-store in a pre-fab building. They had a bench outside, and not much else. I filled the tank, and bought a pack of Marlboros, and a coke. They had those giant Slim Jim sausage things in a box right by the register. I don't know why, but I bought one. I rolled the bike away from the pumps, and sat down for a break. Just as I opened the Slim Jim the big black bird  glided down and landed on the ground before me maybe ten feet away. I knew right away that this was not Crow, but Raven. I had never seen one so close.

The bird stood there, cocking his head, looking at me sideways with first one eye, and then the other.

 

 

I said, "Hello."  The shaggy black bird took a few tentative sideways hops in my direction. I broke off a good sized piece of the sausage, and tossed it about halfway between me and the bird. Raven wanted that sausage. He took a few timid sideways hops, but quickly hopped back to a safer distance. The chunk of Slim Jim was just a little too close to me for the raven.

 I spoke softly, "C'mon. It's for you."

 Hop closer in, back away, hop closer in.... almost... but no. This went on for a few minutes. Raven wanted that sausage, but he was going to get only so close to this strange visitor, Man.

I finished my soda, saddled up, the bike, and lit the V-twin. The bike spit thunder, and the bird fluttered off. I made the U-turn and as I charged up the ramp, Raven swooped  across my path. He flew right at eye level, so close that I almost could have touched.  He had that Slim Jim in his beak, and a bright gleam in his black beady eye.

Cold Cruising, Rocks, and Storybooks  

 

What we started with

Work on the stone has been a little sketchy this week. It has been cold (for So Cal) so I'm not getting out to the table until late in the morning. Too, I've been trying to get out on the bike more often. At this advanced age one falls out of shape very quickly.  The local bike path is nearly finished, so now I can get in a good twelve mile cruise every day, or two without having to ride on  any major surface streets.  

It's not as though I'm working to a deadline, or anything, but taking that cruise slows everything down. It means either getting a late start on the art, or an putting an early ending to the work sessions. 

Here's where we left off last week. 

I opened up the cone a little farther. Now, the job is working  that flat, suction cup face into the irregular curves of a blossom. I'm retaining as much of the ragged, "natural" shape of the rock as I can.  If rocks bloomed this would be the flower.

Sun. 2/19/23

Got together with the bike gang, Saturday, for twenty six  miles on the fat tires. We rode the Santa Ana river from right around Angel Stadium, down to just a couple miles short of the beach. I hadn't been on this stretch of the river trail since the late 1970's. Back then, I'd take my single speed Schwinn Spitfire out in the morning,  cruise my way down to Anaheim, and pick up the Santa Ana River Trail right there at Angel Stadium. I'd ride the trail all the way down to Huntington, then slog it back home up Beach Boulevard for total of just over fifty miles.

Saturday's ride covered about half that distance. I rode all day on the Santa Ana Trail expecting to see some small thing that would light up a memory. It has all changed. There was nothing familiar at all. And twenty five miles in the cold and wind just kicked my ass. I've been flopped all day today.

 I finished up CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia the other day. I was sad to see the series come to an end, and not just because of the sad ending of the World of Narnia.

 Turning an eye to the ongoing mess of news, current events, and commentary is just disheartening. Too much exposure to it brings on this free-floating sense of dismay.  I still look through the bookmarks every morning, but I'm reading less and less. I quickly reach a point where my eyes glaze out of focus, and my attention just evaporates. I return to the same conclusion: The world as we knew it ended with Trump's "two weeks to flatten the curve" speech. The covid panic may have abated, but that was only the first shot in this war.

"The world is in a bad way, my man, and bound to be worse before it mends; ..." 

And so it is, and all signs point to the worsening.  I don't have the four or five centuries to wait it out. I doubt if I have two decades. My generation will not see an end to it in our lifetimes. And there is not a whole heck of a lot we can do about any of it.  Accept what you cannot change; change what you can, and all that. I can change my focus. I can turn away. Reading is a way out, and  CS Lewis was on my bookshelf.

 Reading Narnia was just plain fun. And, at first  it seemed like it would be fun to write about it. But I had barely touched the keyboard, when I got time-jacked straight back to Cal State Fullerton, where the penalty for reading any piece of literature was five type-written pages minimum.  Or worse, a final exam bluebook prompt: 

Discuss the theme of Redemption in CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Compare and contrast similar themes in the work of two other authors from this semester's reading list.

That's pushing forty years ago.  Even so, that routine killed off any interest I had in books or reading for a very long time. As soon as I hit the keyboard I found myself trying to write term paper prose. I'm not going to do it. I'll make a few notes on what I enjoyed, and why.

The Chronicles of Narnia provided me with a most welcome escape, but the magic of Narnia was not  the magic of talking animals, or witches' spells. In Narnia,  Evil can be directly confronted fought, and, with great effort,  defeated. The avatar of God can speak to us directly. That there could be a place where there was no history for thousands of years sounds pretty good to this old bastard.

But. Getting back to that redemption thing. I like the broad brush with which Lewis paints his characters. I liked the way that  his heroes: Edmund, in particular, start out as perfect little shits, yet grow to become worthy kings. It's a good lesson for the young, and a good reminder for the aged, like myself.  At seventy years, it is quite easy to look back through your resume, and find stuff that makes you wince, and cringe. It is comforting to be reminded that the Lion is forgiving to those who own their wrongs, and change their ways. I try.

And I like the way that Lewis reminds us that not all will be redeemed. The blind dwarfs in the last book have chosen their lot. They sit at a sumptuous feast in the glory of fresh air and a warm sum. Yet they believe them selves confined to eating garbage in a lightless stable. Those who have ears hear the music of Creation. Others, like Uncle Andrew,  hear only unpleasant noise: 

[Uncle Andrew] had disliked the song very Much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel.

 This resonated with me. I can recall the time when any mention of Christianity just gave me the creeps and the willies. That time is past, and I have become a Believer, albeit feral.

I don't know if there is anything more to say. But treating a story like a dead bird bird on dissection tray just gives me the creeps and the willies.

And now, thanks to the cruel, and remorseless taunts of Will, and Julie, I've embarked on that grim voyage aboard the Pequod, and I'm laboring beneath Ahab's scowl, and Ishmael's verbosity. All goofing aside, here. I'm about halfway through Moby Dick. It isn't nearly the monster I remember, and (don't tell anyone) It's actually a heck of a good story. Maybe some notes on The Whale, next week.

 Chisel and Drill

 

Tue, 2/7/23

I reached the point where I have a clear separation between the bulb that lies flat along the base, and the mouth of the large irregular cone that will rest atop the bulb. 

 

 

Now to address that big flat oval face.

 

 

 I got out the big drill, put the 5/8" masonry bit in the chuck, and bored down about three and a half inches into the face of the cone. Time to break out the point chisels. My chisel-fu gets stronger with each project. Here's where we are as of Wednesday afternoon.

The next task will be pushing the walls of that cone thinner, and then we'll take the flatness out of the front rim of the cone.   I took another bite with the drill, chiseled out more material, and started shaping in the irregular curves with the cabinet rasp.

 

Thu. 2/9/23

 I'm an early riser, but 2:30 is too damned early for even me. Had an early visit with the doc today, and got Mary's car in for service. Doctor visit was OK. All the numbers are very good, and the echo test on the heart showed nothing amiss. Mary's car is another matter. It's thrashed.

But  a night without much sleep was just what I did not need. I'm draggin' it. I couldn't work up the juice to get the tools out, but I did finish Chronicles of Narnia today.

I'm sad that it's over. I haven't had so much fun with a series of books in a very long time. More on this in a post somewhere down the line...

 

Fri. 2/10/23

 I hadn't been on the Roadster in a while, so I polished it up for Saturday's ride, and put in a about eight miles on the local bike trail. It felt good.

But Saturday was cold, and windy.  

 

Newport Harbor.

We left the fancy dress bikes home.  I am a wimp when it comes to cold. I'm skinny, and I chill easily. I have to prep for a sixty degree day the way most people gear up for the snow. I was ready for the cold, and it paid off. Sometimes fighting a little wind and cold is actually fun. I think it's called "invigorating" or something.

Sunday, 2/12

 

I founded the So Cal RatRod Ride eleven years ago, and a year later three of us founded RatRod Riders B/C. This was when the "Outlaw Bicycle Clubs" were just catching fire. I'm leaving out names, because I am the only one of the three founders remaining in the club. We were there for the first OBC gathering in Las Vegas, and our monthly ride drew dozens of participants. 

 

We used to roll a pretty darn impressive pack through the Huntington and Newport Beach bike paths. We did a few parades, and threw some giant parties. But all things change, do they not? A bunch of clubs came and went. The scene gradually evolved into sort of a custom bike show circuit. The various builders do come up with some gorgeous machines, but most of the customs are show queens: impractical, heavy, tough to ride. 

Most of the club rides became more focused on the bar stops than the bike path. Lots and lots of people ride with bluetooth stereos. Many have "sound bike" trailers with big ass speakers, and they play them loud. As a group, we slowly fell away from the big gatherings. It just wasn't fun to drive an hour or more out to a ride, and then spend most of the day standing around waiting for everyone to get done drinking.

We don't do stereos or bar stops. Last thing any of us wants on a bike ride is being stuck behind someone blasting rap, or heavy metal.  Dave and Russ don't smoke,  but the rest of us enjoy our weed. One life's sweet little pleasures is to catch a buzz, and take in the peace and quiet of a long slow cruise along the coast. Our rides run in the 15-20 mile range, with a couple of 'safety meetings' and a lunch break where we can find cheap food.  So, of course, attendance at our  event fell away. We mostly stopped going to their rides, and they mostly stopped stopped coming to ours. The club has become a small, tight family. We do our own thing, and it is good. Even so, we have our 'fancy-go-to-meetin' bikes as well as our daily riders. We're still in touch with the rest of the scene. 

 

Dave, and Troy went up to Simi Saturday to show off Dave's custom. Check this baby out:

And that's about it for this week. I do want to get around to talking about The Chronicles of Narnia, and also about Life, the Universe, and Everything, in a subsequent post. Oh, and Moby Dick, too. No foolin', I really started it again, and you know what? I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

Really!