The Blocks

I've been thinking.  A lot.  There's probably been about a dozen starts to this post but it never quite seems to get off the ground.  Maybe too much is flying around in my head all at once to actually put it in one place and have it make any sense.  Is it blogger's-block?  Somehow, there just seems to be a thousand little pieces of posts but not enough to make a whole one.  It's frustrating because writing has always been pretty good for what ails me.  Especially during the dark winter months when I always come down with the blues.  I knew I wanted to do a new-year post to break the ice (in more ways than one) but after one or two sentences...I kept deleting it and starting over.  I'm usually not one to run out of stuff to say so I'm a little confused.

My blogging friend Tim Joe over at TTPC said to just bang on the keyboard until something happened...forget what it was supposed to say and just say something...anything.  He's right of course.  That's how a lot of this thing has come about.  Just sitting at my laptop and something zooms through my head and becomes a post.  Unfortunately, not too much has been zooming of late.  But I guess I'll give it a go...

So much has happened since I last put anything up in the Home.  My previous post was anger at the hate and lunacy filling the world.  The one before that was anger at my world.  Somewhere, a lot of unhappy crept in.  I almost think that might be why I haven't written much...things feel out of balance.

I'm still running those all-night trains for a living which keeps me off schedule and kind of jet-lagged a fair amount of the time.  Time shifting has never been easy and as I get older, it gets tougher.  Days and nights aren't supposed to get all tangled up.  Someone once said that the worst thing ever put on a locomotive was a headlight and I'm inclined to agree.  That's when 0300 became a normal time to go to work for most of my career and 7 in the morning sometimes becomes happy hour.  I remember watching in wonder as a guy at an Allentown crew hotel had two Killian's Irish Reds with a bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich at 8:00 in the morning one day.  We'd just gotten off duty and were grabbing breakfast before trying to get some rest in full daylight, knowing full well it would never happen.
"That looks hard", I said as I walked past his table on my way to pay my tab.  "Yeah it is", he said "but I'll sleep good."  Out of balance.

Then I look around the news every day and wonder.  I'm not going there right now but...what the hell happened to us?  I know that bad news and crisis' sell advertising and jack up the pageviews but come on.  Would it be that hard to say something good?  My Facebook page is the same way.  Conspiracies, rumors, hate and controversy have taken over a big chunk of it.  What happened to cat pictures and hilarious rottencards?  Everybody's sure we're headed for concentration camps or Sharia law.  We used to post about our friends and worry about being tagged in drunk/stupid photos, now my newsfeed is mostly political rants and dire warnings.  I'm thinking about just bagging the whole thing.  Out of balance.

Then there's what's right here under my own roof.  For now at least, the Wayward Home is not what it used to be and it wears heavy.  Let's just say that winter is here with cold nights and chilly winds.  I'm not sure when spring will ever arrive and change the weather or what might happen between now and then but there's a chill in the air that ten cords of firewood can't take off.  More of life out of balance.

Maybe if it would stop snowing and being nasty outside the back door, I'd feel some better but right this second, it just started spitting again and the big thermometer on the deck hasn't cracked 20 in days.  I think I need a ride.  Winter is always like this to me in some ways but this year seems like we're stuck in the Mother of All Januarys.  Just to be outside a while without having to bundle up like Nanook of the North would improve my outlook a bit.  Maybe.  Or maybe the sun will come out, the blocks will come off and somehow, someway, the Home will be home.

Down and Away

It actually looked pretty nice outside from my kitchen table this morning.  I had resolved yesterday to ride somewhere today as long as the weather held out so I watched as the frost slowly melted off the pool cover over the top of my coffee mug.  The sunshine peeking around the clouds bore promise of temperatures above freezing so there was hope.  I needed a ride.  It's been dark and cold inside and out lately and saddle time is good therapy.

Eventually, I decided the thermometer was about as high as it was going to get and started rummaging around in the closet for cold-weather riding stuff.  A few layers later, I moved to the garage for a bike.  The 2.1 roadie is long overdue for a chain and a tire so I elected to leave her home this time and exercise my faithful mountain bike a bit.  I often have a tendency to get too far from home on the street bike anyway.  I figured I'd hit some steep old dirt roads that I haven't seen in a while on one with some suspension instead of the stiff-legged, skinny-tired weapon.  Besides, as cold as it is, slow is good.

I wanted to get out in the woods proper but bow season is open and rattling around in the leaves and pushing the deer about tends to aggravate the guys frozen in tree stands.  They seem unhappy sometimes after sitting all day waiting for something with horns, not something with tires.  I find it's usually a good idea to just forget about single-track trails until after the last gasp of the season unless your heartfelt desire is to bug somebody who's holding a compound bow that could easily take your head off.  There's something about knowing how many eyes are watching every clearing and deer path that makes it a little unsettling out there right about now anyway.  It's not as bad as shotgun and rifle season when the hills sound like a firefight and your epitaph could read, "Well, I thought it was a deer..." but why tempt fate?  I actually like the bow hunters so I try not to ride around in their shooting lanes.  They tend to be quieter, more disciplined people who rarely take a less-than-sure shot and I appreciate that.  So today would be dirt roads and well traveled byways where nobody in camo paint will be irritated.  Westward we go.

The climb into the hills was nice.  Colder than I anticipated but steep enough to require a low gear which kept the body heat on simmer while I cranked up out of the valley.  I wish I could go on about Zen-like peacefulness or re-affirming my faith in humanity or some such when I'm riding but I'm just too damn old to be a hipster and my karma is pretty well used up.  I just like to go out and look at the countryside and stretch my legs.  It was chilly enough to hurt on the first pitch and I realized I should have grabbed that day-glow yellow windbreaker but it was now miles behind me in the closet so I just chugged along and wondered how cold it would be when I turned back for home.

I live in a valley so no matter where I go, it's mostly uphill at first.  This has advantages as you can usually run downhill to get home unless you venture a valley or two away; trust me, I know this.  I've bonked a time or two trying to clear that last hump when I've gone too far for my own good (see above).  But today I had a plan.  Climb out, fool around on the ridge top and then cruise back to the garage.  It actually worked for once.  I got down in creeper-low and made the climb.

You can see a lot from up top now that the leaves are off but the color has already drained out of everything.  It's mostly gray with a few patches of rusty, die-hard oak leaves and dark green pines.  The gaudy fall color party is over and the hills feel like they're pulling up the covers and settling in to sleep it off.  I sort of feel the same way.

The cold air lets you see all the way to wherever once you get up high but it's like looking at the world through those old midnight black Wayfarers I had years ago.  The horizon is shades of blue right out to the sky but everything else is flat.  By March, I'll be crazy for scenery that isn't gray and muddy but for now, it seems right.  There was even a little snow sticking under the hedges way up on the very tops of the hills where the wind was the worst and the sun couldn't reach.  I had my camera with me but for some reason, didn't feel like taking pictures.  Just rode.

Up and around a few times and then that last big drop for home.  Falling into the gullies on the way down put the sun behind the trees and the ground suddenly wasn't the only thing dropping.  The temperature went into a tailspin as fast as I was losing altitude.  Note to self...it's now November you idiot.  Bring the windbreaker. I lost touch with my finger tips on the brake levers but I figured that as long as I could still see them and I wasn't completely out of control, they must still be working.  My toes complained because I was wearing my everyday, well ventilated shoes and my knees picked up the tune once I stopped cranking for a while.  Why do I do this to myself?  Repeatedly?  The valley floor was completely in shade and just a tad below freezing judging by the ice on the puddles so the road around the base of the hill was downright frigid.  Eventually it turned east and came out into what little sunshine there was and all my assorted parts defrosted enough to regain some feeling.

From there it was just a cruise in the cool.  Hopefully, the snow will hold off a while yet and I'll get a few more miles in before the salt crews wreck the roads for the duration.  I have a trainer to ride in the winter but it just ain't the same.  There's no hills and no view.  No cold and no heat.  Just miles and it's just not the same.  Not like today or so many other days.

Down and away for home, a warm kitchen, a burger and a beer.  Thanks...I needed that.

It's Getting Late (A Photo Journey)

So I went for a ride last weekend.  Not too unusual for me really.  This time though was a little different.  The weather is getting pretty cool and I left before the sun found it's way into the valleys so I bundled up a little.  Long, thermal riding pants and a couple extra layers of shirt under the windbreaker.  I wasn't really in a hurry so I figured I'd go uphill first to get above the low fog and warm up along the way.  I picked out a road I haven't been on in a while with about a 2 mile climb to reach the top.  The sunshine was waiting when I popped out from between the ridges and the cold misty stuff fell behind.

I remembered doing this same hill on my old Raleigh Record one day when it was about 90 degrees after I got home from work.  Why I took on a climb like that when I was already shot escapes me.  I think I stood up most of the way but never stopped until I made it.  Seems like it was a lot tougher going on the steel 10 speed but maybe it was only the heat.  Anyway, since I wasn't out to overachieve on this fall day, I dropped into creeper-low and just spun until the familiar right-hand curve announced that the climb was done.  The view was worth it.

I'm usually glad when I remember to stuff a camera in my bag on one of these little forays and this trip was no exception.  As they say, sometimes you can see forever if you just look.

My travels led over the next ridge line and after a screaming downhill that reminded me that the ambient temperature was still only in the 40's, I stopped to regain the feeling in my fingers at a small lake shore campground and recreation area known as Park Station.  It's a booming place in the summer with a man made beach, ball diamonds and all the other normal warm weather goodies but now, sneaking up on November, it was mostly deserted.  I like places like this when it's so still.  There's something about that quiet that's good for my soul...

I think this guy probably would understand...



As is the usual way with these things, after I left the lake, I just kept pointing the front wheel wherever the notion led me and changed my mind about a destination maybe ten times per minute until I finally ended up on another back road semi-headed toward home.  The sun was up high but still cool and teasing me to peel a layer or two but unzipping the windbreaker was enough to convince me otherwise.  I still had to climb back over a ridge line to get looped around so it was middle-ring and spin once again.  Going slower on a long, steady uphill and without the wind to drown out everything, I caught the sound of a big red-tail hollering at me from about a mile above and turkeys arguing with the crows two hedges away.  I knew who was doing laundry on a Sunday when I'd get a sniff of dryer sheets from houses I passed.  For some, it was trash or leaf burning day and then the smell of an angry skunk somewhere followed me for miles.  I wound up at a crossroads on top of a hill that I've only seen once in my travels.  You'd think I'd have seen them all a couple of times by now but...not quite yet.  The downhill sign is not kidding.

The layers were too much after the climb but I knew the descent would be cold again so I grabbed a Clif and a stretch before the drop back down to the valleys and home.  As I remembered, the drop off the hill was steep and twisty but I didn't know the local highway guys had sprinkled the corners with loose stone.  A couple of tense moments later, I made it down intact and headed out on the last leg for the Wayward Home.  I had to take one more look over my shoulder and catch one more shot.

I know the season is winding down and soon it'll be snow and salt again which takes the Trek off the road till spring but I'll take what I can and see what I can see while there's still a little sun.  I'm already wishing for May.

Cold

Another deep-freeze today around This Old House. There's probably a whirlpool in the fuel tank for the furnace it's running so hard trying to keep up. And I've only got it set on 62. This is ridiculous. I know it's now January and all that but come on. I didn't venture any farther than the back door to let the dogs out all day and even they weren't very enthused about that. This is when the crazy, fixed-female pooch Angel wishes she could have a litter box like the Blue Eyed Demon cat so she wouldn't have to be on her run at all. The fur-ball ex-male Cosmo on the other hand...he may not like the cold but he goes out, rolls in the snow and toboggans around the yard on his back anyway. No accounting for taste.

Yes, it's bitter, nose-dripping, finger-numbing, beard-freezing, miserable cold and the wind is screaming straight out of the west again; probably by way of Dante's Ninth Circle of Hell as raw as it is. It pretty much goes in one side of Old Breezy and out the other by way of the insulation-less gaps in the planks, except for some more determined drafts which take a shortcut through the single pane window glass, helped along by the holes the cat tore in the shrink-wrap. I guess the varmint wanted to see out better but I sort of wish he'd help with the oil if he's going to take liberties with what little wind barricade there is.

This is just too much house for one guy to bang around in, especially with weather like today's. I can't wear enough sweaters and woollies to keep warm in this creaky old wind tunnel alone.
Chris and the kids are en route home from their travels and their absence makes the hearth even colder than that west wind. There just isn't any life in the four walls without them, only a big empty hole in the storm that just barely keeps out the snow. Come to think of it...whenever I'm away from them, it doesn't matter if it's a hundred in the shade, it gets damn-awful cold in the house and soul. Even when we pass each other in the night as we so often do when I'm on the road trains, just knowing we all pause at the same home and share the same roof in our sleep keeps the family fire burning.

Time away from each other truly does 'make the heart grow fonder' as the saying goes and God knows, we get plenty of it in our world. The cold hangs around and hopes to stay whenever the time starts to get long. Even so, we usually manage to meet in our journeys often enough to keep the coals glowing and our toes toasty. But too much time away and too often apart can bring even a warm summer breeze to whisper of frost and falling leaves. We all go our separate ways day by day with a common place to call home and that's as it should be. Without that coming and going though, when it's just gone, there's nothing here but a stack of wood, nails, dog hair and dust.

Maybe that's why even a new house falls apart so fast when a family moves out and leaves it. By rights, a place old or new should last for years, completely empty, without much fixing. I should know since 'deferred maintenance' is defined by ours. But somehow I think the life goes out of it, the cold creeps in and before it's time, what used to be a home just falls in on itself and dies of loneliness. I think home can only be a home when we all make our way there and call it our own.

All I know for sure is this old place is way too big to fill with just me...it needs the brothers extraordinary, the wife of my life and the noise of the four-leggers to drown out the freezing west wind. To live, it needs us all.