The Hope Tree

 Once upon a time, I planted an oak tree. I read somewhere that "He who plants a tree plants hope" and I desperately needed a little hope.

It was a tough time back then and dark. My marriage of over 20 years was slowly and painfully falling apart. My kids were growing up and moving on with college and lives of their own. But I read that line...I don't even remember where, and somehow it rang a bell.

Fairly often, I used to walk up on the hill behind my house to clear my head and calm my shaky self when I wasn't working. Home was a place full of turmoil so sometimes I'd just walk. I remember thinking at times that the house itself must have been evil because so much bad had happened there. So I'd walk.

I can't remember how or why but one day while I was trudging along, I spotted a tiny little oak twig with just two leaves on it poking out of the brush along the road. It looked so fragile and small but there it was...two green leaves on a six inch stick holding it's own against the thorns, goldenrod and burdocks. In some crazy part of my mind, I thought it looked defiant. In a leap that I still can't explain, it looked like hope.

So I went home, got a garden spade and carefully dug the little guy up. I didn't know what to do with it but after walking around the yard puzzling for a while, I picked a spot sort of in the middle of the vast, unused expanse of grass in the front and dug a tiny hole to plant it. It looked completely lost and alone out there, far from the spot where some squirrel had probably buried an acorn and its almost transparent leaves first caught the sunshine. But I pulled some of the crabgrass away from it, put a ribbon on a stick next to it so I wouldn't accidentally run over it with the lawn mower and crossed my fingers.

At that moment, it became my Hope Tree.

I really didn't think it would make it I suppose. I didn't do much except mow around it and pull the weeds that tried to choke it out. A winter passed and to my surprise, that little stick put out four leaves. The rabbits or a deer ate a couple of them and I thought that was it but by summertime, there were a couple more.

Winters and summers came and went. I walked up on the hill less and rode bicycles more. The Tour became a thing and kept me occupied enough to keep moving through some bad times. I didn't think about hope much.

I'd mow the grass around my twig and water it once in a while when summers got dry. Sometimes I'd just walk out there and check on it...shoo the Japanese beetles off and see how it was doing. Four leaves became a dozen and I no longer needed the ribbon to see where it was when I cut the grass. To my delight every spring, what looked like a dead stick stuck in the ground would pop out some buds and turn green again. I never so much as put a fence around it to keep the bunnies and deer away from it but there it was...still defiant.

So now, all these years later, the little tree is almost what could be called a sapling. It put down roots and true to its kind, keeps growing slowly but steadily. It's holding it's own among a bunch of other trees we've planted since. Someday, there will be a grove of companions...maples, other oaks, hopefully a sycamore or two, some birch and a few black walnuts that the squirrels keep planting for me.

But that one feisty little oak in the middle will be my Hope Tree always. Without knowing why or how, it filled one small empty place in my life when the whole world was black.

My favorite twig has gotten to be a couple of feet tall now. I think the runt of the litter is here to stay for well and all and that makes me happy. I know I will never see it reach its fullest size but I hope someday to walk in its shade and look up at it instead of down. I can picture it in my mind, grown to a tower with a vast crown of leaves and branches, full of birds and giddy squirrels, spreading out huge and giving life to that empty useless lawn. 

Once upon a time I planted an oak tree. It became a symbol of so many things to me...hanging on when I thought I couldn't, watching for a new start every season when everything looked finished, seeing something green again when the black was everywhere. 

And I want my kids to know I did that and why. I began something that will live long after I've gone. It won't live forever anymore than I will but it'll be a memory of something I did for many, many years. From something so small, came something so big. 

Life, memories and a little bit of the future.

It is a Hope Tree after all. 

The Lengths That I'll Go To

This is a long one. The first part came across my newsfeed and immediately got  likes and more forwards. I started to respond but it got lengthy so it ended up here. I broke it down into it's various rants and then worked on it some more after that. 

It's actually been good for me to think about. People are worried, scared and unsure what to do. It's a confusing mess we're living through...and unfortunately some of us are dying through. It pays to look at some of the awful stuff out there, tear it up and keep moving ahead. 

So here's the post...

Italics in parenthesis are mine-

THIS!!! YESSSS!!! (NOOOO)

Anyone who thinks social distancing is a good idea for the next few years, or thinks that a 'benevolent' dictatorship is for the good of humanity, just unfriend me now because I won't be giving that point of view and (sic) energy. (I'm not your friend so yeah...)

I am a free Sovereign Human Being and if you want to stay home, stay home. That's your sovereign right to choose. (see definition of sovereign below)

If you want to wear a mask, wear a mask. That's your sovereign right to choose. (hey, thanks for letting me know it's ok to wear it)

If you want to avoid large crowds, avoid large crowds. That's your sovereign right to choose. (ditto...but yep, I'm on it)

I am not required to descend into poverty for you. (nobody even asked, much less required...focus) 

I am not required to abstain from human contact for you. (strange...I'm not abstaining...just being smarter about it. You need to work on that)

I am not required to shop alone, without my friends and family, for you. (nope not for me. But maybe for them)

I refuse to participate in "quarantine life" until there's an unsafe, untested vaccine released in eighteen months. (again, nobody said you have to quarantine unless you're tested positive...stop using snarl words)

I refuse to receive said vaccine to make others feel more safe. (that's just silly. It won't make me feel more safe, it'll keep you breathing)

That IS my sovereign right to choose!!! (all caps and 3 exclamation points prove it)

If you're convinced the vaccine is safe and effective, you can get it. (oh believe me, I will)

Some of you are allowing fear and policies devoid of scientifically accurate data to destroy our country and ruin your life. (pot, meet kettle)

I can't control your self-destructive behaviors, but we all have a say in the once great USA and the planet we live on. (well, I guess...but I thought we had 'sovereign' choice to do as many stupid things as we want? Now you want to control them? Help me here...)

We need to tell legislators that we demand options. (that's worked so well up till now...I demanded a tax cut and they gave it to Jeff Bezos)

We have a constitutional right to take risks. Life is full of bacteria and viruses--many of which spread before symptoms manifest and after they subside. (um...ok what? We went from Constitutional rights to biology and virology in two sentences. I wish I was that good...)

We have a Sovereign right to receive OR refuse vaccines. (That's the third mention of vaccines. Trend? But I've had mine that are available, you can sign up for your tetanus, measles, polio, rubella etc. here...)

The data was inaccurate at best; purposely overblown to justify government overreach at worst. (to which data are we referring? Vaccine data perhaps? All of it was wrong except the data you got from Twitter, late night AM radio and medical authorities like...the president?)

Stop allowing the government to destroy: (the laundry list of conspiracy talking points)
The Food Supply
Small Businesses
Medical Autonomy
Access to Healthcare
Religious Gatherings
Privacy Rights
Fellowship
Our Mental Health
Our Freedom (yep, show up at the capitol with confederate flags, MAGA hats, body armor and rifles...that's how you get things done around here)

When the "new normal" is filled with starvation, depression, suicide, child abuse, domestic violence, imprisonment, governmental spying, and pure DESPERATION, the virus is going to look preferable to the world you helped facilitate. (see response below)

I'm going to turn this around on people from now on. Those that say I'm (or anyone that supports the mission (Mission from who? Wait...let me guess...) to get us back open) putting money over lives wanting the country back open for business...
Hear this: (this oughta be good...)

-YOU don't care about the people that will kill themselves out of hopelessness (you don't get to lecture me about that Zippy)

-YOU don't care about small businesses that'll close their doors (THEIR LIVELYHOOD (sic))permanently (I'm doing everything I can to support them. Try it sometime.)

-YOU don't care about the children/women/men that'll be victims of domestic abuse (that will be or are? Where have you been all these years?)

-YOU don't care about people defaulting on their mortgages (mortgages are mostly deferred for now. Keep up)

-YOU don't care about bills going unpaid by families with ZERO income right now (yeah, the check isn't enough and unemployment is deadly slow...guess all you sovereigns are getting ready to pony up and help out though huh?) 

-YOU don't care about people wondering where their next meal will come from (I'll feed you if you need it)

-YOU don't care about the people that'll lose their sobriety and slip back into addiction (that's a whole different ballgame. You don't get to call that one either)

-YOU don't care about the people that will starve (see above)

-YOU support the inevitable looting that'll take place (you need to stop listening to InfoWars)

-YOU don't care about anyone that's murdered the longer this shut down goes on (and you cared before the pandemic or just now?)

-YOU don't care about people's mental health (not my field but I am worried about yours)

-YOU don't care about the children that DO need teachers and educators to guide & educate them (they do, they are, it's hard but everyone is doing the best they can)

YOU don't care about the economy crashing down around us (ahhh, the 'mission' again)

-YOU REALLY DON'T CARE. (see below)

-YOU love your shackles (funny...you say shackled, I say bound to others)

-YOU are pathetic, begging your leaders for MORE shut down and MORE regulations (now you're just being ridiculous...ridiculous-er...is that possible?)

I will NOT tolerate another person telling me that I don't care about lives. (pretty quick on the draw to tell me I don't care though aren't ya?)

I care about the situation in its entirety. (Awesome...I wish you'd be much more quietly heroic about it...but that's probably asking too much...sort of like actually doing something)

But YOU don't care about any of that so...(there you go, you've seen right through me...)

YOU stay home. (check...but I thought it was my 'sovereign' right, not a sign of fear. I'm confused...)

YOU wear a mask. (check...so only you get to be 'sovereign' in making choices again? What?)

YOU live in fear. (no...not today)

Authored by a group, those of us WHO GENUINELY CARE about HUMANITY. (who care so much they're afraid to sign it too...)

Please - Copy and paste if you agree! (not an ice cube's chance in hell)

_______________________________________________

I'm so over this stuff...

Let's just start here:

'Sovereign citizen/human being'

"This category of litigant shares one other critical characteristic: they will only honour state, regulatory, contract, family, fiduciary, equitable, and criminal obligations if they feel like it. And typically, they don’t."

—Assoc. Chief Justice J.D. Rooke, Alberta, Canada, in the case Meads v. Meads

By definition, 'Sovereign' indicates belief in a position superior to others which instantly disqualifies the anonymous author(s) from meaningful discussion with the rest of us...proven effectively by this rant and dog whistle showpiece. 

Speaking of..."allowing fear and policies devoid of scientifically accurate data to destroy our country and ruin your life."...sheesh! The anti-vax is strong in this one. 

(Side note: I'm not sure which Amendment gives us the right to take risks with viruses but again...facts are a little thin here..)

I submit that this 'new normal' they're afraid of is pretty much like the old normal if you care to look outside the bunker..."filled with starvation, depression, suicide, child abuse, domestic violence, imprisonment, governmental spying, and pure DESPERATION" Where have they been? 

Hell, that was a goodly chunk of the world for most of the last...oh century or so and it seemed like nobody noticed until they couldn't get toilet paper and a haircut. I guess the pandemic didn't really change much after all...

The point is, despite the assertions above...I'm not afraid. I'm aware and that's a different thing from afraid. That means I don't do whatever-the-hell I feel like because I don't know the answers. It means I don't pay heed or make decisions based on overblown passive-aggressive nonsense from the internet. It means staying cautious but also staying in the world. It means not saying screw the rest of you because we don't agree. Yes, our leaders are failing us on an epic scale and that truly worries me but I'm not afraid that tomorrow will be 'Fury Road' because of it.

The only thing I do fear is ignorance. Ignorance by a willful disregard for science, medicine, any type of verifiable facts, law and history. I damn sure don't know everything but I know what makes logical sense. This doesn't.

And I also do happen to care...a lot...in spite of being the all-caps YOU the post is so determined to denigrate. Otherwise I wouldn't bother to waste one second on this...much less the time I've spent writing a response.

Only someone completely out of touch with reality would rattle off that list of 'YOU don't cares' unless you have a wildly different variety of friends than I do. That crap is just idiotic if you're talking about damn near everyone I've ever met in 60 years. Maybe you should get out more...meet some new people...someone who doesn't always agree with you...just a thought.

Here's a surprise...none of us is in this alone no matter how much you blow smoke in your own face. In my view, we're supposed to be E Pluribus Unum...not unaccountable 'sovereigns', not every man for himself. You wail of overreach but if the horror of wearing a mask in public to possibly protect others is my 'shackles' then so be it. 

I'm also weary of being referred to as 'pathetic' by those behind keyboards. I won't hide under the bed waiting for the apocalypse to validate your fear. I don't need your sympathy but thanks for offering.

So I guess if caring about others and doing what I can to help them excludes me from the sovereign club, I'd rather that than be a self-centered, mean-spirited ego maniac with delusions of relevance.

To the 'Sovereign Human Being'...whoever you are...don't do us any favors. We'll get along ok. Spare us your righteous indignation. It's just weird. You are angry and ugly when the world needs no more of either. 

While you're at it, kindly quit presuming to tell me how I think or how I feel or what I know. It only makes you look foolish. Go forth...believe what you want, choose to do what you want because you can but please, please leave the rest of us alone.

We've got this...

Ah...The President

My friends...this started as a Facebook post but kept getting longer so I moved it. This will be my last pre-election post so from here on out...it's up to history and I hope with all my heart that my fears are groundless. 

This is firmly anti-Trump so if you're going to get mad and call me names, I suggest you depart before going any further. Save your indignation...I've heard it all already. We can agree to disagree but my newsfeed runneth over and I need to respond. It needs to be said.

I know that a frightening number of people are all-in with the way this president is running the show and are pretty vocal about it. That's ok but I reserve the right to respond. There's an old line that reads 'Silence is Complicity.' 

I may be more silent than I should be but I've never been very good at complicity so I'm going to say my say.

And let me remind you that it's your privilege to back whomever you wish and your reasons for doing so are yours. That's the real American way unless that's become 'socialist' too. I also understand it's unlikely that anything I can say will change your outlook (although I can hope). It's gotten to the point that all we're doing is yelling at each other and nobody is listening anyway. But here's the thing...I truly do not understand anyone's dedication to this man.

I've been around a long time and remember hearing about Trump way back when he was just another tabloid headline under the 'Alien Landings Reported In New Jersey' breaking story...long before he came on the national scene. Before he ever made it to what is now referred to derisively as 'The Mainstream Media' or for the more outspoken...'Fake News' and 'Enemy of the People'. 

In a checkout-line kind of way I watched him bounce from wife to wife to scandal to birther to TV personality. He's always been what he still is. You may only believe your chosen outlet but what he is has been there from the beginning. He relished that tabloid life of unfaithfulness to his wives, the headlines of his financial failures, interviews full of patently horrifying opinions...until it suited the narrative for all that to be conveniently untrue.

It's all recorded. All the history, all the interviews, even the video of him doing things and saying things he and his followers now deny ever happened. You may think that everything is 'Deep State' unless it agrees with your guy but it's not. It just plain isn't. Fox can spin it and edit it and shout it down but one thing about our world these days...almost everything is recorded and stored in raw form if you care to look for it. 

Then I saw the hate in his eyes when he got roasted at the White House Correspondent's Dinner...a dinner he was only attending because it validated his self-esteem as one of the cool kids. I've watched that hate bear fruit in the undoing of every possible Obama program that he can get his hands on. His absolute, all encompassing need for revenge has consumed an administration. It has wasted time, lives, treasure, trust, respect and worse...any sense that we are a people together. And somehow...a whole swath of America got caught up in it. Somehow...they became him.

I cannot fathom it. We're supposed to be better than this. I'm not talking about just the politics. I'm talking about Trumps utter lack of human empathy, concern or regard for anyone not him. I won't even recite yet again the list. 

The Covid-19 pandemic and the suddenly-regular-news briefings that were neither news nor brief only reinforced what I already knew. He just can't manage to stop talking about himself. Even with his constituency getting sicker by the day and dying by the thousands...231,000 gone at the last edit of this writing...he can't make it about anyone but himself. He takes the stage at rallies for hours and spouts ridiculous self-praise, unseemly attacks on (insert name of current target here) and dangerously foolish medical advice so fast that it makes my head spin. He's not being 'sarcastic'...he's just lying and making up nonsense out of thin air. Spouting QAnon conspiracy and tweeting and re-tweeting fabrications that are verifiably untrue then saying he's "just throwing it out there" is un-Presidential at best...immoral and dangerous at worst. If none of this bothers you or you laugh it off or worse...cheer him on and truly believe the absurdity...we've really lost ourselves.

What I truly can't get by is why so many otherwise decent and intelligent people continue to give him a pass to be a catastrophic failure as a human being. Why don't you demand more of him? Why does he own your loyalty so cheaply? What do you see in him that resonates in your world? Why is a MAGA hat more meaningful than a soul? 

You're not stupid. You know what he is. You know what he says. Apparently you don't care.

I care. He lies...continuously. He lies so much he's lying about the lies. A fact-checking industry has sprung up around his administration. Added to that...he is vindictive...what else could you call it? He is manipulative, functionally illiterate, childish, unprofessional, proudly uneducated, abusive, greedy, narcissistic, smilingly racist, intolerant, narrow minded, frightened by everything...and on and on. He's a terrible example of pretty much everything but particularly the presidency. He's a petty tyrant who got his hands on power and isn't about to let it go. He is using his authority to get richer at our expense. He's made the office of President into a cheap, glitzy, phony TV series. The man has denied responsibility for every failure of his administration and claimed personal credit for everything he calls a win. 

He's what I would hold up to my kids and say, "Don't ever be that."

And yet...he has a following that approaches cult status. His base believes with the fervor of the faithful and will attack without restraint if they think someone has impugned their idol. It absolutely baffles me. His should be the voice of conciliation and reason, not accusation. And he's blowing it. Over and over again.

Even formal religions queue up to pile support on a man who is absolutely antithetical to everything they supposedly stand for. Remember tolerance? Mercy? Caring? Remember anything about love at all? It doesn't seem so. It's all gone in tax-exempt status and prosperity gospel.

For no one less than the ever-judging Evangelicals, he's the anti-abortion be-all and end-all. Regardless of the fact that he has no noticeable ethical standards that could be even remotely called Christian. They will break bread with Pilate and wash their hands in the same basin to get what they want. They auctioned their piety and sold their souls to a false idol as a means to an end. 

Wall Street is in love with him and corporations can't get enough of him. He's appointed industry insiders to regulate the industries they came from...my own included. His policies are drowning us in debt in total disregard for anything the Republican Party ever stood for while wiping out decades of work to improve the environment, our health, our workplaces and our retirements. But hey...the next quarter might be great so it's all good. For a depressingly large number of people.

How is this possible? The news is there and when so many different sources corroborate basically the same stories over and over again...you either have to accept that they're probably true or just ignore them all and have a Covid party. You can't ignore everything that you don't agree with and call yourself American. Just because Mr. Trump stands yet again in front of a helicopter or leans over the podium and calls it all fake doesn't mean it is. 

As he so frequently points out, he won the election. He owns the bully pulpit. The 'libbies', 'snowflakes' and 'cucks' are not currently in power. Trump and his allies are. The buck stops here. All references to what anyone else would/did do are therefore irrelevant, especially after four years...two of which were notable for Republican control of both houses of Congress and the White House. Don't tell me the left is just as bad...they aren't running the country. Don't tell me it was worse under Obama...it wasn't. 

Don't deflect. Don't tell me it's Trump being Trump. It's not locker room talk. Adolescent teenagers do locker room talk, not the head of the Executive Branch. Don't defend the indefensible. Since when does anyone have to "...say nice things." about the President to be eligible for disaster relief? Why is 'triggering the lefties' now a presidential imperative? He's supposed to represent those who didn't vote for him as well as his zealous followers. That's a part of the job. He's supposed to be an example to everyone...not only the faithful. And he's a failure at that too.

So much of what he says is just mean and inhuman and somehow, an awful lot of people developed a willingness to overlook and excuse his every awful example of what decent people are not. There's actually a pretty good article relating to this here.

I guess I'm just ranting because it seems that nothing he can do or say will sway the MAGA faithful. They will vote against their own self-interest yet again because he still isn't Hillary. He's isn't Obama. He's not Biden. He's become a mirror to so many. He's the echo box that says what they want to say without consequence. He's a champion of everything ugly and wrong and cheap and shady.

It's a sad fact that he's trying to win again one way or another. I'm horrified that there just might be enough support goose-stepping behind his fairy tales to overwhelm the Democrats...too many of whom are apt to once again wring their hands, wish for purity and vote 3rd party. Term 2 would be Term 1 on steroids. He's had four years and done nothing except undo the work of others and I have serious doubts that he'll go quietly even when his time is up. He's blown up every other shred of normalcy and stability...why not call it an emergency and just stay in power until it's solved...someday? 

Would that be ok with you too? How much is too much? When he denies you your right to vote after eight years, will that finally change your mind? When it's too late?

I wonder...Where is the line my friends? When has he gone too far? What does it take to say enough? Our kids will want to know.

The Wizard (Part 1)

Let's talk about roller skates. Not the ones with a brand new key that Melanie sang about...not the strange things with all the wheels lined up end to end either. I mean quads. Four wheels on each foot and one wheel on each corner.

I've spent what has to amount to years with those things laced to my feet. Of all things to last a lifetime...why skates? I was asking myself that the other day as Kellie and I kicked around which rink we wanted to hit on one of my rare Friday nights off.

I met Kellie at a skating rink by the way...just as information. 

We still like to go when we can and still hold hands like kids when the lights go down and a slow song comes on. But maybe I should start at the beginning...

The actual year is pretty hazy but it must have been sometime after '77 because I'm reasonably sure I was out of high school before I went skating for the first time. I don't remember how it came about that I got talked into going. I liked ice skating on frozen ponds when I was younger so maybe it was the idea of skating while not ending up as frozen as the water...I'm just not sure. I was working on the farm at the time and it's possible my girlfriend suggested it for something different to do...I really don't know. Somebody came up with the idea because it certainly wasn't on my radar at the time.

Regardless, I somehow I ended up at a little place on Judd Falls Road in Ithaca called 'Ides Skate City'. It was next door to a bowling center and owned by the same family that ran the lanes. Over the years, skating had faded from popularity though and for a while the building was used as a warehouse for equipment from a factory. At some point, a couple of guys (who I found to be very sketchy...more on that later) thought they could cash in on the booming skate craze, leased the building, cleaned out the junk and opened it back up as a rink.

As I remember it, the still-original floor had water damage ripples on the far end from a very leaky roof and it always developed puddles when it rained. There was no surface finish like they use now so they sprinkled powdered rosin over the bare wood to give it grip just like in the old days when both floors and wheels were hard-rock maple. The dust was incredible on a busy night.

The rental skates I took my first spin on were ancient and equipped with incredibly slippery wheels. The leather was crispy from a million sweaty feet and most of the laces had three or four extra knots that made it impossible to tie them right. They also had loose-ball bearings that occasionally fell out and scattered everywhere if the lock nuts backed off. Hitting one of those little BBs with super hard wheels was like instantly nailing your foot to the floor and a hail-mary nose-dive almost always ensued. 

I remember carpet covered plywood boxes for benches, carpeted walls, a tiny snack bar, skate rental counter, bare cinder block restrooms and a DJ booth all crammed in one end by the door. A few flashing lights and six speakers on the walls made it sort of disco-ish and there I was. Something must have clicked even as I was staggering along the wall holding on for dear life because it wasn't long and I was there an awful lot. 

The DJ most of the time was a guy called Flash. Mixing was still in the future so he just played random songs that he liked back to back and droned out the announcements in the same flat monotone used by almost every rink DJ I've ever heard right up to this day. 

"Clear the floor please. Clear the floor", "Couples only on the floor please. Couples only"...it's like a litany that never changes. 

He gravitated to country rock and oldies so I learned to keep my feet under me to 'Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress' by the Hollies and 'Can't You See' by Marshall Tucker. They did an all-oldies night once a week for the fifties and sixties lovers and Tuesdays was organ music on 45's that got a pretty good crowd of waltz and tango couples. They never had a live organist like some of the older, established places did but nobody seemed to mind. Flash gamely played it all and eventually lowered himself to take occasional requests if he was feeling mellow.

I soon found out that there was another rink job called 'Skate Guard'. Mostly it consisted of rolling around with a whistle in your teeth, scolding the tag-players and whip-crackers and helping the fallen back to their feet. I think it pretty much paid  in free admission and soggy pizza at the time.

That job belonged to another character known as Wild Bill. He was probably as old as my father and skated on ancient wheels under an ever-present cowboy hat. Everybody that worked there wore the same hideous orange bowling shirts (courtesy of the lanes across the parking lot) with the rink name in big letters on the back. Bill looked a little odd with a ten gallon hat perched over that shirt but he made up for it when he cut loose and really skated. He had the most incredible, very fast shuffle footwork when he got going and we loved to try to keep up and copy the steps. I think he might have been the one who first taught me how to go from wobbly forward to wobblier backwards. Once I figured it out though, there was no stopping. I never broke any bones during all that...but I sure did fall and hurt a lot. 

To this day, I don't know what the attraction was...but I was there. Saturday matinees, weekends, weekdays...didn't matter. And like anything else, if you do something often enough...you're bound to get better. I got so I could keep up with Wild Bill. Then I got faster.

Somewhere along the line, I decided I'd had enough of scuzzy rental skates and plunked down some cash for the first set of my own. Sure-Grip Super X plates and All American wheels, the cheapest Reidell boots there were, sealed bearings that didn't fly apart and away I went! I tinkered with different wheels. I found out how to tune the trucks the way I wanted. I was well and truly hooked.

Finally, the owners decided I was there all the time anyway so they might as well put me to use. I got an orange shirt, a whistle and no longer had to pay admission. I'd race through chores at the farm...shower, change and be there when the door unlocked. My girlfriend openly wondered what I'd gotten myself into...or more probably...what she'd gotten herself into.

This was the '80's remember and the skating boom was in full swing. Some Saturday nights the floor was so packed you could hardly move. We needed four or five skate guards on our tiny floor just to cover the crashes. We routinely ran flat out of rental skates and some people were using mismatched sizes made out of broken pairs just to get out there. The snack bar ran out of everything. Flash broke down and started playing better music under pain of after-session beatings if he didn't. 'Knock On Wood' brought on a stampede. 'Working Day and Night' was a train wreck waiting to happen if someone went down. 150 mostly out of control people at high velocity in a dark room could never get around that poor soul who lost his footing. The pile-ups were epic.

The off-skate area was shoulder to shoulder too so one unchecked-full-speed exit from the floor into the milling crowd looked and sounded a lot like the bowling alley next door. It was an absolute free for all and I loved it.

I wound up working there as much as I was farming. Skate-guarding morphed into after-session cleaning, working the snack bar and skate rental counter, selling tickets, fixing broken skates and covering the booth so Flash could get a break. I swept up the rosin dust, swamped out the disgusting restrooms, cooked a million hot dogs and became in all senses of the term...a rink rat.

One thing kept leading to another as time went along. I figured out how to build new skates from scratch so I became the resident 'pro' in what was hilariously called a pro shop. I got my hands on the turntables and records and that became yet another story. Music started to matter a lot more. 

I became a fixture. I would work the sessions and then come in early to skate some more (I had a door key by then). I can't even imagine how many miles I put on. I just kept on skating. I wore out set after set of wheels and bearings until I scrimped up enough for a whole new pair of skates. This time around they were Century plates with jump bars (I didn't know how to jump too well yet but the bars looked really cool and nobody else had them), a much nicer grade of boots and Fafnir speed bearings inside Powell-Peralta wheels that rolled like glass. It felt like I just got a new Corvette.

A whole pack of 'rats' developed out of nowhere at Skate City as well. Names and faces...some I can remember...some not. Some I still know...others long gone. They were the circle of friends I never had before. I finally had something...something I didn't even know I was missing.

And somewhere...sometime...someone started calling me Wizard. Whoever you are...wherever you ended up...I hope you know that it stuck.

Choices

You know that we could save everybody right? I mean...everybody. 

Every broken veteran that our endless wars have created; every struggling addict the opioid companies created; every cold, hungry, sick child and family that we've kicked out of the social safety net; every immigrant or asylum seeker at our borders that we've criminalized; every homeless, helpless soul who wanders among dumpsters because we closed the shelters; every senior who has to choose between medicine or food each week because they can't afford both...every single one of them.

(December 2020 Covid-19 update: And since this was first written, a pandemic has torn around the world. 300,000 Americans are dead. We couldn't have saved them all but we could have used our vast power, treasure, knowledge and skill to at least try. We could have saved so many but we chose not to. Thousands of people instead chose to argue over masks and closed bars and if it was even real. It became a political hot button and states that didn't vote the right way or say the right things got cut off. Hundreds of our 'leaders' decided it was expedient to ignore it outright and do nothing. We abandoned the sick and dying for poll percentage points and posturing. The powerful let them die. HB)

We are the richest, most powerful political construct the world has ever known and yet we choose not to be the most compassionate.

We choose not to. We have the money. We have the ability. We choose not to.

We have decided collectively if not individually to to leave the weakest and poorest to fend for themselves while a select few accumulate wealth that most of us cannot even comprehend. Consider...

There were 621 billionaires in the United States in 2019. The highest number ever. Can anyone honestly picture a billion dollars? That's one thousand times one million. $1,000 X $1,000,000. 

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon is alone worth 13 of them. That is simply an unimaginable number.

He made 130,000 times more than I did last year. At a rate of approximately $3,715 per second. And he does it year after year. Don't get me wrong...there's nothing wrong with being successful...they worked at it or got really lucky or both but how much is enough? How many tax breaks does someone who cannot conceivably spend their income in a hundred lifetimes need? 

Even those like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who are allocating billions from their personal fortunes to charitable work, continue to accumulate wealth faster than they can constructively give it away. 

Individual wealth aside, remember that our own federal government took in $3.3 trillion dollars in tax revenue last year. $3,300,000,000,000. Another unimaginable amount. And 80% of it came from individual income taxes. Corporate taxes came in at a whopping, uninspiring 9% of the total. (CBS News data)

We allow at least 60 Fortune 500 companies in this country to skate by without paying a single cent in income taxes on $79 billion in profits. If they paid the 21% federal tax rate, they would owe $16.4 billion in taxes. Instead they received $4.3 billion in rebates. (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy data)

And we're in debt. To the tune of $22 trillion dollars. (I can't even imagine what it is now. I cost a bundle to bail out corporate America...again) Those who could contribute the most contribute the least and those who need the most can't keep up.

We're in red ink at the highest level in history but we decided to spend $13 billion dollars on another aircraft carrier. We have 10 of them already. More than any other Navy in the world...but just to make sure...we better build another one. 

Think of it like this. If the companies that paid nothing paid only their share...no more...like most of us, it would buy the Navy's shiny new carrier and lo and behold...there's $13,000,000,000 just kicking around to actually help people who desperately need it.

Or consider this...54% of federal spending is spent for defense. $598.5 billion dollars. Twice what is spent by the entire rest of the planet. We have by far the most powerful professional military in human history...but we decided we needed a new branch..."Space Force"...just in case. And by the way...we still have enough nuclear weapons to mostly eradicate life on Earth should the occasion ever arise. Just like personal fortunes; how much is enough?

But back to helping people who need it. A depressing percentage of the population are convinced that the vulnerable are the enemy. The stereotypical view that people who need help are somehow lazy or choose to be in the predicament they're in or refuse to work or whatever...is not at all typical. Yes, there are people who abuse the systems...but by far the majority are not nor are they looking to have everything handed to them for life. They are not the cause of our financial woes. We are.

Immigrants are not the enemy either. We all came from somewhere else. Unless your ancestors were here before the Europeans, you're an immigrant. Period. Stop calling yourself American if you believe otherwise.

People seeking asylum from Central America are not terrorists. Neither are the African or Middle Eastern refugees. Anyone taking on the danger and hardship of leaving their homes, especially those with families, is probably pretty desperate. They're not animals, not diseased, not bent on stealing 'our' livelihoods. They're looking for hope and we should be proud that they come to us to find it. Building literal or administrative walls to deny it to them is just evil.

They need help. Simple as that. And a society that claims to be a civil one needs to provide it. That's supposed to be who we are. Many working together to help a few to make us all better. Each of us who can putting a little bit in a big pot. It's stone soup. Everybody adds a tiny bit that they can. Those who need a hand now will be able to lend a hand later. It's not Communism or Socialism or any other '-ism' of the week...it's what makes us a country. It's supposed to be what makes us human.

We have the wherewithal to take care of everyone...or we would if we only decided to use it.

But I guess it's easier to just keep on keepin' on. Stay in the bubble where helping anyone is weakness. Where strength is more and more weapons. Success is for a few and power is for the most successful of all.

Hide in religion that preaches 'prosperity' while living in a tax shelter. Where the concepts of love, forgiveness and hope for the most vulnerable are lost in hate for anyone who is 'not like us'. Seek comfort in piety but lock the doors when 'the least of these' comes knocking.

Feed the lobbyists and starve the homeless. Hand out corporate welfare but cut SNAP. Roll out the red carpet to the shareholders and hedge funds but pull the rug out from under a retiree who depends on Social Security. 

Keep saying all is well because Wall Street is on a roll while millions...from WalMart employees to serving military families need public assistance just to eat. 

Cut staff and cut budgets. Build walls instead of homes. Buy another missile system with the money that would feed a thousand families. Save the banks and automakers and airlines with our money while personal bankruptcies skyrocket. And protect the health insurance providers' profits while real people die.

It doesn't have to be this way. We choose for it to be this way. We make a choice.

What happened to us?

Thanksgiving Abbreviated

Well...I guess CMC VRU is going to call tonight because I didn't change my PWS preferences for the holiday. I don't have FMLA and I already used up my DDO for the quarter so there's no getting around the Z. On top of that, it's not my YO till I get back.

It'll be just another PSR day full of PTC, TAs, TO and EM. As always, have to keep an eye on MU, HPT, TPOB and DBOL even with a GC at my HT. The EOTD and CSS is usually set up at least.

Probably have to talk to OSS at some point past BC, usually about the time the HBD/DED goes off but hopefully not to MOC unless something really conks out. They'll just tell you to cycle the BCCB most of the time anyway unless an it's an EMD FIRE problem and if so...well you're pretty much SOL.

Luckily, there's no HTUAs on the BI side so at least I don't have to worry about that even if we have a bunch of HM. Shouldn't be much MOW out either...no 752s or Form Ys. Only the DS and T&E.

Yep. Just another trip to the AWHT and a stay at the MSI. I'm wondering if PTI will have anybody or if TMs will be running us around when we get there? Sure to get an M2 and maybe some DE if R is late on Friday though.

DP is possible on the way back but only if HCT can scrounge linkable power away from UPS and JBH. EDT has a hard time getting stuff through a DI sometimes before the YM panics on a normal day. I guess it takes an order from the MTO to sort it out.

Ah the holiday season. Thanks HHH...you prick.

On The Road Again...Again

An old friend recently came back to life after a long sleep.

I finally took my well-worn '82 Harley Superglide to the local custom shop for a little rehab. I thought for many years that I would never ride it again. She's been stored since 2012 (I only know this because that's the last registration sticker on the plate) and I couldn't even remember the last time I had my helmet on. the old road warrior just sat under a cover in the garage collecting dust. 

I guess it was time...

I bought that bike brand new in the summer of '83 from Harding Harley in Corning...a dealership now long gone...when I sort of 'outgrew' my '80 Roadster. I'd ridden the 'Baby Hog' to Florida and back twice and towed 20 kids around a roller rink floor with it (and that''s another story) but I'd always wanted a big-inch. 

The FXE was a carryover so I scored a deal on it to get it off the dealer's floor. 6500 bucks for a brand-new bike seemed like a lot at the time but compared to current prices, it was practically theft.  I could swing the financing without a cosigner so he made me a smokin' price. 

Harding wanted it moved because everyone had to have the almost-customs that were selling like hotcakes to yuppies and Easy Rider wannabes back then. This one was as plain as dry toast and nobody was nibbling.

You see, somewhere along the line, HD realized that the people they'd turned away at the door for years actually had money and were willing to spend it to look 'edgy'. Guys that would have gotten the bum rush and a cold shoulder years ago turned up on the cover of the catalog. Tattoos appeared on middle-managers and college kids, stock brokers wore Harley paraphernalia to work and Willie G. Davidson smiled every time a dentist bought a shiny new Road King. 

People who'd never ridden so much as a moped were showing up at the dealerships with enough credit score to wobble off into the sunset with a decked-out dresser or factory chopper. Half of them didn't or couldn't ride but hey...they owned a Hog and that was all the rage. If it said 'Harley' on it, it sold out. The fancier, the better.

Nobody was looking for the most basic model of the 'Glides like the one sitting in the back row...not much chrome...no bags...no Screaming Eagle goodies...nothing fancy...not even a kickstarter...just a ride. 

It wasn't much but it was 80 cubic inches of all mine.

When I took it home, it was fire-engine red and the only accessories I could afford were an aftermarket aircleaner instead of the ham-can that Harley threw on it and a slick, baffle-less turnout for the exhaust to replace the giant sausage-shaped muffler that was legal but as ugly as an Edsel. The sound was awesome.

I managed to wring out a few bucks soon after for a sissy bar and what used to be called 'Frisco pegs but I couldn't spring for real forward controls so I turned the shift lever up a couple of splines and learned to kick gears and brakes with my heels. I threw away the factory turn signals and bought a tool bag and that was it. 

I rode it everywhere for just days over a year until an Allen bolt head sheared off in the transmission and went between the gears. It cracked the case on the way through the teeth so off to the dealer we went. Harley...in typical Harley fashion...determined that the warranty had expired by less than a week so they were not going to fix it. I was too broke to foot a new four-speed so the head wrench at Harding...a guy I only remember as Doug...sort of pieced it back together and sealed up the spider-web cracks in the bottom of the transmission for the cost of labor. He said keep my fingers crossed and sent me on my way. I have to give him all the credit...it's still hanging together after 30+ years.

From there on out, it was just miles on top of miles. I got some throw-over saddle bags and used to load them with records to go to a DJ gig I had in Syracuse. A bunch of us would just head out after work some nights at 2am and ride to a place called The Roscoe Diner about 100 miles away just to have breakfast as the sun came up. I rode to New Jersey to go roller skating. I rode to New England with a monster known as Beast and got run out of town by the local PD in Montpelier Vermont. I made it as far south as Virginia and as far north as Montreal. I taught advanced MSF RiderCourses and used the FX to do demonstrations for the students. Somewhere along the way, I wound up with an '85 SuperGlide to go with the '82 but the payments got the best of me and so the original stayed and the '85 went. My ex and I rode away from our wedding on the Hog. The bike lasted longer than the marriage.

Over the years, it went from red to black and lost all the Harley decals. Leaded gas went away so the valve guides crapped out first. Two or three sets of rings wore out, the original Japanese carb vibrated itself to death, the rod bearings gave up after about 85,000 miles and the clutch finally started slipping at about 90,000. I never did put in a new primary chain although I wore out dozens of finals and a boatload of tires. But still the old thing ran.

I led MDA rides and Poker Runs with it when I was a Road Captain for ABATE...rode in the rain and snow trying to get home from someplace a thousand times...made it up the Cross-Bronx Expressway at 5 o'clock on a Wednesday with a broken motor mount (a miracle for which I promised I'd never sell her)...and most days, I just rode to work. So many miles and so many places along the way.

Decades later...what little chrome it had is shot and I never did spring for any on the heads and side covers. A fresh paint job would be good. The bottom of the turnout pipe is ground razor-sharp from dragging in right turns and there's a kid's sneaker sole melted on top. There's about a hundred things that need tinkering but somehow, they never seem to get done. The speedometer hasn't read right and I haven't seen anything but blurs in the mirrors since it was new. The left fork leg seal has leaked since 1987 and I just never get around to getting it fixed. I don't know why there's still anything in it. In true Shovelhead fashion, there's always an oil patch to mark my parking spots. A few things never change.

Maybe some year, I'll put her back to new(er). Paint, some snazzy chrome, forward controls, un-blued exhaust pipes, a fork seal...you know...all the stuff that never quite made it to the top of the list. Legally, at 37 years old, she's an antique now so it's actually more of a 'restoration' now than anything else. 

But still...the old FXE starts when I hit the button once again. Another chapter...another life...more miles. I never would have believed it.