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. 

In Absentia

"Non male loquare absenti amico"

Speak no evil of an absent friend
Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC - 184 BC)

I've been absent. 

Oxford defines absence as 'the state of being away from a place or person' and 'the nonexistence or lack of'

That's how it feels. Like being away. It feels like nonexistence. 

It's coming into the longest, darkest nights again and true to the season for me...it's just flat-out the toughest time of the year.

When the daylight is so short...the world is a harder place. It's been that way as long as I can remember.

Learn to pronounce

 

Pushing through is hard. It's hard to talk. It's hard to engage. You just do and that's about all you can do. 

You put on your face like you put on your coat before you go out the door. You dance on the thin edge between smiling and not. Patience is a virtue you struggle to find. Your fuse is short and easily lit. Everything aches. Sleep is a troubling thing. You find yourself at the window with the 'thousand-mile stare'...watching but seeing nothing.

It's isolating. Surrounded by everyone, you're lonely. You miss people. You miss people forever gone. You miss people across town. You miss people across the room. You miss people because they don't seem to miss you. You wish some old friends would call but you hardly know if you can answer or what you'd say if you did. You miss them but can't bring yourself to reach out yet again. So you wait. There's been so many times...

And frustrating. You wish everybody wasn't angry all the time. Smiles without fangs. Laughter without snarls. Conversations without rage. Simple words with nothing underneath. Hoping you can say something...anything without some kind of awful consequences. For a break from absolutes.

And exhausting. Time is relentlessly out of synch with the hour. Little things become big things as fast as flipping a coin. You fear that anything you do for yourself takes away from someone else. You wish you didn't feel like you have to be everything to everybody every day. You wish for a lack of crisis...lack of doubt. You wish you could rest enough to somehow not feel worn out. Weariness walks with you and whispers defeat.

And yet...

Yet still somewhere under all the dark you hope for warmer days and dreamless nights. A tiny hope for quiet and calm that seem so very far right now. For even a few things to be alright.

It's only that little thing that keeps you present perhaps. Small it may be but it speaks to the hard winter and the wind. It says that spring will come. It says you're not completely alone. It reminds you that it might not always be so dark if you can just hang on.

Yes...just hope and hang on. If it's all you can do, it'll have to be enough. Make it through today. Make it through the week. Lean in through the month. And hope that one day soon the sun might shine a little brighter, the ice could find itself in a puddle, the Hope Tree will bud and...with a little luck...absence itself might just be absent for a while.

Home is Where Wayward Lives

Home sure means a lot of different things these days. It's still the roof over my head and the catch-all for years of accumulated junk (read that 'bicycle parts'). It's where I land after every train trip and bike jaunt. It's a place at the end of the road. In more ways than I care to think about...

Home is a strange word sometimes. It carries meanings beyond just a place to live. It's supposed to mean a shelter; an island where you can rest; a place where there's comfort and safety. A place where there's love and caring. This house has not been any of those since I moved in. And I've missed having a home for such a long time. 

So many awful things have happened inside these walls and yet, there may still be a time where I can live here in peace with all of it. If I'm not actually happy with this little patch of ground, at least I can say I'm maybe feeling...what's a good word? Content perhaps? That might work for now.

Life still goes along and everything changes with the ups and downs of the thermometer and the color of the trees. The roar and rush of the world blows across the days but underneath, there's something different. I'm not sure what to call it but I'm quieter now than I have been in years. The storms are really just the weather, not screaming hurricanes in my head. The tone of my life has changed again. 

I used to say that calm was all I wanted. A quiet place amidst the noise. A place to rest for a while. I didn't think it would ever happen but maybe...just maybe...home will really be a Home someday. 

I did in fact plant an oak tree in the front yard a while ago because I read somewhere that a man who plants a tree has hope. I'll never live long enough to see it grow up but it's a promise in some ways to a future I might be a little tiny part of. Hope is something I lived without for far too long you see so it seemed only right to try to grow some at the Wayward Home. It's where I live after all.

Dark December

December again. The awful holidays. The short days and long nights that hit me so stupid hard every time they roll around. No matter how much better things are (and they are so very much better), December seems able to take the wind out of my sails. It's like a weight.

I've wished most of my life that I could hibernate from Halloween till New Years. But the world doesn't work that way so I just have to get through it one more time...

I don't even really know why it does this to me. Just somewhere along the line it all went dark. The buying, doing, going, worrying, decorating...all of it just wore me out. I stopped being able to generate the required and expected happiness and anticipation. I can't buy my way out of it like I'm supposed to. I wish that 12 months interest free was enough but I can't do it. It feels like trying to buy your way into heaven. The artificial joy everyone seems so desperate to display, I can't find.

The delusion of seasonal goodwill only makes it worse. Everywhere the hating goes on like any other day or any other season. The 'holidays' are just another excuse to be outraged by something...a Christmas song becomes a nasty meme...people are trampled and fights break out over shopping...families fall apart over politics at dinner...everyone is offended over almost everything. Everywhere are symbols of peace but there is no peace to be found. Intolerance is the standard when someone isn't 'us'.  In the name of the Christian holiday...everything Christendom says it stands for is demeaned. 

It all comes together to make me sad. I know better than some that the world is what you make of it and most times, I can see the good out there somewhere. But December is black and clouds the view. 

Somehow, the lights go out around Thanksgiving and never came back on till the madness passes and the last payment is made. I know I've written about this before. Maybe it'll never change.

Maybe I'll never change.

It was better I guess when the kids were small. They'd tumble out to a tree and presents just like I did when I was little. They'd rip and shred in the living room then disappear to un-box and assemble the goodies. With luck, we remembered the batteries...

I hope they have happy memories of those years. I tried really hard to make it fun. I tried but I'm not sure how I did. They're both off on their own now and I don't see or hear from them much and nobody mentions it. I can only hope it was all ok. I don't know that I'll ever know.

I do know that I've written about traditions a time or two as well. I've been told that I should create new traditions if the old ones make me unhappy. I guess that makes sense but I don't know what to do about it. Some things don't seem to change. What would I create? Something I'd do at a certain time of year to remind me how much that time of year hurts? Color me skeptical. I mostly wish it would all go away...not turn into something else. I can't understand why.

All I know is that December kicks me hard every time the calendar flips over from November. I wish it would stop. I wish I could make it stop. Maybe next year...

...one more time.

So What Else Is New? (Long Delay)

There really is a reason (or maybe a couple) why I've been going so long between posts these days.

Life around the NWH (New Wayward Home...for the uninitiated) is still and always an adventure.  Along about the end of August after a spring littered with tornadoes (in upstate NY for crying out loud), a sideswipe from a hurricane and an earthquake (again...all this in upstate NY?), I made the mistake of asking myself what could possibly be next.  Really?  Remind me never to ask that again.  I thought laughingly of maybe a volcano or perhaps a minor asteroid strike (since I had just watched a re-run of 'Armageddon' in the hotel) but what did I know?

The floods came shortly thereafter.  The slogging-wet remains of Tropical Storm Lee plodded up from the Gulf of Mexico, stalled over the northeast and just sat over our heads while all the water drained out of it.  It rained like the proverbial cow pissing on a flat rock for days.  We were already soaked from Hurricane Irene's near-miss so the inches-per-hour downpour from Lee was more than the ground could handle.  The rain fell straight down in sheets and curtains hour after hour until the little creek under my driveway was roaring like a monster.  I figured the OWH (Old Wayward Home) would have water in the basement before long and sure enough, our tenant called to say there was suddenly 6 inches and it was climbing fast.
Connor and I saddled up with boots and rain gear to start the pumps and hopefully get ahead of the rush.  I had two sumps running and figured we had it when the floor re-appeared about 3 hours later.  I was actually thinking about calling it a night when I noticed the slowly-but-steadily dropping water level very suddenly reversed itself and started back across the concrete and up the wall.  This is not good.
I called my sister and she brought over another big pump.  I even rigged the little one we use to get the water off the pool cover to do it's little bit to help.  The water continued to climb regardless of all efforts.  My Big Sis made it home but later said the road had disappeared on her way there under a black, fast-moving sheet studded with tree stumps and a possible cow or two.
In the meantime, the basement pool was now back to square one and still rising.  We had four pumps running and we were losing.  I killed the power to the water heater and furnace but could only watch as the pond got deeper and the rain came on like I've never seen.  My tenant and I tried digging diversion ditches to funnel the surface water away from the cellar steps but the rain was coming too fast and too heavy for it to make much difference.  In desperation, we decided to call the fire department for a pump-out but they too had surrendered for the night or at least until the deluge slowed down.  They had whole towns disappearing and my basement was the least of their worries.  The crews were exhausted and most roads impassable anyway so there was no hope of seeing them until daylight at the earliest.
I eventually tried to rig a swimming pool pump as a last resort but couldn't make it work and so finally, for the first time, I gave up.
I had the tenant keep an eye on the rising water and told him to call me when it got near the breaker panel, then headed for home to catch a nap.  An hour later, the power went off.

Without pumps running, the flood level came up fast so John waded through the thigh-deep water to reach the panel box and shut off everything before the inevitable wiring disaster when the box went under.  Luckily, the juice came back on before the breakers submerged so I stripped to skivvies and waded back in to turn the main on and get the pumps running.  Nothing like flipping a 200 amp breaker connected to pumps through a web of extension cords while standing in water up to my...well you get the picture.  My procreating days are long over but the idea of getting jazzed to death by that route was worse than the freezing-cold water.  Some things I'd just rather not think about.

Finally, dawn came and the rain subsided enough for the pumps to catch up.  The floor re-appeared but to stay ahead of the leaking foundation required two pumps all day long.  We took a drive around town and found we couldn't get very far because most of the roads were fast-running rivers and a sizable chunk of the valley was a lake.  In actuality, we got off easy.  It seemed like a crisis doing battle with our one little cellar but almost everything to the east of us was simply demolished.  Whole sections of towns along the rivers went under in a matter of hours.  When the crest came, it was the worst flooding in this area since 1972 and some said it was close to the 1936 monster that just about wiped out the whole region.  That makes two "Floods of the Century" in less than 5 years for us...I think that'll do for now.

The wreckage is slowly disappearing around the area and the mud-lines have finally washed off from halfway up the tree trunks but it'll still be months, if ever before anything resembling normal life comes back for those who really got hammered.  It was quite a fight at the OWH but I can't help but thank our lucky stars we got out as lightly as we did.

I'll never again ask..."What's next?"

The Political Animal

In response to the political lunacy of this election year...this will hopefully be my only post on the subject. The opinions expressed are solely my own and have no influence or expectation of change on yours. This is a manifesto in a way...it's where I stand on a lot of things. Now you know.

Let's get the big stuff out of the way first. I was pretty much a default Republican for the first part of my life but as time went on, I sort of slid over to the left a ways. Not far Jesse Jackson left but far enough that my measly one vote went pretty much to the Democratic side. It still does and will again this year. Not that I wouldn't consider changing it if there was anything remotely worth changing it to. There is not.

As a note to all the people who spend all day dreaming up horrible things to say about our sitting President...and posting them on my Facebook wall hoping I'll agree...here's your invitation to unfriend me.

I like the guy. I voted for him twice. I've been impressed with Mr. Obama and his First Family for their grace under pressure. With the most ugly, base and unpatriotic display I've ever seen going full tilt for eight years, they never flinched. With the awful things said about him, his wife, his kids and this country, I don't know how he did it. It was good to have a man in the office that actually spoke to me and inspired so many others. I have only respect for him.

Then there's the other side of the fence...

The problem for me is that the Republican side of the world has become a very, very strange place. It's like the church of one of my previous posts...unrecognizable. It's like a mirror with an orange tint that only reflects the things that are darkest in us. Fear, anger, hate, and more fear. Many of my friends are absolute believers in the reflection that looks back at them. That's where they are and I know nothing I can say will change it. They are still my friends but I can't accept that that image is me.

Unlike that face in the mirror, I am not afraid. I don't see conspiracy and evil in everything around me. I believe in a goodness in people that never makes the news or baits clicks. I might be naive and some would say foolish but I simply cannot believe that the entire world has gone as crazy as the CNN comments section. I've met so many truly wonderful people in my life, can there really be so many more who are so extraordinarily awful?

I hold to the hope that most people in the world are basically good instead of the right-wing platform that people (particularly ones who aren't white, old, male, rich or related to one of the above) are inherently bad. Fear drives it all. From guns to women to immigration to foreign policy. Fear, not hope is all they have.

Fear is called patriotism and hate waves a Confederate battle flag from the courthouse steps and laughs.

We have been told for months to be afraid of immigrants when in truth that's what every last one of us Caucasians are. We're warned to be afraid of minorities because...well because they're minorities so why not? What do they have to lose? We should definitely be afraid of OTC (Other Than Christian) religions because they're all trying to kill us right? We should be especially terrified of women and LGBT people because their mission is to pervert fine God-fearing Americans...like the Westboro Baptists or a fair percentage of the Catholic priesthood. Fear is everywhere.

Fear and his pal conspiracy have friends of mine building bunkers and stockpiling weapons and food. It's like "Duck and Cover" all over again except the danger isn't coming over the horizon, it lives down the block. The ever-lurking 'they' are waiting for the right moment to confiscate your guns, poison your food, 'eliminate' millions of us and check to see if we're peeing in the right bathroom. If everyone was armed, we could protect ourselves from it all! Or not.

In spite of all that, I am not afraid in my world without a gun. I don't live under the assumption that I need to be armed at all times to protect myself or my family. I'll likely be in trouble when 'they' unleash the zombie virus and the gangs of roving killers come to take my last ibuprofen but I've lived almost 60 years and never yet met the boogie-man skulking in the corners in a keffiyeh or BLM tee shirt. I've run into some pretty frightening characters in my travels but never really felt the need to shoot one. Maybe I'm just lucky and maybe someday I'll regret not having a weapon, but not today. Someday I'll tell you another story about that.

Conspiracy is the next rung on the fear ladder that I just can't climb. "There's something going on...", "People are saying...", "We've got to do something...", and oh yes; "Benghazi!"
Everything is an inside job; a false flag or a cover-up. The government or somebody else big and invisible runs everything. 'They' are everywhere spying, cheating, murdering, monitoring, controlling. HAARP, chemtrails, Monsanto, Big Oil, 'they' never sleep and you are a pathetic sheep if you don't follow Infowars and late-night AM radio to keep up. Did I mention Benghazi?

Our soldiers are heroic patriots when they serve overseas but we have to be ready to hold them off when they turn into puppets of the tyrannical government. The police are dedicated public servants until you have to defend your rights against the jack-booted thugs. The Feds are our brave and vigilant last line of defense against the terrorist threat but we may have to shoot it out with them when they come to haul you to the FEMA camp under a Walmart in Texas. The irony of those ideas is lost on so many.

And please let's not forget Climate Change. Newsflash...it's real, we did it, we're leaving it to our kids and anyone who doesn't believe it is delusional. End of story. Science isn't a conspiracy.

Don't even get me started on how evolution is an anti-Christian plot and creationism is an equivalent idea either. Same as above...science is facts not beliefs. Evolution is a well-developed theory (look up the definition of theory sometime just for fun) not a hypothesis. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine but calling it a 'war on Christians' makes you look silly. Gravity is a theory proven with the same methods but nobody runs to the school board to burn the books when they fall down in the shower.

Here's another piece of news that sort of follows that slope. The United States is not, never has been and hopefully never will be an exclusively Christian club. As soon as you trot out conspiracies that Christianity is under attack and so we have to defend against other religions or lack thereof, in my estimation you automatically surrender your right to be an American.

The very same founders that wrote your beloved Second Amendment also wrote a couple of really great lines about freedom of religion and speech in the First Amendment. If you're going to rely on a document as indisputable to prove your point, you better be prepared to defend the parts you don't find agreeable as well.

George Washington may have cut down the tree but everyone these days would instead just pick the cherries off it until it died.

And last but not least...SEX! I'm just going to say that I find it absolutely, unequivocally, undeniably intolerable that a bunch of majority white, privileged, geriatric, philandering, multi-marriage, alleged Christians and wannabe Puritans can presume to legislate morality for whole segments of citizens that they obviously fear and despise based on their own twisted set of standards. Clear enough?

 No senator, no congressman, no judge and certainly no clergyman has any business telling anyone what to do and how to behave in their bedroom or doctor's office. Women can take care of their own health without your morality plays thank you and my friends in the LGBT community would be pretty grateful if you quit trying to 'save' them and stay the hell out of the bathroom. Also anyone who buys into one of those insane 'Religious Freedom" bills is instantly off my vote list. Prejudice by any other name is still prejudice no matter how pretty you wrap it and tie the bow.

There's an old saying that the Religious Right...isn't. The truth is a terrible thing sometimes.

So for now that's where I am, at least until there's a Republican candidate that doesn't insult my intelligence every time he speaks like a cheap reality TV show. Or the party gets it's act together and decides there's more to this country than rich old white guys...or maybe, just maybe...there's a sea change and we never have to watch this Hunger Games travesty again.

___________________________________________________

And now onward...As for the Democratic side...there is enough weirdness there to go around as well but at the end of the day, I have to look at it from the point of view of who is going to run this show. I know, I've heard it...you hate her just because she's breathing the same air as you. I got that part. I however am not voting on hate or the lesser of two evils.

In reality (that's a place a certain network hasn't been in a while), she's is not taking your guns or even talking about it (why is it always about the guns?). Anyone who has even superficially read about Prohibition realizes what can happen when you screw around with Constitutional Amendments to legislate moral behavior. She's read it.

She's at least not planning a mass deportation of American citizens because they happen to be Muslim or Hispanic, I haven't heard any fairy tales about walls, religious tests for citizenship, murdering non-combatant families or suing a newspaper because they disagree. I did hear about the emails lest you think I'm ignoring that. Foolish...but criminally foolish? Look at it this way: if the party in control of the legislative branch that ran multiple investigations costing millions of dollars with the intent to discredit her couldn't do it, what more are you going to find...ever. The rest of them are buried somewhere with the orange man's tax returns.

Yep, she lies...like there's a monopoly on that among politicians. She's an insider...true...but at least you can take her out in public without being embarrassed. She, like the current occupant of the White House is well spoken and knowledgeable. I would sleep better at night too knowing the nuclear launch codes were in the hands of someone significantly cooler under pressure than the other candidate.

Lots of people I know are sick of the gridlock and politics as usual but if change is the only thing you're voting for then the change you might get is likely to be like burning down your house because you don't like the color of the kitchen. Effective to be sure but slightly over the top and ultimately a pretty bad idea.

As for the favorite rallying cry of the rabidly conservative..."Benghazi!"...I get that too. The bad news is that people who accept power also accept responsibility...often for other people's lives. The captain of every ship and the pilot in command of every airliner understands this and so too does the officer who orders soldiers into battle knowing some or all may not return. The basement generals of the internet do not.

The people who went to Libya were the best professionals in the business and to say that they didn't understand what they were getting into is an insult to their memory. Foreign service in an unstable post is a dangerous and messy business. Horrible things happened there and again, multiple investigations by a hostile congress were held. She accepted her responsibility as the officer in charge and no criminal or negligent behavior was ever found. Lessons were learned and things changed. That's the way of it. If a leader is to be questioned and second guessed for every decision, there will soon be no leaders, only committees that can spread the blame. We need leaders, not committees.

We also need someone who isn't actively destroying our livelihoods. The Democrats have not floated that miserable "Right To Work" idea anywhere. To me, a union guy, right to work means right to scab. You get all the benefits of union membership but none of the responsibility. If you want to work a non-union job, that's fine but when it's a union shop, join the union and support it with dues if nothing else. Expecting the union to represent you without joining is like crossing a picket line to me. You're using the work and sacrifice of others to benefit the company. Right to work is nothing but union busting with a prettier name just like Religious Freedom laws are discrimination with a fancier label. A certain Republican is in favor of Right to Work laws in all 50 states. I cannot understand why a union member would support that. Oh wait a minute...they're not taking my guns. Yeah that's it.

And there it is...at the end of all this, I'm going to vote Democratic this year. Maybe even across the board just because I can't believe that the Republicans I used to know have trotted out yet another dismal excuse for a candidate. Maybe some year they'll pull it together and show me someone who isn't an embarrassment. Someone who actually has a plan or two. Someone who doesn't ridicule half the population just to get a round of cheers. Someone I could actually put some hope in.

Someone who believes like I do that not only was America great before, but America and all Americans are great right now and can only get better.

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.

For Maple

A few days ago, I got to meet Maple at last. Maple Rose is my first grandchild and what a sweetheart she is. After some unavoidable delays that meant she was over a week old before we were officially introduced, she didn't seem to mind and so another adventure begins.

I'd forgotten what it's like to hold a baby human. They're so tiny and fragile and wonderful. My son handed her to me and just like that, I went swooping back to the first time I held him when he was born. All the worry and hope and joy and love that you pour into those little bundles looks up at you and life is suddenly different. 

You realize that she's seeing all things for the first time and in the whole of the world that'll never ever be again. You're watching something that happens every day but truly happens only once. That time when everything is new. It's absolutely wonderful.

Welcome to the world Maple Rose...you stole my heart from the first. 

May all things be wonderful for you now and onward. May you be as sweet as your namesake tree, as rare and beautiful as your flower and even if you come with a few thorns...well that's ok too. You're in the best Mom and Dad hands I could wish for and I know they'll love and teach you well. I would wish that you always look at the world with wonder in those eyes like the first time and reach for all you can like you reached for my fingers. 

So off you go with all my love little one. Life is suddenly different once again.

100 at 100

If anyone out in my little corner of the electronic world was watching yesterday, you might have caught my latest adventure in bicycle lunacy...I put on a little experiment in heat exhaustion and sweat production which will go down semi-officially as "The Hot 100". With a nod to the famous Billboard chart, this actually had nothing at all to do with the pop countdown. Although now that I think about it, my iPod did die about 40 miles out for lack of charging so I guess there's a tenuous music connection there somewhere.

The festivities began when I decided I was due for another Century while I was still on vacation. I'd been wanting to go when I didn't really have to worry much about how long it took or when I had to be back but scheduling conflicts meant that Thursday was the only chunk of time available for such an undertaking. I know my long-distance pace is pretty low so it's likely to be an all day thing once I leave the driveway.  I can't get underway at noon and have any hope of returning before dark at my less-than-impressive average speed. These things take time.

So to planning...something I do very little of except in the most vague and general way.  But having done this distance thing a few times now, I peeked at the National Weather Service site with a wary eye. Mostly this exercise is to check on whether I should figure on getting wet or not, which then determines if I need to pack extra zip-locks to keep electronics dry but this time it was not rain on the radar. The weather guys made it pretty clear it was going to be unabashedly, miserably, viciously and maybe dangerously hot. Yeah, yeah...it's July people, so noted. In my typically cavalier fashion, I was mostly undeterred by the big red EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING headline at the top of the page. It's going to be warm? Surprise, surprise.  Pack an ice bag baby...I'm going.

I was actually more interested in the fact that the wind was predicted to be out of the south at first and then swing to the west with gusts up to 25 mph. 25 mph in the face of a 15 mph rider means you're going backwards so there was some changes forthcoming in my planned general direction of travel. I figured if I headed west at the outset, I might be able to make the turn for home with following seas and a boost from the wind instead of a kick in the teeth when I can least afford it. Score one for the Gipper, that part actually worked out but more on it later.

I got up with Chris and the sun, loaded the frames and pockets with liquids, saddled up and was gone while the shadows were still long and deep in the valley. As predicted, the wind was at my tail at first and miles rolled away easily on fresh legs and cool temps. My semi-planned route was to go almost due west to Hammondsport and then up the west shore of Keuka Lake. From there it was a crapshoot depending on how hot it actually got and how much leg I had left. The one detail I forgot was that to get to Hammondsport from home requires a Cat 2 climb over the ridge between the lakes. With the wind on the bow and a hill under the tires, my speed dropped to about zip.



Eventually though I headed down out of the hills, picked up some speed and only had to dodge one idiot passing across the double line into my lane on the way to a rest stop in a park.



I noticed the temperature was getting a little above the comfort zone when a sip of Gatorade went down hot and a Clif bar came out of the wrapper like melted butter.  The world was getting hazy and everything looked like it was dancing.



There goes the alarm bells again.

I looped Keuka Lake and started fantasizing almost continuously about a cold vanilla shake.  20 more miles went behind and out of the heat shimmered a mirage-like vision...an ice cream stand!  I pulled in and suddenly realized I was probably in over my head again when I almost couldn't unclip before I fell over.  I wobbled into the air-conditioned interior and customers parted like the Red Sea.  I probably smelled like my junior high gym locker but didn't care.  My goal was something cold and no glares from cool, freshly washed vacationers was going to stop me.  A uniformed EMT passing me at the door made a comment about her desire to not meet me professionally along the road later in the day.  I agreed wholeheartedly and retired to a corner stool to nurse my core temperature back down within human limits.

Things get a little loopy from there on out.  I know I hit a mini-mart and reloaded all my bottles before the climb back over the ridge.  The ascent was lengthy but I did catch the wind as I'd originally hoped when I left home.  The breeze astern helped push me up the hill but unfortunately, it also created a stationary bubble of super-heated air that surrounded me all the way.  I put my leg against the top tube once and damn near got a burn.  This cannot be good.  My hot Gatorade was disappearing to no avail so I finally took a break and stretched out in the shade of an oak tree by an old cemetery.  The symbolism seemed fitting.

Barely 15 miles later, I put in again at an Amish roadside farm stand and begged to use the garden hose I'd spotted coiled next to the building.  I let it run till it got icy and then just poured it over my head until I stopped steaming.  It felt wonderful.  Much refreshed, I pushed another 20 or so.  The computer was reading about 80 miles gone at 4 pm and even with the sun now past the zenith, the air was still sizzling.  The breeze felt like the exhaust of a blast furnace and smelled like hot metal, burning grass and asphalt.   A guy out in his yard yelled something about how stupid I was to be out riding as I passed.  Yeah well, thanks for the insight buddy but how about handing me a beer instead?

The descent into Watkins Glen should have felt pretty good but knowing I had one more climb to do sort of took the fun out of it.  I stopped in the park at the foot of Seneca Lake and stretched out on a shaded picnic table bench to recharge for the last push.  I seriously wondered if I'd be able to get off that bench at all.  The climb was all I expected it to be...toasty and steep with the end hidden in the haze and heat wiggles.  The mileage turned over 100 about three quarters of the way up and the wind went out of my sails just like that.  I trudged on up to the top and sort of fell into the lot of another mini-mart to reload the bottles one more time.  I know I looked like the wrath of God.  I got some really strange looks as I downed a whole bottle of water in three swallows but couldn't have cared less.  The worst was over.

I eventually saddled back up and headed east but knew there wasn't much left.  Chris had by now announced her intention to come and get me and to be honest, I was glad of it.  I probably could have made it the last few miles if push came to shove but I was about out of heroics for one day.  I loaded the Trek in the van and collapsed in the seat with the A/C knob turned all the way around.  Another one bites the dust.
I'll never learn.

Score for the day:
101.7 miles
108 honest-to-Fahrenheit degrees (at Watkins Glen)
8 or 10 bottles of Gatorade (I lost count)
1 vanilla shake
1 jumbo iced tea
1 orange juice
1 humongous water
1 near-miss
2 hecklings
And 5 lbs. off my body weight.



I promise I'll make the next one about the Tour de Cure.  Really.  There's even a connection to this post in it.  I'm still on vacation you know. 
One thing at a time.