Elbow Room

I'm always on time.  I'm not bragging.  Its simply a fact.  I am, if nothing else, reliably punctual.  I hate being late, I always have, but its only recently that I figured out why. 

I am incredibly impatient.  I’ve written about it before, and although this bit of news is not new to most of you, be assured that if you want to stress me out and initiate a creative and deep cutting onslaught of colorful metaphors and offensive adjectives… make me wait on you.  That said, it is the reason that I strive to be an on-time bloke.  I hate the way I feel when I'm kept senselessly waiting, and therefore, do not like to make others feel the same way.  Like most of us I have an inner monolog.  It keeps me company most of the time, and entertained for sure, but it goes into overdrive when I'm forced to wait on someone.  I have tried, valiantly, for most of my life to try to soften the edges of my rather German sense of timekeeping, with some success, but what happened the other day may just have given me the strength I need to abandon it forever.

You see, I have these friends.   They are good friends, close friends with whom Eileen and I share not just a great deal in common, but have a genuine love and admiration for.  We share a love of music, community and much, much more.  They are both wonderfully talented, and the best part is that our talents do not overlap.  What they do, I do not, and what I do, they do not!  It’s a great and fun friendship, and my life is that much better because if it! I consider them family.

A few days ago, a project of some kind in the works, we agreed that I would meet them at their home in the morning at 8:30.  When the morning arrived, I got up, on time, got ready and left the house, arriving at their home a short distance later at 8:28 a.m.  By the time I got out of the car and knocked on the door it was 8:30 sharp.  At first there was no answer, but after another knock or two, I was greeted by my friend Fred.

(Its important to know that in order to prevent any possible embarrassment on the part of my friends, I will change their actual names.  I will call him “Fred” and her, “Wilma.”).

So…Fred meets me at the door.  Fred looks tired, and not at all sure why I'm at the door, but he does not question my early appearance and invites me it.  He motions for me to enter the living room area, which I do.

There is a bathroom off to one side of the living room.  Just a moment or two later, the bathroom door opens.  I can hear Wilma calling to Fred, and I turn to say good morning…..

Standing in the hallway before me is a very, very, naked…Wilma!  When I say naked, I mean to express not just the absence of clothing, but no towel, no wash cloth, not even a tissue paper crunched up in one hand like old ladies in retirement homes tend to do.  No toilet paper stuck to the bottom of a foot or worse, trailing behind…nothing. 

I’ve seen naked women before…and if one has to be totally honest, once you’ve seen one naked woman…. you pretty much want to see the rest of them…. but there is definitely something to be said for getting an eyeful of one you either were not expecting to see, had not begged to see, or did not pay for.

Years ago, when outside mowing the front lawn, I saw the neighbor’s dog run out in front of a car.  You know the feeling.  It’s a little like watching a gruesome axe murderer do his thing on a rather grizzly horror movie.  Something in your inner brain, maybe your inner monolog, screams out, “OH NO! DON’T LOOK!”  Your reflexes kick in and you begin to close your eyes and turn your head.  No one wants to see the little dog get smushed, or witness a human being split down the middle with a fireman’s axe, but something happens to your muscles, something beyond your physical control, and no matter how much you know you should turn away, you DO look.

I'm convinced its why we have evolved with our eyes having corners.  You have to have something to look out of in those situations when the things you don’t want to see, the horrors, those life changing events that cause tiny little fissures to crack in the outer protective layers of your psyche happen right in front of you.  It’s a dichotomy of sorts, a conundrum that rivals our greatest unsolved mysteries.

Why do we look?  I’ll be damned if I know the answer to that.  It’s not that I want to see a little dog meet the front end of a speeding Buick.  I don’t relish the notion of dimwitted teenagers meeting their end at the hand of a maniacal, wood chopping psychopath in a dark forest any more than I needed to witness my friend Wilma in her birthday suit.  It’s not that she’s not a lovely woman.  She is, but of course that notion is directly overridden by two simple facts.  The first is that I already have the pleasure of seeing the loveliest woman on the planet in my own home every single day.  Nothing else can compare. The second is that she really is a sister to me in nearly every sense of the word. 

You know when you see the dog get his ass lifted by an oncoming front bumper…and you make that sound?  That “OH NO!” sound!  That “AUGH!” exclamation in anticipation of utter shock, coupled with a sense of, “man, I wish I didn’t just see that?”  Well thank Morgan Freeman I did NOT do that! 

I'm pretty fast on my feet most of the time, and although I got an eyeful, I managed a duck and cover maneuver that even Houdini would have been proud of.  I was able to turn away before Wilma and I made eye contact.  That would have been the worst.  Once you make eye contact in a situation like that, forget it.  It’s over.  Not only are you scarred for life, but the other party is forever glued to it! You might as well just stand there and look each other over like you are shopping for a used car. 

As it was, once the shock of it was over and we were nervously all three in the kitchen, Wilma asked if I had seen “anything.”  All I could think of was to say that all I had seen where her “elbows” sticking out.  Elbows…I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.  I tried to make a joke, but it just served to fuel the situation.  Why did I say Elbows?  I think those are the only things I didn’t see!  That, and the back of her knees.  Now, whenever when ever Fred and I see each other, we bend our forearms and hold up our elbows in greeting.  It’s almost like a secret handshake now.  It’s very nearly a Masonic ritual, and I often image an alien planet, where instead of shaking hands, the little green fellows run up to each other and “touch elbows.” 

Had I not been so damned on time, so bleeping military about my desire to not be late, my elbow displaying friend Wilma would have had time to get dressed.  The other night, I was performing at a local venue and Fred and Wilma were in a attendance.  While performing a beautiful and somber ballad, Fred stood suddenly up from his chair and raised his elbows in support.  I instantly though back to that moment, recently, in their living room…..their COLD living room…the pair of chilled elbows I had seen that morning... and forgot the words to the fucking song!  I know I will never be the same, and I will endeavor now to be late where ever I go…well at least to their house!

Up The Mountain!

In my late teens and twenties I was a backpacker.  I love the High Sierra’s and began to really feel at peace and at home with not just the outdoors, but also the person I was becoming.  Those adventures were really among the first, I recall, at pushing the limits of my own physical boundaries.

One summer, high and far toward the eastern Sierra Mountains, I found myself sitting quietly on a rock with my blistered feet cooling off in a chill mountain lake called Devils Punchbowl.  The tiny, secluded lake was so named because it was bordered by towering, craggy escarpments on three sides, and gave the impression of an other-worldly, albeit beautiful and wondrous place.  Devil’s Punchbowl meadow and lake sat at ‘tree-line,’ about ten thousand feet MSL, with the surrounding razor-back ridges peaking at about twelve thousand feet.  Sitting on my ancient, weathered rock at the lakes brim and gazing at the highest peak of Devil’s Punchbowl, an unnamed and intimidating slice of Terra-firma, I felt an overwhelming urge to climb it.

Leaving my backpacking gear at our base camp, armed with little more than shorts, t-shirt, my trusty orange nylon day pack carrying a canteen of mountain water, a camera and some pocketed trail-mix, I started my climb with several friends who tired quickly from the effects of the thin, cold mountain air.  I continued undaunted by my solitude and unconcerned, perhaps even youthfully ignorant of my own safety, and continued to climb ever higher toward the sharp rocky teeth that chipped and bit at my bare shins and un-gloved hands.

For me, the harder I climbed, skipped and leapt over the boulders that seemed to purposefully block my assent, the faster I went, the better I felt, and the happier I was.  I felt light and strong and set a careless and unrealistic pace.  

Suddenly, everything changed.  I was no longer ascending on my quest for the peak, but was instead sliding backward, and to the right of my original chosen path.  I was sliding faster and clawed for safe purchase, finding none.  I spun my hips and flipped around in an attempt to gain traction and to get some kind of visual clue as to where I was headed.  The rocky surface I slid down was wind-warn smooth and covered with a soft layer of newly eroded granules of sand, which only served to accelerate my decent.  To my momentary horror, all I could see was sky and the surface of the tiny meadow more than a thousand feet far beneath me. The soles of my shoes were suddenly free of traction, followed by my entire body…and I knew at that moment that I was free-falling….

I recently had a similar feeling.  In the moments after being diagnosed with cancer, the sense of free falling with nothing beneath me felt strangely familiar.  I’ve felt it before to a degree, in different chapters of my life, but never quite as definitive as in those first moments of shock and fright.  “Cancer.  Shit.  That’s it then…that’s how I die.  OK. What about Eileen, family, friends…”  

When I was falling off the mountain, a similar pattern of thought automatically ran though my conscious mind.  “Falling, shit, that’s it then..that’s how I die.  OK….what about……”   The thought didn’t last long.  Not more that a fleeting second I’m sure.  By nature I'm a problem solver, and almost immediately I began to calculate my position and options.

It’s these thoughts, I believe, that are at the heart of who we are as individuals, as people and as a species.  In the tiniest fraction of time that followed, I had to swallow hard, and overcome my mounting fear and emotional paralysis.  I had to look down the mountain!  I had to raise my head, bend my neck and look toward where I was falling.  I had to.  I had no other option but to look down at the approaching rocks and try to wiggle my body around to a position where I had my feet under me, my knees bent, and my hands at the ready in anticipation of whatever impact was coming.  I had to be ready to land, to roll, or sit, or fall backward or do whatever it took to be in the best position to recover as fast as possible.  There was no one there to catch me.  I had arrived in that predicament on my own and would suffer whatever consequences befell me.

After my waking up from the initial Colonoscopy the Doctor who did the procedure greeted me with a gentle handshake and, without letting go of my hand said, “You have cancer, and a very large tumor.  We are scheduling you for surgery as soon as possible.  I'm sorry.”  I felt a bit sucker-punched, but will admit I had a feeling something was wrong.  Still, in the seconds that followed, I felt that old and familiar sensation of sudden helplessness.  I’m the kind of guy who can fix almost anything, but on the rare occasion I cannot, the feeling of helplessness is intensified.  I mentally grabbed a hold of my spinning mind, the way you might slap your hand down on the table on top of a spinning coin, and rapidly tried to get my “feet” under me.

After trying to cope with the mountain of facts being spewed at me in the guise of re-assurance, the medical staff ushered me into a private room to share with Eileen the truth of my current ‘slip off the mountain.’  Even now, as I write this, I cannot keep the tears from welling up as I contemplate how much I did not want to give her the difficult news.  I wasn’t worried for myself, and had not really had time to fully process the whole situation, but we had only just been together a few years, and had finally found a sense of completion and happiness in the lives and love of each other.  I was and had been, in effect running up the mountain again, happy and strong, racing toward a life together we both had only dreamed of…

So…obviously, I didn’t die on the mountain that day many years ago.  I did fall ten to fifteen feet, but landed safely on a flat ledge and walked away with just a few cuts, bruises and a nasty scare.  In fact, I continued and just an hour later, reached the top of that devilishly crooked climb. I sat on the top rock, in the cold air, and took in the reward of a full 360 degree panorama of two states, and hundreds of square miles of angry and beautiful terrain.  I put my Agfa 35mm camera, which survived the fall, on a rock in front of me, set the clock timer, and took a picture of myself.  Upon my return to base camp, I chose to remain fairly quiet about my experience, only to say that I had made it all the way. 

As it turns out, cancer hasn’t killed me either.  I did have to spin around in my own head space a little, and landed squarely at the feet of a crew of amazing scientists, doctors and professionals who paved the way for the recovery and treatment of me and others like me.  Like falling off a mountain, ten thousand feet up, being told I was sick scared the shit out of me.  I don’t like that feeling, who would, but in those initial moments we all must muster our courage, lift up our heads and look at where we are headed.  I had to do it, so did Eileen and so have we all in one regard or another.  It’s difficult… and scary, and to place our trust and our future in the hands of strangers who must repair what we cannot repair ourselves is no easy task.  It’s important, perhaps it’s even the most important thing…to be sure that those who we offer our trust and our personage to, are studied and qualified professionals who train in science, evidence and reason.  To hang about in midair, with no clear view of where we will land is as unpleasant as unpleasant gets, but it is all part of a greater process.  Life happens.  We slip, we fall, we get sick and we make mistakes.  We try, for the most part, to NOT put ourselves at risk or foolish peril, but sometimes, like it or not, things just happen.  Sometimes we don’t land well.  Sometimes we do not survive, but when we do it’s important to asses, to re-evaluate our choices and to make a greater effort to positively affect the lives of those around us.

As I write this, I have just a week or so left of Chemo pills to take.  It’s been an 8-9 month journey of treatment, surgery and recovery, including 6 months of Chemo infusions and meds.  I never ever want to do it again.  I don’t know if I could. I have some nasty side effects from all these meds to contend with, which have impacted my life with some force. I will live with the damages done by the Chemo either for the rest of my life or until they wear off, whichever comes first, and am making my peace with that.

 I have only written one or two other times about this chapter of my life, and to be honest…I’m damn sick of thinking about it.  I think that, unless of course I change my mind, this is the last time I will blog about it in this forum.  I want you all to know that I could never have faced what I have been though every day, without you and your encouragement.  I am climbing back up the mountain!

LETS GO FLY A KITE

Tonight Eileen and I watched the movie, “Saving Mr. Banks.”  Like so many movies that don’t have aliens, explosions, tanks or hotrods, it wasn’t one I was naturally drawn to.  I didn’t bother with it at the theater, and even waited a while after it came out to rent it from Vudu.com.  Also, like so many movies that I am not naturally excited to see, I ended up loving every minute and was engrossed, enthralled and riveted to the very end.

“Saving Mr. Banks,” deals with the Author P. L. Travers, Walt Disney, and the making of the book, Mary Poppins,” into a movie.  Without giving anything away for those who have not seen it, (I hate that…almost as much as I hate the term ‘spoiler alert’) there were a few things that connected with me in a personal way.  The first was the setting in Australia, my home country.  The second was the musical and artistic importance in the translation of storytelling, and how possessive one can be about their own characters and work.  It’s a sentiment I more than have just a passing familiarity with.  The third was a brown, butcher-paper kite…

I didn’t know my Grandfather for long and did not know him well.  He died when I was very small, when I was still young enough that to think that all adults were born looking that way, and existed only to listen to my ideas of fancy.  His name was Jack, but to me he was Grandpa.

I have a few pictures of he and I, and in them, he looks as I remember him today, but I don’t look anything like anyone I recall.  When he would visit our house in the suburbs of Sydney, which was often, he would inevitably find his way to the work bench under one corner of the house, beside the carport.  There he would spend time tinkering with whatever he wanted to do. When I think of him, it’s at the work bench that I see him.  He would look down at me over his glasses and speak to me in short, soft sentences.  I loved him, and remember feeling secure when he was around. 

One day, after seeing Mary Poppins at the drive-in with the family, I asked him to make a kite for me.  My father was a pilot, and of course I loved anything that would fly.   In just a short period of time, Grandpa had crafted a brown, butcher-paper kite with a wooden cross brace, complete with a string through the middle.   I was so excited I must have squealed with joy.   For the next several hours I dragged that kite around the back yard, trying everything I could to get it to fly.  Grandpa stood with his arms folded at the back of the house, watching over me as I tossed it up and ran, laid it on the ground and bolted to the back fence, threw it up into the air and dashed like a wild dog across the lawn, zigging and zagging, pulling the string and hoping to catch the wind.

After a while and quite out of breath, I inspected the kite more closely and found that Grandpa had covered both sides of the kite with the heavy brown paper, making it not only too heavy but also unable to fly.  I brought it to his attention, but he said instead that it probably needed a tail.  He took the kite back to the work bench and fashioned a long tail from string and brown butcher-paper bow-ties.   To this day, I can clearly remember being impressed and inspired by how beautifully crafted the kite was, with its perfectly formed bow-tie tail and long diamond shape.  Even the bow-ties on the tail grew smaller in size toward the end.  Other than some fresh grass stains from hard landings, it was stout and undamaged.  I'm sure I spent a lot more time running around the back yard in hopes that I could get it take off.  I don’t remember quitting or stopping, but I have no doubt that I was exhausted when I finally did.  That may have been his plan all along, although I doubt it.  He really did want to see it soar as much as I. 

Later, I showed the kite to my dad.  He knew immediately what to do to get it flying, but I didn’t want it changed.  Instead, I put the kite in a corner of my bedroom where I could see it from my bed.  That corner was home to the things I valued…a guitar, some model airplanes I had built, and now Grandpa’s kite.  I wish I still had it. 

 Grandpa was very creative.  He was a master needle point artist, and would also make animals and other shapes from pipe cleaners.  (You never see them anymore, but when a man wanted to clean the stem of his tobacco pipe, he used a disposable, thin, cotton covered piece of wire, about 6 inches long).  He was also a fine mechanic and possessed many other talents, I'm certain.  He also had a darkish side, according to Dad, and would ignore Grandma for days at a time if he was upset about something.  

It’s funny, thinking about Grandpa and the kite.  What a thing of such beauty, so as to be perceived by me as a small child.  It didn’t fly worth a damn, but looking back, I’m not sure that was its purpose.  His devotion for me was expressed not in the functionality of the thing, but in its loving and careful construction.  To this day that brown, butcher-paper kite that lived almost all of its life in the corner of my bedroom in its place of honor, was perhaps the most perfect of things I have ever known.  Now when I build, or weld, woodwork, write or compose music, I can often feel and touch with my mind’s eye, the smooth whittled cross-brace, the crisp clean folds of the fragile paper skin and the perfectly symmetrical wings of the bow-ties that seemed to shrink ever smaller on their way to the feathered string tail that made up the end of the kite.  These images serve to motivate and inspire me in ways I am not always conscious of.

I’d like to think that Grandpa lives on in my life like his kite.  Not everything I’ve done has worked out.  No matter how much I try to “drag” some poorly imagined idea to fruition, more often than just on occasion, it doesn’t fly.  I would, however, like to think that the things I build in life at least have the attention and artistry that lives somewhere in my DNA, just like my Grandpa before me.  My dad used to tell me, whenever we spoke of Grandpa, that I was the “apple of his eye.”  There is something wonderful in that.  There is something important in how you hold the vision of someone you are doing something for.  There is something imperative between the artist, the beneficiary of that rare gift of an item, a poem or a song, a story, a sculpture, a painting or yes, even a brown butcher-paper kite

                                                                      Grandpa Jack

THE EDGE

The Edge

We punctuate our lives with so many different markers.  Memories, milestones, important events and accomplishments all serve to index an invisible timeline that, in times of peace, relief or rest we can look back upon and wonder.

Growing up in Australia seems like so long ago, the memories belong to another and not me.  It’s funny that, as time takes us by the hand and begins to run with us, just how far back our hindsight can be.

I tend to, as I’m sure we all can, identify those defining moments in my own life with those memories that identify more with “close calls.”  Too many times I have “wandered too close” to the proverbial edge, only to affect a narrow escape from a brief stumble or shallow fall that could have easily ended my life.

The first marker was when, in the second grade and having suffered from severe headaches, I was diagnosed with a cyst or tumor that had grown inside my head.  The pain from the headaches was unbearable, and I would cry until I passed out.  Finally, a neurosurgeon in Australia made the discovery and I was schedule for brain surgery.  Luckily, when part of my skull was removed, the growth came out attached to the inside of the skull.  I was put back together and after a year or two, was as good as new.

Life has been like that for me.  Car accidents that should have been worse, nearly taking my fingers off on more than one occasion, military deployment as a young man, close calls alone in the wilderness, being at the right place at the right time to save someone’s life, or being just slightly not in the wrong place at the right time to lose my own.  So many times I have wandered or skipped along the edge, the earth crumbling behind me, often patting myself on the back for my own ingenuity in getting myself out of scrapes that could have cost so very much more.

A few years ago, while changing a transmission in my truck, and forgetting to set the E-brake, it rolled off a set of railroad tie blocks and landed on top of me.  I was injured, and injured pretty severely as I sometime later found out, but not so much that I was able to get out from underneath, call for help and go about my business the next day. 

I'm not lucky.  I'm not unlucky.  I will admit freely that a large percentage of these things could have been avoided if I had only just slowed down a little and thought more about what I was doing. 

This time, though, I walked just a little too closely to the edge.  While my life is currently intact, it might very well not have been.  I’ve not been feeling the best for a while.  I ignored it until it got to the point where a little too much internet research served not to comfort, but scare the crap out of me…literally.  Less than three months ago I was diagnosed with colon cancer and a large tumor.  Six weeks ago, I had the surgery to remove the affected colon (about two feet of it) the tumor and 29 lymph nodes.  Two weeks ago I started Chemotherapy.    

To say the whole episode ‘has taken the wind out of my sails’ is putting it mildly.  I don’t feel great physically, (which is to be expected I guess) but more than that, I don’t feel mentally as resilient as I always had, every day of my life.  I know that I will get through this and that I will survive, that is expected and reasonably certain, but I will admit to the very foreign feeling of not quite having my feet under me.

 A couple of mornings ago, as I began to wake up, I became aware that I could hear the sound of someone crying.  I turned to face Eileen, but she was sound asleep.  I thought that maybe her son Neal, also asleep at the other side of the house might be having a problem, but as I subconsciously wiped my face, I found the tears had been my own.  I don’t know what that’s about….maybe I do….but it feels like I would only be unbuckling my own armor to try to figure it out any further.  I guess it’s fair to say that I have been through a tough stretch, and that persevering at chemo is also taking its toll.  Just hearing that I had Cancer in the first place sucked on levels I had not yet experienced.  I really thought…..and damn it, forgive the cliché……that something like that would never get me. 

However, while I may not be a lucky man, I am perhaps the most fortunate.   I would never have been able to handle this latest trip to the edge without Eileen at my side.  She has been so very strong and so very attentive….and so patient with me.  I am undeserving of her love and would not have had the courage to make it this far without her.  Also, and really in tandem with Eileen, I have the largest group of friends that any man could ask to have.  I feel so completely loved and encouraged.  Again I am undeserving of their love, but I’ll take it….yes Sir!

It looks like, with the dedication of the amazing scientists, doctors and nurses that are my healthcare team, this particular promenade along life’s edge will not be the one that claims me.  There is a deep sense of relief in that….hopefully….but also a greater notion that hey, I don’t wanna walk this close to the edge anymore.  I don’t want to punctuate my own life with markers born of tragedy and hurt.  If I were given the chance to redo my own timeline, I think I would rather just erase the old one, and start fresh beginning with day I met Eileen, and punctuate it with every moment of laughter, every walk holding hands….even if it’s just to the mail box and back.  I want to remember every bike ride, every holiday, every moment with friends and family. 

As we get older we find out a couple of truths.  First, we are not indestructible. I know this now, and while I most certainly am not afraid of eventually dying, I submit that I am more fragile that I thought.  Second, when faced with our own mortality, it’s not the crap we own and work for so hard that is the thing we reach out for.  Life and love, happiness and security lay in those relationships that are closest and most important. 

You, all of you, are that to me.  Without each of you, I'm nothing.  I'm not a musician without someone to sing for.  I'm not a mechanic or a builder without someone to serve.  I'm not a cyclist without someone to ride home to, and I'm not a writer without someone to read me.  Thank you all for your help, your encouragement and your love.  You mark my timeline with your love, and I am better because of it.

Anthony

Every Town Has A Wolf Man!

Years ago, almost in another life it seems, I lived and worked in the small town of Los Banos, Ca.  Named by the famed missionary Fr. Junipero Serra, an 18^th Century  Franciscan Friar who founded some 21 missions in the late 1700’s, because of several watering holes he visited in his travels….calling the area “The Baths” or Los Banos.  In the late 1980’s, when I lived there, I became familiar with a man who was in fact even more well known by just about every single person who lived in the small farming community. 

We all just referred to him as “The Wolf Man.” He was a huge man, well over six feet tall, approaching seven.  He appeared to be between 50 and 70 yrs of age with the weathered and hard features of a lifelong mariner, more likely caused by the combination of poverty and homelessness.   His hair was long,  black and gray, unkempt, with a long beard that split halfway down his chest, the tips disappearing under either armpit as he pedaled into the wind.  His bicycle was painted black, was enormous and looked as though it was made of cast iron with oily, dirty rags tied all over it.  It could well have been a ghost pirate ship, a “Black Pearl” in a sea of Schwinns and Huffy Magnums.  His handlebars, borrowed from another bike, were the “ape hanger” kind that landed his giant hands above his shoulders, lending more height to an already imposing figure.   I'm sorry to say that I cannot recall or even find his actual name, which is sad on many levels.  The Wolf Man spent his days riding up and down the main drag of town, Highway 152.  He had no apparent destination, and rode with an uneven tempo, wobbling and correcting, always on the verge, it seemed, of pedaling too slowly as though he might fall at any moment….but never did.

I worked as a writer for the local weekly paper, and had wanted to do a story on him, but had been instructed not to by the editor, who explained that whatever dignity the Wolf Man may have had left, was probably better left to him.  In my youth, I thought the decision foolish, but have of course, come to recognize and respect the wisdom in it.  I had done some preliminary research into his life and found the theories as to his plight and condition were as many and varied as the folks who offered them.  

Some thought him the son of wealthy parents, who unable to cope with his mental illness, provided him with enough funds to live as he chose.  Another proposed idea was that he had been spurned by true love and, unable to cope, searched the streets night and day for his lost love.  There were less kind notions as well, from suggestions that he was a criminal or a deviant to who knows what else…everyone was an expert on the Wolf Man of Los Banos.  My favorite though, and by far the most commonly held “belief” was that the Wolf Man was actually a werewolf.  Cursed by Junipera Serra himself, the Wolf Man was cursed to wonder the streets of Los Banos since ages past, feasting at night on cattle, sheep or wayward children… some punishment for an unimaginable crime.  At night, often, you could hear coyotes howling.  It was not uncommon to hear a parent tell their child to “watch out…or the Wolf Man will get you!”  In the market parking lot, or anywhere the Wolf Man rode by, parents would grab their children and pull them close.  One might well have thought it still the 1700’s, instead, it was a reaction of fear fueled by ignorance, religious superstition and silliness.

I tried to talk to him once.  My friend warned me not too, but I chose not to listen.  In the parking lot of a Perkos Diner I decided I would try to offer him a meal.  My careful suggestion was rebuked with a profanity laced tirade that ended with me ducking plastic grocery bags filled with aluminum cans collected during the day by the Wolf Man (although no one knew what he did with them as he was never ever seen turning them in for the recycling value) as he hurled them in my direction.  He was furious with me, and cried out loud as he chased down and collected his own recyclable missiles.  We sought asylum inside Perkos, finding safety and refuge in our own astonishment and a cup of coffee.

I don’t know whatever became of the Wolf Man of Los Banos, but it seems to me that almost every town has one.  Nowdays, in my local community it does not take long to spot a Wolf Man or two.  In every city and town, in short order, you can find that person who through whatever misfortune of illness or circumstance, chemical or financial imbalance has become disconnected with reality and instead “survives” between the cracks of social welfare and charity.  Their uniqueness of character though, either survives or is rewritten to suit the unjustified mechanisms that keep us just out of their reach, and them out of ours.

Every town has a Wolf Man, just as every family has a “black sheep.”  Maybe it’s the black sheep that become the wolf men and women, already somewhat used to being sidestepped and set apart. 

It is sad, and from a humanitarian standpoint, it’s expensive.  The cost to us all is a loss of a singular kind of genius, of special conscience that only the afflicted seem to have.  How they see their world, and themselves, is something worth knowing and understanding.

Every town has a Wolf Man.  As cyclists we have an opportunity to view our local streets and inhabitants as they roll past us on either side.  We don’t have to make contact, often it’s not even wise, but they are a part and parcel in the current of the never ending river in which we swim.  I think about the Wolf Man every time I see one of his counterparts as I travel though Anytown, USA.  I’ve even been through Los Banos on occasion and have kept a watchful eye, but I have not seen him since long ago.  I’d like to know what become of the giant bearded figure and his ominous, tank like bicycle…..but I'm afraid I might not like the answer.

SLIMED with UPDATE

Sometimes I feel like a sucker, and I don’t like it.  I don’t like the feeling of being  gullible, or being taken for a ride…unless it’s me who is doing the pedaling. 

For those of you that ride, you know that potentially one of the biggest “thorns” in our side can quite literally be…thorns.  Those little sharp grass thorns that seem to have evolved with the rather intentional ability to find their way into anything with an inner tube are the bane of any and all cyclists.  To that end, I have researched and explored the world of bicycle tires and have settle on a combination of tire and tube that seems to work the best….at least I thought I had.

Tires are not the issue.  After much experimentation, I settled on Michelin Pro4 Endurance tires.  They ride great, have a hardened ribbon in the middle and seem to ward off most road beasties with ease.  Reluctantly, I settled on the heavier, thicker Slime filled SLiME inner tube.  The company makes inner tubes full of a green “slime” designed to fill and plug a hole or puncture in the tube.  Opting for the most protection, coupled with a very high quality, light weight wheelset seemed like the best compromise all around.  The extra weight added by the SLiME inner tubes is a bit of a bummer, but hey, I need the training and now that I'm used to them I'm not sure it matters. 

Here’s the catch.  I'm on my third set of inner tubes in less than a year.  Each previous set was compromised by those menacing little grass thorns.  Actually, one tire/tube set was sliced by a piece of obsidian I hit while hustling down the road, head down, ass up, and went through both the tire and tube like a guillotine through a French neck.  While it’s not fair to hold anything but a wagon wheel to task in that situation, the remaining five tubes have all fallen prey to one thorn each.  They have not sealed, but did manage to live out the remainder of their short lives on a gas leaking diet of my CO2 cartridges.  I do not ride on grass or dirt, ever, and do shoulder my bike when forced to cross any potentially tire threatening areas. 

The long walk home today, out of CO2, in the hot sun, and in my cycling shoes got me thinking about the tubes.   The website says, “All SLiME Smart Tubes are factory-filled with a precise volume of Slime Tube Sealant. Smart Tubes instantly seek out and seal punctures as they occur, preventing flats, repeatedly and continuously for up to two years. Ride without worries.”  Damn!  If only they “prevented” flats.  That would be fantastic.  I would love to ride without worries….

I'm not mad at the tubes…I'm mad at myself.  I bought them, three times, telling myself…”hey, these are great.  I can ride without worry.  The inner tubes will fix themselves.”  I knew at the time that it was too good to be true, but tried it anyway.  Not once, but three times!   Each time I said to myself, “well, it must have been a freakishly big thorn, or maybe I wasn’t rolling fast enough for the slime to go into the hole.  Maybe I need to make my very expensive, ultra light wheelset, even heavier and put a thorn guard in there as well…..”   Once I very nearly, foolishly, left the house without my pump and patch kit.  Luckily I listened to my own better judgment in that instance.

We buy so many things in an attempt to maintain or prevent damage to the things of which we invest our time, love and talent.  Got a cell phone?  You better buy a cover… covers for this, protectors for that.  Perhaps the greatest con-job of the last decade is the “Extra Warrantee” stores offer on their products.   If you buy a TV, or almost anything nowadays that you can’t eat right away, you can purchase a “plan” that protects you, the buyer, from having to purchase another poorly built, overpriced piece of stress inducing plastic garbage when it breaks down, catches on fire or crumbles in your hand exactly one second after the manufacturer’s warrantee expires.  Even more infuriating is finding yourself at the counter of  a Best Buy or similar, that same day, arguing with the vacant head behind the counter who is more interested in seeing how low he can were his work pants, while still keeping his work shirt tucked in so that no one will “notice,”  than he is helping you to replace your busted plastic thingy.  Those warrantees are so full of exclusions and clauses that you have a better chance of getting a ride home on a UFO than you do of successfully leaving the store with a new gadget.  

Lastly, if I hear the phrase, “we’ll do it this time as a …courtesy…,” once more in my life, I may not be able to refrain from explaining the true meaning of “courtesy”  which when dealing with a customer who is, in point of fact, already irritated that his costly investment , advertised and sold by the very same store, heralded as the very best, fell victim to spontaneous combustion, or was perhaps constructed over an Indian burial ground, and seems to have a mind of its own.

As you can see, that two mile walk home in the hot sun wound me up a bit.  I have contacted the SLiME Company though Facebook and have been referred to customer service.  So far so good.  I hope they have an explanation for their product.  Maybe it’s me.  Maybe I put air in the tube on the wrong day.  Maybe the planets have to be in a linier alignment or maybe I should have installed the inner tubes while facing south and standing on one foot.  I dunno!...  Time will tell. It’s my sincerest hope in this case that the company DOES NOT live up to their name…..I hope there is someone there who has their pants pulled up and is ready to help a stranded cyclist.

UPDATE:  I am truly amazed!  After communicating with a Customer Service  representative named Angela at SLiME Co, they actually took my concerns seriously enough to address them.  They have replaced the tubes with new ones, sent out a generous "care package," and have followed up.  I will even be sending them the tubes that failed so that they can review them to see whats going on.  They offered suggestions on how to best use their product, and really seemed to care about my experience and continued patronage.   I have stated that I would rather fix flats all day, and have the support of a company trying to better there product, than purchase stuff from someplace that could care less whether or not you come back again.  I hope the tubes work out.  That would be great!  But that aside, Its nice to know that there are companies out their willing to stand by their product and their customers.  Well done SLiME!  Well done!

Im Trying, Honest! Atomic Green Junk Food!

I'm such a child.  I can’t help it.  I’ve tried to grow up, I really have.  I’ve tried hard in fact.  I have a job, pay my bills, work hard…hey, I’m even in a grown up relationship with the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.  She’d have to be amazing to wake up next to a misfit like me every morning.  Eileen tolerates every crazy idea with a smile and a kiss, and is the most encouraging person on the planet.  However, try as I may…try as I might, and I am no stranger to trying and remain who I am.

That’s all a child needs really…..encouragement.  That little nod of approval that says, “you are nuts, but go on ahead with your silly self and give it a try.”  There is nothing more supportive or uplifting in one’s life, I think, than to have someone, or several somebodies, who make it their business to adopt an attitude of solidarity in the presence of those creative individuals they choose to love.

My life story could easily be punctuated by those hobbies and interests that have inspired me and propelled me toward new discoveries, adventure and fun.  Music was and is my first love.  At the age of four, a family friend, a guitarist, was probably the first to awaken in my young, growing brain the notion that I could do something besides eat, sleep and shit.  I can clearly remember sitting cross legged on the floor in front of Nole Chivers, the seventeen year old son of my mom’s friend, Val.    I asked him one day if I could “try” his guitar.  He smiled and looked down at me, still seated on my bum at his feet and said, “There’s no reason why you can’t try anything.”   Not long afterward, Nole was killed while racing his motorcycle.  I inherited his guitar at the age of four and a half.  His features has faded from my memory over time but his words to me have never left my brain, and are never far from my consciousness.

Nole would never know the power of what he said to me that day,  but as in that first time his words have changed my life repeatedly ever since.  I have never steered clear of the things that interest me, from that very first day on Nole’s carpet, with a giant guitar in my lap, to multi instrumental recordings.  From skydiving to learning to fly, sail, ride motorcycles and all manner of adventure, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity and talent to chase my dreams and have never been afraid to try anything.

Cycling further , yoga, and getting more fit have taking up a lot of my hobby time lately, but I need to get something off my chest.  I have a new love in my life now, and it’s pretty serious.  So serious that I fear I may be putting my own health and well being at risk.  Funyuns!  Oh my god I love Funyuns.  Little round crispy, loaded with nastiness, delicious, onion flavored rings of happiness.  Whoever invented the Funyun should get the Nobel Prize in Yumminess.  I bought  a bag a couple of weeks ago when Eileen and I took the Catamaran to the lake for a day in the sun and wind.  I almost never buy junk food, honest, but for some reason that lime green toxic waste bag caught my attention and I said to myself….”I’ll try it!”  Since then I have eaten way too many damn Funyuns.  I’m gonna turn into a Funyun if I don’t stop.  I feel so guilty.  They’re like crack for cyclists.  I think that had I discovered Funyuns in the 70’s, that by now I would be a frizzy haired, shirtless, nut job sneaking into abandoned houses with a bag of onions under one arm, a five gallon bucket in the other, building illegal Funyun labs just to feed my own disgusting habit. 

If I don’t get on top of this problem, things are gonna go south in a hurry.  At the store last week I found a giant bag of Funyuns with 12 little smaller bags inside.  Eu-bloody-reka!  What a score.  I tried not to appear too guilty at the checkout stand, but I still got the “look” from the clerk.  It’s the same look I got when I was a teenager, trying to slide on by with a Playboy and a pack of Marlboros nicely mixed in with cart full of groceries, hoping the clerk would be too busy to notice.  Just forget it!  They always notice and you always get the “look!”  Maybe it’s just me….I don’t know.

Today at work, I was putting in roman tub faucet.  My client, a cyclist coincidentally, asked how I had learned to be able to repair such a variety of residential issues.  My honest answer to him was that over the years, if I wasn’t familiar with something, I just tried it till I understood it.   Webster’s dictionary defines the term “autodidactic” as a self taught person.  That’s me I guess…..autodidactic.  I like being autodidactic, but wish there was a different word for it.  It doesn’t sound as pleasant as it is to be.  In fact, in my child like mind, it sounds like there ought to be “colony” for autodidactic people like they used to have for people with leprosy. “Oh, don’t go over there….he autodidactic!”   No matter, I will be autodidactic and learn to like it.  I wonder if all autodidactic people are prone to Funyun addictions.

All this talk of atomic lime green fat food has made me hungry.  There’s still a few little snack sized Funyun bags left in the pantry.  When they’re gone, that’s it.  No more!  I gotta stop.  Well maybe one more, just to be sure I don’t want any…..or if I buy just one big bag and eat them all I won’t want any more….or maybe….