Scooter in the Sticks

Exploring life on a Vespa Scooter and Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle.

Are Scooter Riders Different?

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Are scooter riders different?

The moto-culture might suggest certain kinds of people are attracted to certain types of machines.  The man or woman who finds themselves prowling the Harley Davidson showroom being a world away from another couple wandering through their local Vespa dealership. My own observations lead me to believe any differences have less to do with machinery and more to do with the innate personality traits of individuals.

The video below depicts a love relationship with a scooter rider but it could just as easily have unfolded for the right Ducati, Harley or Suzuki rider.

I have two dogs sleeping at my feet while I write.  My heart swells at the connection we have but there’s always a hint of sadness in recognition of the lightning fast speed at which their lives unfold.  I see the looks on their faces when I ride to work and if I let them I bet they would run after me as far as their legs could take them.  Much like the goose flying along with the scooter.

Is their a goose in your life?

Where’s the Beef?

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Vespa GTS scooter at Kelly's Steak and Seahouse in Boalsburg, PAWhere’s the beef? 

In Boalsburg, Pennsylvania at Kelly’s Steak and Seafood.  On the roof to me more precise.

It’s also where the Vespa stopped this evening on the way home from work to pick up a couple prime rib sandwiches at the bar.  The same bar that 40 years ago saw a guy throw a dead groundhog on to show off a particularly large example he acquired while hunting.  Back then it was the Boalsburg Steakhouse and quite a bit different than it is today.  It had a unique mix of local color in the bar.

The big Hereford steer on the roof was the same but that’s about all.  Kelly’s is definitely upscale in comparison and the food is much better.

And I seem to remember that instead of a Vespa scooter in the parking lot I would have been leaving behind an orange 1970 Volkswagen Beetle.  I suppose everyone has places they go that the minute you arrive you feel the sweep of time.  For me, this place does it and I feel the pangs of nostalgia as I face the sudden reminder of the sweep of time.

Where has it gone…

Why I Blog: Year in Pictures

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Just found this video that my Google plus account produced — an automated construction using images that I posted to my old Blogger account that were sitting in a Picasa album.  Facebook builds similar things at the end of the year.  Watching I was struck by how well it depicted, in part, some of the things that took place in my life.  Paging through old family photo albums that my mother fastidiously curated and maintained do the same sort of thing.  But who has time to carefully mount and label images with meaningful captions anymore?

Certainly not me.

It did get me thinking about Scooter in the Sticks and the reasons why I blog.

  1.  To get rich.  (Hah, fat chance, pipe dream, immersion in denial)
  2. To sort things out that perplex or bother me.  (This is absolutely true)
  3. To practice writing.  (That’s how it started.  A blank page doesn’t frighten me anymore)

After looking at the video a couple times I realized there’s another reason — I want to share something of myself, leave something behind to help my family, and my infant granddaughter know something about what goes on between my ears.

I never really knew my father despite having spent a lot of time with him.  We were close, he was supportive, but I never really knew what he thought about, what bothered him, concerned him.  In art school I produced a series of videos about myself and I remember screening one for a class and afterwards several students — decades younger than me — told me how much they wished their fathers had made something like this.  Like me, they didn’t really know their fathers.

The Year in Pictures doesn’t reveal any secrets about me.  But it does reflect some of the things I’ve done.  As I approach 900 posts on this blog I can’t help but believe there’s some insight about what’s important to me.  I don’t have anything about my father that would fill one blog post that’s not a photograph.  After he was gone there were so many questions that I wished I had asked.

So many.

And the same goes for my mother though she revealed a bit more.  But much was unsaid and unlooked for.  Too bad now.

Do you know your father and mother?

 

Why We Live

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Every so often it’s good to have a reminder of what’s important, what needs done, what the coming days will bring.  Work, family, friends — it’s different for all of us.

I’ve watched this video at least a dozen times and with each viewing I take away something different about myself and what it means to live, or more precisely, not live.  It’s easy to get swept up in what Thoreau termed quiet desperation. The precise quote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”, may leave you wondering if you’re most men, or women.

Watching the men in the video ride reminds me of how riding, or any other activity you feel passionate about, can help release the song inside.

So take a few minutes to watch the video and ask yourself, “Is my song still inside?”.

Post-Heart Attack Riding

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Vespa GTS 250ie scooter on rural farm lane It’s been five weeks since an emergency room doctor said to me, “You’re having a heart attack.”

Hearing those words didn’t have a lot of power at that moment because of the pain and agony and I was more interested in actions to make it all go away.  There was no thinking of death or damage, just a singular focus on feeling better.  But since that night a lot of different thoughts have percolated into consciousness and changed the discussions in my head toward the expected recognition of a brush with death, a new appreciation of mortality, and a heightened sense of time as if I can see my own sand rushing through an hourglass.

Riding to work last week I noticed myself monitoring my body — measuring the ease of breathing, noting any unexplained twinge or riffle in function, reaching to determine any sense of heart rate or rhythm.  It lasted moments and was gone as the sky seemed to brighten for an instant or a breath of wind moved over me.

I know people who have been overwhelmed by these assessments and evaluations to the point that their lives are reduced to a quiet waiting for the next cardiac event.  It’s certain to come, there’s just no way to know when.  So far these trains of thought have been more curiosity than anxiety and haven’t intruded in any real way on the decisions I make.

Or so I tell myself.

I rode in a hurry today on Interstate 99 — 70 mph on a hundred mile there and back again ride to deliver Father’s Day greetings.  I did it because I wanted to know if I could.  Moving over the road I imagined hours and hours on the superslab crossing county lines and state lines in an imaginary trip to nowhere.  And the Vespa kept hitting the rev limiter reminding me we had limits.

In cardiac rehab, so far I’m not hit a rev limiter as they push my heart and body on machines to help me know my limits.  It’s part of my post-heart attack riding.

And just like a ride on the Vespa, I’m learning that lessons of the body, mind and spirit are important for the ride — on the road, and through life…