Scooter in the Sticks

Chocolates by Leopold

October 24, 2015 by Scooter in the Sticks 18 Comments

Lately there’s been three things in the top case on my Vespa — extra gloves, a Rev’It rain suit and a box of chocolates. Just a half mile down the street from my home is a new gourmet candy store named Chocolates by Leopold. No discussion is forthcoming regarding to my long and tortured addiction to chocolate but an explanation is in order regarding the significance of the the candy in the top case.

For the past eleven days I’ll been recovering from a flare up of an old back injury — one severe enough to keep me in bed for a few days, off work for a few more, and periodically cursing, gasping or wincing in pain should my movements or actions cross a difficult to see line. Riding was out of the question until I attempted a ride on Friday morning with the chocolate store in mind. The chocolates are exceptional and have become a part of my daily tea ritual. The ride has been and continues to be torture — especially getting the scooter on the centerstand.

Woe is me.

But there is chocolate.

The store is a quiet, elegant place offering a selection of chocolates that fits even the most robust imagination. As I write Kim is enjoying a chili truffle. A hot cup of Earl Grey with some dark chocolate covered graham crackers await me. If this post is short and devoid of spirit — you know why. The candy is made at their headquarters in northeast Pennsylvania.

Ali presents my current chocolate obsession. The dark chocolate is different than any I’ve had before — not bitter but not sweet — an exceptional match to the cracker inside. I can’t write much longer with some waiting in the kitchen.

The most unusual part of today’s visit was not the chocolate though but rather something Ali brought up with the question, “How far do you ride?”

Confessing the half-mile trip from home to the store I did share some of the expanded capabilities of the Vespa. And then I discovered she is a motorcycle rider herself and from the brief conversation not your typical rider at all. She rides a 1977 Honda CB550K that’s been transformed by herself, her brother and her dad into a cafe racer. She described the modifications that were done including a recent change out of the kick starter. The project bike was built up from a barely running mess that her brother found “in some dude’s garage”.

Riders are everywhere.

So if you are riding or driving through the area and crave chocolate like I do, or know someone you want to impress with your excellent taste, stop by and see what they have to offer. You can find them at:

Address: 107 W Main St, Boalsburg, PA 16827
Phone:(814) 769-9398

And now I’m on my way to put the kettle on and ready myself for afternoon tea.

If I can’t ride the Vespa at least I can enjoy chocolate.

Craving Experience

October 20, 2015 by Scooter in the Sticks 26 Comments

It’s been over a week since I’ve ridden the Vespa GTS scooter. I miss the feeling of flying, the fluid ease of moving along the road, the fragrance of autumn leaves and the piercing glare of the hot setting sun. Riding fires my spirit and imagination. It’s a drug that has me craving experience and I want more. The piercing discomfort provided by my lumbar spine has dulled the craving and allowed for the embrace of other experiential options.

The view from a Honda Odyssey minivan on a chill October morning isn’t the choice of dreams but I’ve learned to accept experience where I find it. If I can’t ride then I can drive. And someday I’ll be unable to drive and some other choice will be made which will lead to some other experience. Perhaps I only need worry when I cease to crave experience — maybe then I’ll be dead.

The camera has always been my ticket to experience taking me to concerts, football games, parties and trips. I’ve met people I don’t belong with or was otherwise too shy to approach. The camera imparts a superpower to those who avail themselves of it. The penalty for use is an addict’s craving for more experience, to see and hear and learn and discover.

And when life rules out experience on the back of a Vespa scooter, well then, I take it where I can.

Despite a culture fat with testimony of far flung adventure and travel, I believe a rich world of experience stands before me, within reach of my eyes and hands, a simple acceptance of the magic of the moment presented as I draw each breath. It requires little more than paying attention, even if that attention is gnawed by discomfort or plans interrupted.

I’ve been to Saint’s Cafe hundreds of times. Each visit often involves the same food, chair, or people. And still I’ve not fully experienced the place, still I find myself craving experience that is fed by the things I’ve not seen before — a reflection, a pair of shoes, a face or a conversation — the possibilities seem endless.

On the way home I stopped to see Emma who I don’t see often enough. She’s not sure what to make of the old man before her who’s interrupting her own quest for experience. In those eyes is a future I can’t quite discern and I admit to more than a little wonder at the life she’ll lead and the world in which she’ll hopefully find herself craving experience much like her grandfather. I have no illusions of knowing what the future will be or how she’ll embrace it. In a daydream I’ve imagined her at 16 hounding her mother and father to let her have a scooter so she can ride with her grandfather. The dream quickly evaporates as I realize I’ll be closing toward 80 when that happens, or if that happens. There’s magic in her eyes — for her, and for me.

Thoughts are different when I’m riding with much less time spent of things that could be and more on the experiences I’m living. Spending the past week comparatively immobile I realize there’s room for both and that craving experience need only be one avenue of living.

But I’m ready. I plugged in the Battery Tender yesterday, I ritual acknowledging the approach of winter. I’m ready to ride. The spirit is willing but the flesh remains weak…

Interrupted Riding

October 15, 2015 by Scooter in the Sticks 29 Comments

If you ride enough you’ll get confused.

You may wonder where you are, what you’re doing, or even why you are sitting on your scooter or motorcycle at all. As much as I try to let the common concerns of everyday life behind they show up with the slightest provocation. Looking at these signs during a stop of a ride last weekend suddenly had me back in my office wrestling with a project that I’m having trouble making a decision.

Intrusive thoughts can lead to interrupted riding — a tarnishing of the escape I hope to make.

It wasn’t until I looked at this photograph later that I wondered what it was trying to say, especially since it was along an ordinary road with no choices to make.

Perhaps it was a hallucination.

Paul Ruby and I were on our way to breakfast in Alexandria, Pennsylvania — a meal served at the Methodist Church as part of Hartslog Day. Neither of us was familiar with the event nor were prepared for the sudden appearance of thousands of people gathering for a celebration which closed the town to traffic and led to more interrupted riding.

The older I get, the more seriously work to avoid crowds. Three is a crowd. We rode past Alexandria with new plans.

In my dreams I spend most of my time riding and absorbing the scenery — a quiet meditative act that allows me to ease into a life that’s less stressful, more intentional. Whatever that means.

This building is the Huntingdon Furnace Grist Mill which is part of, I think, the Huntingdon Furnace complex between Warriors Mark and Seven Stars. I wondered how many other men or women have stood where I was looking at the shadows on the stones cast by the morning sun?

Looking at the picture now I can only think of how there’s more interrupted riding — this time due to a sudden flare of an old back injury — one occurring in high school while attempting to become a pole vaulter.

It’s discouraging when things don’t go as planned despite how much I try not to hold onto expectations. The autumn world is a dazzling time to ride the Vespa. Our slow meandering path through the dappled colored leaves made the lack of a specific place to eat unimportant.

Sitting here now writing, knowing I can’t ride, knowing even getting out of the chair will involve wincing pain and struggle — it just sucks.

I’ve been here before. The last time was in 2008. Before that every five or six years since the pole vaulting nonsense some insignificant event would trigger a debilitating situation. Decades ago it became known as Saab Battery Disease — the result of pulling the battery from my 1969 Saab 99. Years latter it was a pair of wet jeans pulled from the washing machine. This time it was sitting in a chair at dog class for Lily.

Interrupted riding plans.

On the second day of chiropractic care I was sent for an x-ray of my spine just to confirm radiographically that my ankylosing spondylitis hasn’t escaped the grasp of my current medications and this is still just pole vaulting interrupting riding plans.

I would be pissed if this current situation is spondylitis related. Would make the whole “not retiring yet” seem wrongheaded.

Mostly, I’m frustrated that I can’t ride. Getting the Vespa on and off the centerstand would be a nightmare.

Paul and I eventually found a place to eat but not until bypassing two Hartslog Day choices and one out of business hole in the wall establishment. We ended up at Top’s Diner along US Route 22 between Mount Union and Huntingdon. The place was crowded with Penn State fans on their way to the football game but well worth the wait for breakfast.

When we left home the temperature was 46F — chilly by any measure but mitigated greatly by the sunshine. Leaving the diner it was nearly 60F which is near perfect riding weather in my book.

The ride home is often discouraging — the entire time you know something you love is ending. I hate that melancholy feeling. Maybe it’s because I’ve not exhausted my riding lust. It must be how my dogs feel when we head home before they’ve tired of chasing the tennis ball or swimming in the pond.

I’d happily take on that melancholy feeling right now in exchange for the nagging back pain. An hour ago I almost collapsed in the street as I tried to shuffle quickly ahead of oncoming cars. And almost anything that falls to the ground stays there. Retrieval means and complex process of descent and hands and knees work before calling upon my best MacGyver skills to get myself back up. And both directions involve cursing and cringing.

Someone once told me that “life sucks and then you die.”

Life is great right now. Really great.

Vespa in a Small Town

October 7, 2015 by Scooter in the Sticks 12 Comments

As my Vespa closes in on 30,000 miles I’m reminded that the scooter is good for long and short rides. This evening after retrieving dinner (which hangs nicely from the purse hook) I stopped to make a picture in my quaint home town of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. The town was established over 200 years ago along a route pioneers used to travel west. The buildings here were likely built around 1825 and part of the Sara Sweet House which is now home to the Boalsburg Heritage Museum.

I like living and riding a Vespa in a small town. It’s the perfect place to launch two-wheeled adventures. Even the little ones involving food.

The Joy of Less

October 6, 2015 by Scooter in the Sticks 24 Comments

I’m no minimalist. I’m haunted by stuff.

Francine Jay’s book The Joy of Less describes how stuff can weigh you down. Her advice to imagine all your possessions being chained to your waist makes me think of Jacob Marley’s ghost in A Christmas Carol weighed down by the mess he crafted in life. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to sort out my relationship with stuff. Jay’s book offers a glimmer of hope that things can change.

If you’re wrestling with your own stuff, check out the book… The Joy of Less.

Riding the Vespa scooter is an exercise in simplicity of which I’m reminded each time I’m on the road. Last week on the way to work I considered my two-wheeled needs against my two-wheeled desires. Desire has led me down dark paths and left me strangled by things I don’t need or want. I don’t need anything other than the Vespa right now. More stuff never got me anywhere. Recognizing desire for what it is may save my soul. Or at least many dollars…

I only have a vague idea of what minimalism might be in my life. Visually, I’ve always been drawn to scenes like this that I saw last week during my ride to work — empty places constructed of simple elements of shape, color and texture. With lots of stuff in my space, at home and at work, nothing is simple. I’m faced with a scream of chaotic material.

Rain can wash the world clean — in a figurative sense at least. Noise and activity is scaled back as a large part of daily living retreats toward shelter. On the road I’m left with the scooter and my thoughts. Sitting in my office I look around and see all the things that require attention — if only to throw them away. Postpone for a day and the collection grows.

Is it a coincidence so few people appear in my photographs? Or in my life? There was a time when I would self-identify as shy. Or anti-social. Now I recognize a strong need to be alone; with my thoughts. Not that I’m a deep thinker, but if I allow my thoughts to become as cluttered as the spaces around me, I’ll lose my mind. It will become, as a friend likes to describe things gone awry, a shit show.

Shit show.

I don’t know what’s ahead. I’ve shed my Leica rangefinder camera system. A mountain of photography books will be next along with clothes and shoes that should have been disposed of years ago. Tools and gadgets and a host of camping and backpacking gear silently await a similar fate.

Francine Jay lit a fuse with her book. Finally, after all these years, maybe there is some freedom on the road ahead.

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