(I meant to post this six or eight weeks ago)
Light switch lives peel off like vapor trails or dreams you can't hold onto in the morning.
Super fun is what I'm talking about here... My motorcycle that is... Texas tea.
Just yesterday I heard that Wynonna Judd's husband and drummer "cactus" Moser had gotten into a motorcycle crash and had his left leg amputated above the knee. Well great. Not to be selfish but I was all geared up for a ride myself and these things have a way at finding their way into ones ears at the worst moments. A certain resentment perks up. Trying not to let the news creep in and rattle my enthusiasm I set out for an all day deal with a bottle of cold water and forty bucks.
Across hwy 49 through Mariposa and down to the peach trees and almonds of the central valley of California. my cousin has decided to get in on the ride and its a good thing. He has the back roads down to a science. So after a quick stop at his place for lunch he lead us out to skirt around the main roads through places where dogs and tractors outnumber cars three to one. Horses and bulls and out of commission bridges have a place here and you get the sense a condominium at this local might simply self implode under moral obligation. Business plans get written with sticks in the dirt if you know the right people. A good hot day to be alive and riding your motorbike. Meeting up with uncle G, we headed out toward Orestimba creek. A dead end, the road turns to dirt here and if we had bolt cutters we could open up the gate and get all the way to the coast. This is old Cali, there's history here you can smell it, It is a place where where the western world saw fit to run the California Aqua Duct straight through some sacred Indian hills, the European thought process is a marvel and its stands out in a crowd when you consider the consistency alone. No remorse, Its fuck you all the time. Odd that nearly every doorstep has a mat that reads "welcome." Is that supposed to be funny? Rusty barbed wire comes closer to the truth in our Roman Pirate society, so why not embrace it. Set up a perimeter. "Be who you is" right out in the open so the rest of us don't accidentally buy the house next door. Anyway, after a bummer history lesson to remind me how things really get done round here, the three of us get back to rolling our Honda's through the empty back roads.
Uncle G has fixed up grandpas old 77 Hondamatic and it was nice to hear the engine sounding so good. This is the very same bike Grandpa used to give all us kids rides on way back when. Grandpa was good at making it a fun outing. He might say. Wh a d d a y a thinks up over there? ....And veer off the paved road onto dirt and just as soon abandon the dirt and head across the grassy foothills of squaw valley through cows and bulls making it as close to an Indiana Jones adventure as possible in my eyes, The best sort of memories a kid could have. When we got old enough to ride ourselves he trusted us with his bikes and gave us pointers like. " always stay a little bit scared of this bike and you won't get over confident and crash" I have met folks that have scrunched their face at me when I passed on this bit of cowboy wisdom. Some of whom have since come off of their bikes where as my cousin, my uncle and myself have not. ( knock on Formica! ) Just sayin'. Time is a mediator.
I think it's the word "scared"... Dudes don't want to hear it, we are too cool for school.
Trying to keep a kid from crashing puts you into the position of vocalizing the proper mind set for safe riding. What does a shotgun wielding cowboy say to a 15 year old kid to keep him from busting his head open? Exactly. I might just as easily pass it on in this way. You need to pay serious attention to what you and everything else is doing in order to stay safe, and keep the speed down. But put this way, minds will wander and "yea yea yea I know" creeps in. I feel I am beating a dead horse here but wouldn't it be cool if this advise saved someone's life? Like all good advise it's a cross trainer and works on lots of levels at once. Stay a little nervous and stay alive. One percent will do. The meek might inherit the earth but I submit that the mellow inherit the road.
Back to the near present...last night in fact.
It had gotten dark and after parting ways I had a good distance ahead of me to get back home. Up to Mariposa and back across hwy 49 the altitude pops you up into the cool clean mountain air. The headlight behind me is a phantom. Ha it's the moon and in August it will sit on your shoulder like a spirit guide. The Star's are out and come all the way down to the ground. I could smell flowers and death and cedars in the same minute. The water from a creek hits your senses a half mile before you cross it and when you do, you are forced to see the bugs and bats and this stream as one in the same. They rip on by like the sheets being pulled suddenly off of your bed. In a Doppler shift instant, new thoughts accumulate on the front end, compress and get replaced with new stimuli. the memory of the moment drag's a bit at a rate approaching profound but managing to hover mostly in a zone more b e s t l y referred to as "stupid fun."
By the time I arrive and drop it into first gear to grind up my long dirt and gravel driveway I feel like the miles have coaxed out something very Zen. A big brass knocker pounding out Buddha consciousness to the beat of my little blue Honda's inline four. Together, they have teamed up on my selves and their impressions of our ghosts, our world and the resilience in the mix that sustains a man suspended in the present. Its not hard to attach meanings and unusual attention to these ordinary moments as I turn off the fuel switch and close the garage, the cooling engine ticking away fades out to reveal a chorus of crickets and frogs singing their hearts out. I might be pleased as punch if I let it feel supernatural...and I do.
post script // My thoughts go out to Mr. Moser and family, (a man I've never met) I hope to see you out riding again and pounding those skins real soon. Keep on keeping on.
sincerely, B.E.B. ships log August 22, 2012
