Dear Blog Reader
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. The smoke has finally cleared from the 4thof July celebrations. You can tell that the economy could still be better. The denizens of Ingalls kept their powder dry until the 4th this year. In the years before the great Recession, the celebratory premature ignitions started as early as June 15th and lasted until July 15th in a raucous month long explosion of incendiary devices celebrating the birth of America. This year nary a bottle rocket, the penny candy of the fireworks world,was propelled into the air before the 4th. In a show of remarkable restraint, nearly all of the fireworks were saved until 4th in our small town. The dogs, for one, were pretty happy for the shortened season.
This is it; the big week, the count down to the Ride Across Indiana. The weather looks fairly promising with a wind out of the SW at 11 miles an hour, a 30% chance of isolated thunder storms, and a high of 83. That is not quite the 18 mph wind I was hoping for, but it doesn’t matter. I am going to start the race no matter what. We will see the results at the end of the day.
I have prepared as much as I can. The small animal sacrifices are continuing apace. I have smeared hot fudge over my front and back tires as an act of contrition for all of the empty calories that I have eaten over the past 6 months with the thought in the back of my mind, “This ride would be easier if there were less of me.” Oh well, no regrets. Actually, small regrets that I can live with.
During this week before, I have entered that awkward phase of any big life event; the guess what I’m doing phase, or the one track mind phase. It is that phase where one shamelessly turns any conversation to the most important topic in their world. I have entered conversations this week covering many different topics and turned them all to I’m riding across Indiana this Saturday.
“Crime in Indianapolis is terrible.”
“True. I’m riding across Indiana this Saturday.”
“I hear the swimming pool is closing for repairs.”
“I don’t know. I’m riding across Indiana this Saturday.”
“Can you bring milk home tonight dear?”
“I can’t. I’m riding across Indiana this Saturday.”
I would like to thank all of those who have put up with this repeated thematic onslaught. You patience has been appreciated. I have tried to be attentive, to listen, to join in your conversations, but I’m riding across Indiana this Saturday. I probably have not been this obsessed since I got my first pocket knife and took it to school for show and tell. I had found it. It was a piece of junk in a drawer on the farm. It had been discarded by my grandfather when the walnut facing had fallen off both sides, leaving only its unadorned guts behind. The blades were so dull and worn down that they would not have cut butter at a 4th of July picnic. But “sure I could keep it if I treated it with respect and was careful with it.”
Oh I treated it with respect and was granted the privilege of taking it to show and tell if I promised to keep it in my pocket until it was time for the show and tell unveiling. Pretty amazing isn’t it? We could take pocket knives to school way back in prehistoric times. Now, you would be expelled from school.
I would be amazed at that if I weren’t riding across Indiana this Saturday.
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