Dear Blog Reader
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. Today is a
big day. As I start to write, it is early Saturday morning. I hope to write
until daylight, and then get on my bike and start the serious work of 80 miles.
This will equal one half of the Ride Across Indiana ride that will be happening
in July. I am excited and a bit scared. 160 miles in one day is a greater
challenge than any I have faced on a bike. One of the questions old people are
asked from time to time is do you wish that you would have done anything
different. For me it will be one thing when I get asked that impertinent
question by some whippersnapper. I should have ridden across Indiana
As I have been out riding more, I have encountered more and
more of nature. The glowing eyes of raccoons and opossums have been tracking me
from the side of the road. Last Wednesday evening, I interrupted a herd of does
having a baby shower for the next generation of assassin deer. That’s right. I
came over a rise in the road to find 8 pairs of eyes staring at me from the
side ditch. The ensuing panic sent deer running every where. If they ever shift
from flight to fight, I am a dead bicyclist. A look at the calendar shows that
the next generation of my enemies will be hitting the ground in about 8 weeks.
It appears that the go to gift for fawn showers is the Propeal antler
sharpener; “as seen on TV.”
The hunt continues for the Malaysian flight. If you are a
passenger on that flight and are violating the no electronic devices rule and
reading this blog, send me a text; “Oli Oli In Come Free.” You have been hiding long enough. The news
coverage is getting out of hand here. The lack of information has created an
information vacuum and as everyone knows nothing fills a vacuum like stupidity;
well that and the little beads from a bean bag chair that has exploded after
trying to body surf across the kitchen floor. It is hard to fill the time of
wall to wall coverage with; “it still has not been found.” I admit that last
week I offered a bit of speculation as to what happened. My thoughts about its
disappearance being rapture related generated a couple of interesting
responses. The best was “I never thought that heaven’s population would be skewed
so heavily to the Asian race.”
After listening to two weeks of speculation, I am sad to say
that my rapture bit isn’t that far out of the mainstream. I have heard the
Bermuda Triangle, alien abduction; the CIA stole it, terrorists, pilot suicide.
The dumbest one by far is “could the disappearance have been caused by a black
hole?” Really, Mr. Newscaster? That’s what is rolling around in your pea sized
brain. You do realize that the gravitational pull of a black hole is strong
enough that it sucks in everything; whole planets, galaxies, are sucked in by a
black hole’s gravitational pull. Even light speeding by (at well the speed of
light) can’t escape the forces exerted by a black hole. It would be more likely
that Scotty was the engineer on that flight and he got the warp drive working
at Captain Kirk’s insistence and earth was sucked in by the black hole and they
escaped. Right now, the Malaysian flight is looking to land on Mars. Its
passengers wondering “was I just left behind?”
Don’t you have to question the value of a humanities
education when it leaves you with the impression that it is possible that a
plane was gobbled up by a black hole lurking around Asia
some place. I mean really at some point one has to consider unplugging life
support in this case. There is no discernable brain activity.
I was sucked into a metaphorical black hole just last
Sunday. You will remember that it was cold, gray and windy. I had just sat down
in front of a little electric space heater, a quilt thrown over my shoulders.
The warmth and the noise of the little fan transported me through time. One of
my earliest memories is sitting in front of the dryer in the laundry room of
our home. For some reason, there was a hole in the venting near its front that
let warm moist air escape into the house. I remember spending hours in there. I
remember the slight clunk of an out of round drum, the whir of the motor and
the warm moist air enveloping me. I learned to tie my dad’s work shoes there.
Practicing the loop, loop, over, under and through over and over until I could
pass kindergarten. Maybe I had to learn to get into kindergarten. I don’t
remember. I would mourn when the cloths would get dry and became very excited
when using a stool, learned to turn the knob and add more time.
As I grew older, and became useful on the farm for bucket
feeding calves and other chores, the visits to the dryer became fewer and farer
between. That is when I found the chair in front of the bulk tank cooler. It
was an aluminum lawn chair with green and white webbing that sat in the milk
house. For warming effect and mesmerizing mechanical noise it was a stealth bomber
compared to the biplane of the dryer.
The bulk tank cooler was a heat pump that through the
application of gas laws, using Freon, compressors and two huge fans would cool
300 gallons of 100 degree cow’s milk down to 36 degrees in about 3 hours. It
was a serious example of the laws of thermodynamics. It also created a lot of
heat, but it was a dry heat. For those humanities educated newscasters, a black
hole came down and sucked all of the heat out. That heat, the wind blowing
across your body, and the mechanical noise of the vacuum pump and pulsators
from the milking equipment all combined to the perfect resonance for who I am
way down in my core. In my core, I am an introvert. I am a day dreamer. I like
a bit of background noise to sooth my slightly autistic tendencies. I loved
sitting in that chair.
I loved it so much that my dad spent years chasing me away
from there, giving my tasks to fill the time, so I wouldn’t be found there feet
propped up, day dreaming, or napping. He rightly knew that discipline and
ambition when not naturally present were lessons to be taught and learned. He
was persistent and at times frustrated by my persistence. A kid asleep in a
chair wasn’t going to feed very many calves. Over time the lessons paid off.
The time in front of the heat became a reward and a not a right.
I am grateful for that lesson. I am living the dream. I am
married to the lovely Miss Beverly. I have lovely well adjusted kids, a good
job, and good home. I am blessed. I am blessed like I never would have been
blessed if left to sit in front of those fans to while away the time. And you
know, some day when that young whippersnapper asks me when I am 149 years old,
“when where you happiest?” I will say “when I was sitting in that chair in the
milk house.” It was nice to visit last Sunday.
Take care,
Roger.
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