22,000 Miles and Counting

When I left the house this afternoon I had no intention of riding the 60 some miles I still needed to put the odometer over the 22,000 mile mark, but at about 20 miles out I decided that I might as well go for it since I had nothing more pressing to do today.  I headed out on a road that I figured would put me about halfway there and then just kept going past the half, not deciding till I had about 20 miles left to hit the milestone in which direction I'd go to complete the intended mileage.

Other than watching the miles tick by I had no particular thoughts going through my head until my nose caught the scent of the deep woods along a stretch through the uninhabited forest.  It's said that smells can take us back to particular times and places more quickly and with richer memories of specific events than our other senses, and today that was certainly the case as the smell of ferns and such hit me.

I was in the back seat of my junior high girlfriend's father's car, she and I still in our bathing suits from having spent the afternoon at their lake house.  The sight of her body in her yellow bikini, the closeness of her bare thigh pressed against mine, and that look in her eyes that made me melt all came back to me as soon as that smell of the woods came to me on the scooter.  It was a fantastic memory, and I was smiling from ear to ear as I recalled that moment from my past that lives in that part of my brain where the very best of memories are stored.

We parted ways after high school, but she's still in the area on her second marriage and I confess that I sometimes ride the scooter past her house when I'm out in that direction for a ride, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.  Whether I'd have the balls to speak to her if I were going by and she was on her porch, I don't know.  The last time I saw her was many years ago at my grandmother's wake, and even then as she stood beside me near Gram's casket my mind was whirling with the many memories we'd made together, some admittedly with our clothes off.

As I'd noted in the second paragraph up there, I had no particular thoughts going through my head until my thoughts went back to her, but as I continued my ride toward a new odometer mark she kept coming back to me in snippets of pleasant memories.  Dare I say I still carry somewhat of a little torch for her?  She'll always be a special part of my life though she hasn't been in it for years.

It was hotter than hell out there today and I'm hoping I had enough of a base tan so that I won't be sunburned later.  I probably went through about three quarters of a gallon of drinks as I rode, grabbing a gulp whenever I could keep going with only one hand on the handlebars and stopping for refills as needed.  I stuck to roads where I could just keep going for miles without having to stop for signs or signals so I didn't get too hot with a constant breeze washing over me.

Without planning exactly when the 22,000 would hit and where I'd be at the time, I simply circled a neighborhood in which I knew I'd be able to put down the kickstand no matter where I'd be so I could get a few pictures.  It happened here at the intersection of Yeaver Ave. and Murray St. in Forty Fort, a small borough across the river from home and only a few miles away from home.

There's a finale to the day's story that put a huge smile on my face.  After having spent some of my ride thinking about my former girlfriend, as I headed out of the neighborhood where I'd stopped to get the pictures I lifted my head from the very satisfactory view of the odometer and out of the corner of my eye I spied a young woman in a bikini in a backyard.  With my camera still on the lanyard, I slowed enough to get a picture of her as a bonus to add to the day's celebratory nature.

All that was left was to celebrate in proper fashion, with some food!  The nearby McDonald's was a perfect stop with cheap burritos and my final drink refill before heading home to bask in the accomplishment of having ridden 22,000 miles on two wheels.

I have only 2,901 miles to go to have ridden the distance of the earth's circumference!  I sure hope I can complete that equivalent circuit on my beloved Piaggio and with my head as full of wonderful thoughts and memories as the past 22,000 miles have provided.

TODAY'S RUN

When Everything Changes But Not in a Bad Way

I’d just written four decent sized paragraphs here, but then I reread them, highlighted the whole mess, and hit the Delete key because although they were decent sized, they weren’t decent all together, and I just wasn’t satisfied with them.  Unfortunately, I’ve found that to be the case frequently since I retired from teaching.  My thoughts aren’t the same as they were when I was still teaching, but I haven’t yet figured out if that’s a good thing or not.

In the past when I wrote here it wasn’t difficult to pick a theme and more or less stick with it throughout a post.  Now, though, I’m finding that after a paragraph or two I’m heading down an entirely different path of thought from where I’d just been a sentence or two before.  To be certain, in “real life” our thoughts are generally scattered all over the place as a day goes on, but in writing I was always taught, and taught my own classes, to write thematically within a given framework of thought that was determined at the beginning.

 Retirement changes all kinds of things and I’m thinking that my wanting to run in all different directions when I’m writing now is just another manifestation of my change in lifestyle from working full time to every day being like a Saturday.  It used to be the case that when I was out riding on the scooter I used the opportunities to be alone and focused to do some introspection – to dig through the mental cobwebs and clutter and just clear my head.  Now I’m more like a little kid at an amusement park while I’m out riding, looking all around me and appreciating the sheer thrill of things, the wind in my face, the things I see and hear and smell.  Although I’m still focused on the road ahead, eyes always scanning for bumps, potholes, gravel, and jackass drivers, my thoughts aren’t focused on any one thing.

For most of my 34 years in classrooms I loved the job, the kids, the subjects I taught, the moving through a typical school year day by day, yet now that I’m away from it I can look back and see that it was too much how I defined myself.  I can’t quite put this into words, but when you’re in the workforce, no matter how much you might enjoy your actual work, there’s a seriousness about it all that is always with you even in moments of seemingly great levity and after you punch out.  Even on weekends and during holiday breaks.  Even during summer vacation.  Retirement changes all of that!

 Now that I don’t need to use my time on the scooter to clear my head, I’m a little lost in figuring out what to think about when I’m riding.  My thoughts are like the roads I take often unknown in terms of where they’re going to take me and where I’m going to end up.  And while I’m liking that, I’m still a little unsettled by it because it’s so different than what I’d grown used to.

I suppose that’s a good part of why I haven’t been writing much here too.  I don’t come back from a ride as I used to with a clear thought of what I might write about and as a result I find myself too often with a diarrhea of words but a constipation of ideas.  Nothing’s worse than wanting to write, but not having something I want to write about, and that’s why I sit down here only to find my fingers rather than my brain  moving me in all different directions and find myself working Backspace and Delete like nobody’s business.

 I rather like that one of my favorite bloggers now breaks up a single post into different topics with separate headings and while it would make a lot of sense for me to adopt that style too I feel like I’d be stealing the concept and that wouldn’t sit right with me.  So I don’t know if I should write short posts often, or write longer ones less frequently.

Oh, hell!  It’s not that it matters terribly.  It’s not like I’m getting streams of great traffic here, but I know there are the few of you who check back from time to time to see if I’ve cranked out anything worthwhile and I do like to have something worth reading sitting here when you do.  Until I figure out what I’d like to do I’ll scratch out what I can and post some pretty ride pictures when I can’t.

Now that I don't need to count days till a summer vacation life is decidedly much more free, but awkwardly different.  Hopefully I'll grow into this every day's a Saturday thing!

 Who said retirement was supposed to be easy?

Over the Hill

I took the time shortly after February rolled over into March to turn 60.  60!  The official age of “old people” as I thought when I was a kid.  60!  The age of gray and thinning hair, age spots, aches and pains, medical poking and prodding, and loads of other questionably fun things.  I still feel mentally as if I just got out of high school, but here I am in this old man’s body thinking in usual Slovak (i.e. morbid) fashion that my life is ¾ over if I live to the age my dad did. 

I remember Dad driving me to high school and then college on his way to work on many mornings.  He’d often talk about when he was in high school, and every time he did that I thought that it was SO long ago and wondered how he remembered things seemingly so easily.  Never did it occur to me that when I was 16, Dad was only 24 years out of high school himself, yet here I am now 42 years past when I wore my first mortarboard feeling like it was just a turn of my head behind me.

My family made my turning 60 something to celebrate and that made the whole crawling into another decade older overnight much easier.  When I was born, my mom and dad and I lived with my maternal grandparents and my mom’s brother who is only 12 years my senior.  He was and is more like a big brother to me than my uncle.  He lives a few streets over here in “the shoebox” as he calls this neighborhood, still the same one we all grew up in, and we’re still as close as anything.  For my birthday, he and his girlfriend made dinner and sent it over.  I was in tears so wonderful it was to have my birthday dinner made with much love.

We had the first of my three birthday cakes that evening at Mom’s house as per family tradition.  It was a chocolate cheesecake!  We were able to coax Mom, who usually avoids having her picture taken at all costs, to take a picture of me on this noteworthy occasion.  I’m blessed to have her smiling next to me all these years later.

My official birthday party was two days later on Saturday.  My kids had the great idea of having me pose for cake smash pictures.  The cake smash concept started with people putting their infants in front of their first birthday cakes and letting the little buggers go wild, digging into their cakes and smearing them all over their tiny faces with great glee.  The idea spread in time to having 30 year old women doing the same to their birthday cakes.  Well, why not a 60 year old man my daughters wondered.  My elder girl who manages a FastSigns franchise and is a free lance photographer got it all together while my younger daughter made the cake for me to have fun with.  I think it turned out rather well!

After that it was time to get cleaned up and head to the party my family hosted in my honor at a local restaurant.  My younger girl got me this shirt to wear to the party and I loved it.  I have much affection for the poop emoji!

I had a wonderful time with close family and friends.  We had a superb dinner and nobody was in a hurry to leave so I had plenty of time to visit with everybody at leisure and to share favorite memories with all of them. 

The old man with his sweet daughters.

 Young friends make turning old a lot easier.  Well, okay - younger by one or two years at least.

 I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when my sister presented me with a senior citizen box of goodies including prune treats, high fiber cereal, and other products for us old people to enjoy.

 With everybody’s generous gifts I was able to get one of the very best Plantronics Bluetooth headsets to use when I’m on the scooter.  I’m now able once again (after being without this feature for a few years when my favorite Motorola cell phones took out the auto answer option) to take calls when I’m scootering without having to take a hand off the handlebar to wriggle it under my helmet and press the answer button.  Simply by saying, “Answer,” I can take an incoming call and just as easily ignore one with a verbal command.

I love them all for making turning 60 as painless as they possibly could.  In the week that’s passed since then I’ve found myself lamenting my age just a little to myself, but all in all I can’t complain.  There’s much to live for and now that every day’s a Saturday I don’t know that I’ve ever had a better time.  Now all I need is for March to stop feeling like January and for the snow to stop falling every couple of days so I can get back on the Piaggio and ride to my heart’s content.