mo-sheen

Took a motorcycle ride Down to Willow Street to check on JimmyZ's caravan.  He asked me to grab a credit card from the glove box.  Who am I to argue?  Jimmy's Harley is currently moonlighting with another rider, yours truly.  We just had the 10K service done, replaced the battery and got a new back tire.  I say "we" did these things but I had actually very little to do with them, OR what I had to do with them were the fun and enjoyable parts.  Jimmy paid for it and the mechanics at Lancaster HD did the work. I dropped off and picked up.  The fat boy rode like a dream before, it's another, different, better kind of dream now.  And I'm not sure but I might look even cooler on it, if you can imagine.  Country roads sluicing new planted fields, gently bruised evening sky, smells of spring filling my head.  I don't know how I found my way back.

Before I did, I got to the rig in the RV yard at an undisclosed location.  I started the Denali and commenced to look for the credit card.  Thought to play some music for the search but my CD choices were: Skid Row, Ratt, more Skid Row (did you know they had multiple albums?) and Motley Crue.  In silence, I had to brave the landfill transfer station that is the cab of Jimmy's rig.  If you've ever lost a receipt, it's probably in JZ's car.  A random list of other jetsam and flotsam:  Hilti electric hand grinder.  Like, 5 lives worth of paper: wrappers, note pads, loose leaf, news, order slips, business cards (one from Sauer's Trading, South Williamsport PA.  I grew up about 6 blocks from this place.  i think they closed in the 80's) a strange combination of dental care and dental poison: toothbrushes, floss, whitening strips, appointment cards and CANDY.  Kisses, Peanut butter cups, Brach's black licorice jelly beans, cough drops.  All melted, of course.  Well, the PB cups would be if this particular brand had any real chocolate and/or PB in it (rhymes with feces).  Other stuff; I'll just leave it at that.  It's a man's truck.  Or something.  I've learned not to ask too many questions if there's a chance you might not want to know the answer.  Eventually found the card in the last place I looked: at the bottom of the center consol.  Where everyone keeps his credit cards when off in the foreign legion.

The ride back was even better because it got just a bit cooler and rolling back through the city I got to see some dude in handcuffs getting stuffed in the back of a cruiser.  The neighbors were out on stoops. The laundromat was busy, the corner store doing brisk business.  Like I said, it was a nice night.  Unless you were a dude cops wanted to visit with.

In the last seven days I've piloted an airplane and riden a Fatboy.  In the last year, add a backhoe to that list.  It's taken me way too long to be honest with myself about this:  I like engines, loud ones especially,  I like having the throttle and steering mechanism.  I like driving shit.  Too late now to do anything about it except drive shit.  i think that makes me simple and unrefined.  Im good with that.  Something oughta.  Too many tendencies the other way. Someone asked me if the plane and the motorcycle scared me.  Had occasion to really think about that tonight in the southern end of the county.  Those country smells, a hue of twilight telling of the river beneath it, though the river was not to be seen.  And I thought about it earlier in the week in the Piper, up high, banking away from the wind project that overlooks the same river upstream.  We were on a heading that followed the water.  We flew up to the Wrightsville Bridge and back again.  The yoke was mine and I rolled long loping 180's over the Susquehanna.  No.  I'm not afraid of that stuff anymore.  Heights? used to be.  Speed?  Maybe still a little, but it feels more like remembering an old emotion.  I'm not saying I'm carefree or reckless.  I've learned respect.  A healthy version.  But I'm not afraid.  I'm a lot more fearful of making mistakes with my kids.  More fearful of not living up to what I think I owe people.  Afraid of not squeezing every minute out of every day.  These things really scare me, not much else.  Of course this is a consequence of having to get ready to die.  Of course it is.  (Im not trying to pass this off as insight.)  I'm learning to like it.  Take it in stride.  I know now, and hope this helps you know too: (this is the insight) the hard part isn't dying.  The hard part is thinking about dying.  Don't think about it.  Quit thinking and solve all your problems.