3/31/24

In Italy “zucchini ” is a general term for squash. All the plant is eaten… the fruit is cooked in various ways, the flowers lightly battered and fried, and the stems hollowed out for children to use as straws to sip on watered down wine or cappucino. 

I’ve never been much at playing the role of a couch potato and find that I am more related to a squash…

I decided to ride again… surprise surprise…

Last Fall, just after Thanksgiving, I was broadsided by an SUV on my way to work.  The sun blinded an  oncoming vehicle and on her birthday, a sweet, young, 22 year old totaled my car. Angel at the last moment placed a wide hand over the right side on my face and spared my eyes from hundreds of shards of glass that penetrated my scalp and right arm . Damage occurred, hearing loss from air bag explosions , a broken finger and two hours of glass removal from my head by a clinic MD. Luckily the other driver was OK.

I got a new car…not the way I wanted to.

I was leery  about riding again but my hearing is fine except for loss of high tones. I cannot block ambient noise so I avoid malls, restaurants, theaters and conversations with more than 2 people in a room. I was never very social to start with so no great loss on my part. 

In Harari’s second book, “Homo Deus”, he has a section concerning attempts by science to make humans (rich humans) near immortal. One interesting point he brings out is the fear these immortals will have at being involved in an accident or being exposed to possible life threatening  trauma. From this fear they live in cotton padded cocoons to minimize dangers , an even worse idea to me than  being a couch potato.

The wreck certainly brought my mortality into focus but after great thought and  sore couch buns I decided I can’t live in fear of death.

I always admired Freud and his theories even though much has fallen out of favor with modern Psychiatry. I still believe in the concept of the ID, EGO, and Superego but wonder about a couple more additional stages. I don’t think the early stages disappear but rather blend and mix with compromise… creating a “self” . We all still retain the child’s  ID at heart.

I think I’ve entered a fourth stage…I named it Wizego…old enough to be a little wise…tempering and adjusting my previous three selfs. 

This ride I plan to let Wizego be in charge. I’ll ride slower, bask in the natural surroundings of the Northwest and Pacific coast and not bother to bring out the White Rabbit from Seattle to San Diego…( well…. not often anyway).

My mother in her last 6 months of life entered the last stage of Life…“Tirego”. 

She told me she had lived a full life, was tired, and it was time to let go. I have a ways to go before I get there, maybe Wizego will last 15-20 years, who knows, but as I ponder my future I may as well do some of it on a bike raising money for a good cause and relishing what Mother Nature has to share.

 This Zucchini still has unused parts …and a ways to go…

Angel and Flossie were not terribly thrilled that they had to start training again…I just gave them both a hairy eyeball and said “life’s tough…get on with it…”

11/27/23

Pineapple upside down cake was my favorite desert as a child…

8 years ago on my first MS ride, bikers very obviously fell into two groups, college students and the rest of us nearing retirement age. Needless to say as we pedaled across America conflicts arose, late night partying, alcohol and  marijuana use, and roughty behavior on one side and on the other, a wish  for peace and quiet, a good nights sleep uninterrupted by bathroom breaks, aspirin,  and daily nourishing meals.

We each survived over 4300 miles and actually became good friends.

I promised myself I would never ride again with such a group  only to be scolded by dear Cassie about getting out of my comfort zone and learning from the young. 

As history showed I rode again.

Now even older I find that many young people have little regard for their elders even though I have come to value them. I think that is due to a lack of wisdom on their part and evolving wisdom on my part. They will eventually get there…

I read recently about a Dutch man who was suing in his country’s courts to have his birthday changed to 15 years later. He explained to the judge that people looked upon him as old at age 70 …no one would hire him for work, he was not eligible for free education and retraining, and he could not get a date either in person or on internet sites. I giggled at that but realized he was probably right.

As I decide on full retirement in the next year or two I look at myself driving a 25 year old car( it works fine as long as you don’t care about air conditioning…too old for parts), still write with a fountain pen, read books made of paper even though I have an iPad, and walk or ride a bike almost everywhere I go. 

Two weeks ago after an Amtrak ride I spent the weekend taking care of my two granddaughters, 6 and 4. I brought gifts for them as usual. The 6 year old got a book on craft projects while her sister got dress up clothes..both presents matching their so different personalities. The 6 year old read through her book twice studying the projects …she reads on a 6th grade level….the smartest member of our extended family she has recently learned how to do google searches on the tablet she got from school in Kindergarten…frightening…

I had her dictate to me a list of supplies for the projects and we went off to the art store to buy them. 

At home she asked about one word in the book she had trouble with “ tetrahedron”…I explained the concept of polyhedrons to her.

I asked if she wanted help only to be told: ”BaBa, creativity belongs to the artist. I don’t need any help.”

She then sat down and constructed polyhedrons from straws and clay…Plato’s perfect solids from 2500 years ago.

Today I decided to load music from CDs on onto my phone to listen to while I walk. I had 9 CDs from the past 6 months…Adelaide, Enya, and Oh Wonder.

As I started I could not get my external CD player to work with my MacBook Air even though I bought them together as a package…both sleek, smooth, thin miracle polyhedrons I got more and more frustrated and finally gave up…got  out my old lap top and used that to load music only to find it not compatible with my iPhone. After 2 hours of frustration I lost it and let loose with a string of four letter words…

I called my son at work for help but he was mildly annoyed and said we could try on face time later that night…

Stewing over my predicament I suddenly thought of my oldest granddaughter and wondered what she would do…

I sat there and looked at my CDs, laptop, external player and pretended I was looking through her eyes…

“BaBa, why is your CD player upside down?”

OMG!!! The sleek thin design had thrown me off and I had been putting CDs in an upside down player for two hours…

Somewhat embarrassed, even though I was alone, I then inserted the CDs upside down too…who knows why I didn’t turn the CD player right side up…Pride I guess…

As I sit here watching the CDs load I ponder learning from the young…who make tetrahedrons like the ancients thousands of years ago and see the obvious with their unclouded eyes. 

 Cassie , as always, was right. 

God bless the Young…and of course… the Young of Heart…

10/1/23

There will always be individuals within our government who choose to show their less flattering sides. 

Having just finished a ride of 350 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington over gravel paths , rocky roads, mud, sand, and the C&O canal I arrive in Washington amazingly optimistic about this country.

It was a wonderful ride with 20 individuals who I hold in deep respect. Not one of the individuals was without pain somewhere throughout the ride and not one did not stop to help others in times of need.

I was too tired each day to write a story after 67 to 70 miles of this terrain but instead now include pictures  of various aspects of the trip.

My last day now I am now waiting for a train to Pittsburgh where I can get my car and drive home. I spent four hours in the Smithsonian amongst hundreds of small children and parents, oooing and awing  at the dinosaurs, elephant, whale, gems, mummies, and all the  other sorts of interesting museum exhibits. 

When I left the museum, I walked out on the mall to become part of a crowd here for the World  Cultural Festival .

There were thousands of people listening to musicians, religious leaders,  spending time with friends,  eating, sleeping, meditating or just enjoying the beautiful Fall day. Police on horseback were greeted with food, water, requests for pictures and applause. 

I thought back to the events of January 6 and contrast them with today. The Capital now stands as a beautiful structure against the blue sky, as opposed to a scarred building with broken windows and defecation smeared floors and walls on the inside… courtesy of a small group of individuals who thought they knew best for this country.

We are much better and bigger than Republicans, Democrats, Biden, Trump, or whoever you choose to associate with. We are country filled with limitless  potential and stability … far beyond 99.9% of the places on this earth.

The end of this trip brings to me a renewed sense of optimism in this country regardless of what the news media has to say about our present state of affairs.

Yes, it is true that there are individuals who will show their bottoms to the world as politicians or “to be” politicians but they are not America. Not now, not before and not in the future regardless of what they believe about themselves.

America was along the Ride , in the Museum,  and on the Mall . 

America is in our Hearts.

God bless you one and all and God bless America. 

9/20/23

He sat before me looking much older than his stated age of 93. 

As I had with many of my older patients I asked him what had been notable, important in his life… sure that I could learn the secrets of Time. 

“ I remember my daddy…he was a Jamaican slave…freed …who came to America to start a new life when Monroe was President”.

Wait! Monroe? That was 1820. 

I was used to Civil War parents or grandparents but 1820? Monroe?

His father had sired him while in his early 90s …a veritable stud-muffin…and had lived another 10 years before dying early in the 20th century.

I asked for details…

“ He came to America free and worked his whole life to help his family and help others get free…he never gave up hope for better times…that was the most important thing in my life…my daddy”. 

Over and over again I asked the same question to patients in their 80s, 90s, even 100s only to get a very similar response. Electricity, the two World Wars, the Depression, the Bomb, TV, Automobiles, the Telephone, Computers, the Internet…nothing ever compared to the concern and love… or pain and grief …for a loved one. 

It became clear that in the end it was people who mattered to other people…nothing much else. 

There was almost always Hope for the Future and Faith that the next generation would “do better” but it was always people …usually family… at the center of that Hope and Faith.

In a few days I will start what will probably be my last MS ride. I tend to process in cycles of 7 years. It has been 8 years with that organization now…I feel the winds of change.

I decided to do this ride not so much to accomplish anything…rather I wanted to be one more time with people who mattered to me . I know more than half of the riders and hold each of them in high esteem. 

They are people with Faith in Humankind, Hope for the Future and Hearts of Gold… with help for  strangers  at their finger tips. 

I think of all the miles I have ridden, twice around the earth at the equator, all the beautiful nature I’ve seen, the people who I’ve met along the rides who reaffirm my belief in the basic Good , the money I’ve raised for MS…none of these compare to my thoughts of the other riders.

When asked 15 -20 years down the way what I most remember about the rides it will be those who struggled with me …those in front of me  and those behind me on long difficult mountain climbs. Those who I helped and those who helped me. Those who never gave up Hope of climbing that Mountain… or Faith that we would all make it to the Top. 

I will relish my 5 days with them as I ride from Pittsburgh to Washington DC. 

A Freed slave 200 years ago climbed mountains to help his family …

Every day we can follow  in his footsteps through Faith, Hope and Charity. Our respective Families are there waiting to continue the Journey with us or for us…the Bikes are propped up against that Pickett  fence…

May you each find an Angel to lead  the way… 

August 7-12/2023

Day One

There is a deep grumbling above me…

”Why are you here little one?”

I look around but see no one. The bike path has narrowed and turned to dirt…

Again the question surrounds me…

I look up to see only old wise ones…

“ Why are you here little one?”

The trees are talking to me…

I stop my ride and decide to explain to them…about meeting Death the last time…

They listen solemnly and then murmur among themselves… a quiet breeze.

To me again…” There is no Death here …only Rebirth”.

I look to the moss covered floor of the forest, what appear to be non living limbs ,to the lush verdant scene …and see only Life…

The soft ground cover rustles in the gentle wind.

I look up to the Lords above and ask what these smaller ones are saying…

“ They are giggling wondering why you are here…”

“ I just explained it to you… again to them?”

The giants rumble a deep moan that can only be their laugh…

“ Why Here ? No one comes Here!”

And then I realize I am lost somewhere deep in the woods…

“ Fear not little one we will show you the way out…”

Ahead a tunnel of light… it feels like a Birth Canal…

“ Through there you will find Life… not Death…”

And so I go. Eventually I find the other riders in a different part of the deep forest camped for the first night.

As I fade out I see above me gentle Guardians swaying in the evening breeze.

“ Good night little one” …and Death is no where to be seen.

Day 2

Above the murmuring trees I glimpse the snow tops where live the Gods. From on high snow melts feed the streams which in turn feed the land.

Day 3

A Rebirth must be accompanied by a new Baptism and so come the drenching cold rains…which chill my soul but make the land so green…

Day 4.

Now along the far west coast we turn south towards the ocean. Herds of elk take no concern of passing man…

The smell of salt fills the air and suddenly we are there. Gnarlly trees point us further south.

We spend that night in Amanda Camp…not even a town but instead a K-12 school on the edge of a Native Reservation. We are guests there for the night…a school kitchen, inside gym, bathrooms, showers, and laundry facilities. I wander the halls and look at the photos of students on the walls going back more than 20 years…a third Native Indian, a third Hispanic and a third white Caucasian. Hallway billboards emphasize acceptance of diversity… photos of clubs and activities seem to exhibit success.

Poverty oozes from all the pictures…this peninsula is a western Appalachia, there is little work or wealth here.

I decide to leave all my non perishable food in the home economics classroom as a small gift of thanks.

Day 5.

This is the longest ride 88 miles and 4000 feet of climbing. I get lost twice and log 95 instead…

Day 6

We are now on the southern side of the Olympic Peaks.

As I head towards Bremerton for our ferry ride…I get lost again.

I see a divided highway next to me which I recognize on the map… but…I’m on the wrong side. I turn to see a falling down machine shop , 5O rusty cars and giant of an old man in dirty jeans and a “used to be white” T shirt wearing coke bottle glasses barely hanging on his nose.

I approach him but he doesn’t make a move.

“ I think I’m lost and need help” with map in hand…

“ Show me where you think you are son”

I do.

With a greasy snear “ Well that’s 30 miles from here…”

Only then did I realize I gave him the wrong page being a bit intimidated by his immense size and never washed garb.

“ I think I’m here…”

“ Well you are son… where do you want to go?”

“ Over there on the other side of that divided highway “

“ Well you have three choices…”

Behind me…” go back 4 miles and cross there… “

To my left…

“Go three miles up that mighty steep hill”

Or to my right

With a big tooth missing grin “ Get on those railroad tracks, go over a trellis a third of a mile and then slide down the hill to the other side of the road”.

Much to his surprise I chose the railroad tracks…

20 feet in looking at shiny steel blades I turned back to him…

“ When is the next train?”

He laughed and turned away” in 4 days don’t doddle too long”.

Across the trellis I found said sliding hill only to realize it was a massive blackberry patch with a tiny rarely used path almost straight down.

And so I sat and with bike in hand scooted 50 feet hoping my riding shorts would protect me from the millions thorns.

Much to the surprise of passing cars I popped out of the blackberry brush with bike in hand , pants not torn , wearing a big happy grin…and rode on….

I even made the ferry to Seattle on time…

These 6 days…no better way to put Death behind… the Gentle Trees were right after all, this is the Land of Rebirth.

8/12/23

360 miles around the “ foothills” of that. The old grey mule shed his hide and behold there was the … White Rabbit! Three yellow jerseys in 6 days.
And for Richard from Amanda Camp… they remember you!
Full post tomorrow after I rest.

8/10/23

Ride is going very well. Very remote here on Olympic Peninsula with variable phone or internet service…but lots of fog, clouds and rain.
Will do full post with pictures at end on Sunday or Monday

7/31/23

We pass by the old house that used to belong to her father.

 Snow covered Alps surround us…to the west France , to the north and east Italy. The sun is warm, the air clean and dry with a slight smell of earthy cow manure ahead. 

Leaning against the house,  asleep with a dog and a bottle of wine  are two old unbathed, unshaven men. Flies circle their heads…

“ Mama who are they? “ I  whisper…

“ Your great uncles…life has left them behind”.

We walk on to the next family house…

This morning I called my son to ask about buying a gift for my two granddaughters…for their 21st birthdays 15 years down the line…a nice Italian fountain pen I found ( I write only with them as does my son). 

I explained I might be dead when they turned 21  but he could give it to them for me. 

He was quiet and then answered it was a nice thought but…he doubted anybody would be writing by then…

I was stunned but the more I thought about it the more I realized he might be right. 

Yesterday I read my weekly New England Journal of Medicine…in magazine form , not on line…that way I can make marks  with my fountain pen…

There was a lengthy article about AI in Medicine and how it will change all our lives. Already AI may be better than radiologists at diagnosing cancers by CT scans, and MRIs. As I read I could feel life passing me by. 

When I was  in Medical School we were told to keep up with Continuing Medical Education since each 10 years our knowledge would be outdated . When I finished my post graduate training it had dropped to 7 years and now I read that the number has dropped to 3.5 years…which means a student cannot cannot graduate from Medical School without being behind. Only AI has the capacity to keep up…

I’m not sure what all this means…but it makes me ponder the place I’m in. 

About 12 years ago I was on a break from work staying with my cousin at that same house where two old men, flies, a bottle of wine and a mangy dog graced the courtyard wall. I found myself in exactly the same spot, no bath in three days, a mangy dog asleep next to me, a cup of coffee in hand and the warm spring sun gradually putting me to sleep. That very day I decided “ this was the life” and started  to slow down… I went “part time” when I got back home.

Suddenly I find my mind again in the same place…looking out on the world as it passes me by….fountain pen in hand, a bike I ride for adventures, and the warm sun in the afternoon. 

Maybe it’s best to let AI come and the younger generation , who will not know how to write, find common ground with rapid advances in a New World. 

I can hear my granddaughters now sometime ahead…their friends will see me blissfully asleep against some wall in the warm afternoon sun with a mangy dog , a paper tablet, and a fountain pen in hand. 

“What’s that thing he’s holding?  Who is he?” their friends will ask.

“That’s just our BaBa…don’t disturb him…time has left him behind”.  

 In 6 days I start another MS trek around the remote Olympic Peninsula…

At least I can still ride a bike…

6/17/23

A 4 year old sits in the warm Italian sun. Behind, children scamper and play and run from the nuns… he sits alone on a wooden bench with a piece of warm bread in hand…half covered with butter and sugar crystals which glimmer in the sun…the other half with a brown coating of what will in later years become known to the world as Nutella …cocoa was rare in Italy post WW2 and Ferrero of Torino  improvised with small amounts of chocolate with hazel nut paste …first as a butter like bar and later a cream to be spread on bread.

 

In the mind of a small child at a Catholic nursery school break…however a child thinks… thoughts form…” Life doesn’t get better than this.”

Years later in America nuns again entered the scene as strict teachers with knuckle snapping rulers in hand. Even now I recall being taught that the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins was Pride. Over and over again it was drilled into my brain…

This most recent ride of 1500 miles was fraught  with bad Karma from the start. Anyone who read the past 20 posts knows the details by now. 

Time allows for perspective and afterthoughts about what went wrong. 

Training is almost impossible for this ride. I spent months preparing for flats and steep climbs but by the time I reached the hills in Maryland the climbing muscle had shrunk down.

I look at my picture and see that I was too…fat…call it like it is…

The size of the group was too small for my social needs; I should have learned that from previous rides.

I fell and injured myself two weeks in…I left that out of the posts…I got caught in a road rut on highway construction and fell cutting my lip, crushing my mirror, abrading my right cheek, bruising my knee and getting an egg sized hematoma on my right elbow and upper arm. 

Only yesterday at the bike shop did I learn that the crash shattered the back of my right pedal and damaged my handle bars…I rode like that for 10 days oblivious to the damage  until things began to fall apart on the last day…that’s why my right shoe sole came off, the jagged pedal had worn it down…

I think the oblivion came from my preoccupation with the deaths I had witnessed on the ride. 

By the time I reached New York my psyche, bike, and shoes were in great need of rest and repair…so I came home.

My last post speaks of baseball pitchers at the end of their careers…I’m not sure that I’m there yet…

Rather I think the Nuns are telling me to suck in my Pride and start over again.

I may never be a starting pitcher again, a figure on a Wheaties Box after a 20-3 season

but perhaps I can be a worthwhile relief pitcher for a few more years to come…rather than aiming for 9 innings just go for 3, 4, or  maybe even 5…not a player who eats the “Breakfast of Champions” but just one with bread, butter, sugar crystals and  Nutella on hand.

And so I will now prepare myself to get on the mound again for a week ride around the Olympic Peninsula in August and  a bit later in September, another week, the Cumberland Gap  from  Pittsburgh to DC.

Perhaps I can throw three innings with 9 strike outs each time  to end this year’s rides as they should…and recall a time in an Italian School Garden so many years ago where I sat in the sun with warm bread in hand and peace in my so very young soul…

5/18/23

43 mph down the side on the mountain into St. Marys at the base of Glacier National Park. I have done it twice, both times passing cows along the side of the road. 

At the base I thought briefly “ If I had  hit a cow I would have been dead.” And then I went off to get ice cream.

My first ride there were 28 of us, half younger in college, half my age. We called the young ones the

‘Invincibles” because they thought they could never suffer any harm. The older group tried to warn them to no avail.

Every ride has some “Invincibles”, this time there were three. That’s just the nature of age and life. There is a reason old generals send 19 year olds to war…mostly for that bravado streak.

The last 10 days of the ride became harder and harder for me day by day. The distances seemed longer, the cold and hot temperatures more extreme, the pot holes bigger, the climbs and descents steeper, the food less appealing, the people less interesting, and at the end of the day the fatigue worse.  I became more isolated even in our small group.

These rides are 85 % mental and 15 % physical. We are all in good shape before we start with proper training …the physical part has been built up. 

Something obviously happened to me to start the downhill mental descent.

Riding home yesterday I had time to do a postmortem on my ride and it became clearer and clearer what  had happened to me.

My own invincible bubble had burst. We all have to have some sort of thick shield  to risk these rides….there are no real “Invincibles” or “Non Invincibles”…we are all unrealistic  with varying degrees of thickness of our shields.

When mine burst reality came crashing in and no thickness of railroad tracks, no forced optimism, no wishful thinking could put the shield back.

And what burst it?

Staring into a dead bike rider’s eyes and knowing that that could have been me. 

I rushed to him thinking he was having a grand mal seizure but only when I got within inches of his face did I realize he looked back at me with fixed dilated pupils and the foam at his mouth had no life. 

My invincible shield burst that very moment…

I’m not sure that shield can ever be put back in place…I’m not sure I want that shield back …

My family and friends have been worried about me on these rides and only now do I see why.

Yesterday I felt like a failure, a quitter, a loser…today those feelings are starting ever so slowly to fade to be replaced by a gratitude that I did what I did over the years and somehow survived.

As an aside I should have seen other earlier warning signs about the dangers but the shield blurred my vision…

Two days ago at breakfast at a deli by the side of the road my bike suddenly fell over and the handle bars came off…surprised I reattached them. Them getting back on the bike I looked down and the soles of my riding shoes had come off…

I looked over at Angel with bike grease on hands  and Flossie with part of my shoe in her mouth…I should have realized they were trying to tell me something.

A 16 degree hill full of potholes finally became the mirror in front of my face.

God Bless all the “Invincibles” still on the road and may they find safety as they ride forward in their lives…