Other Stuff

Old Hog, New Tricks

Funny how a planned group activity can quickly whittle down to just a couple of people. The only person in my group that didn't bail had never set foot on a motorcycle. What the hell was I doing here? After all, my motorcycling skill set was a little beyond a beginning motorcycling class.

When you've done something for more than two-thirds of your lifetime it inspires the illusion that there is nothing left to learn. An instructor ten years older than me, who spoke with such affection for motorcycling that he garnered my attention, helped me overcome this. It took only 11 minutes before he talked about something I did not know: suddenly, I was learning something new.

The next day we were on the range, AKA: a cordoned-off part of the LBCC parking lot. We were supplied with motorcycles to ride. There were a variety of bikes--none with an engine bigger than a 200cc. My bike has 1450ccs. You do the math. I felt like I was on a clown tricycle.

 Let's talk rain. We in the PNW have more than a passing flirtation with precipitation. I have probably ridden more miles in the rain than not. Thus, one would expect that my purpose-specific rain gear (designed for 70mph motorcycle rides through rain that's falling so hard animals are lining up in pairs) would laugh off a rainy October day. I wasn't laughing. First the water made its way past the "sealed" neck opening. Then it seeped its way up from the arm openings. I got the best/worst soaking from having two inches of jeans hanging below my rain pants. Water wicked up my pant legs to my knees. And that was before I even got on the bike.

 You think that's bad?

 Both of you who read my recent essay about getting vertigo might appreciate the irony when, the first morning on the range, the demon vertigo made a slight return. I was standing on a wood floor in the shelter and discovered that the floor had a fair amount of spring to it. A springy floor is the fast lane from recently acquired normal balance to hell. I quickly went outside and stood in the rain on firm blacktop and discovered that staring at anything but my feet didn't do a lot for my stomach. Fortunately, the first half of the day on the range we did very simple maneuvers that allowed me to focus on the instrument cluster above the handlebars.

 There are those who would see participating in such a class while positionally challenged as foolhardy and downright bull-headed. But, many of us have passions that supersede health. I've known rock climbers who have climbed while suffering the stomach flu (look out below!). I've known distance runners who have run zillion-k marathons on a broken foot. I have intentionally ridden motorcycles through some of the worst conditions that Ma Nature can dish out. Something wonderful happens when we indulge in our passions. Often, no matter how stupid it might seem, as soon as we are doing what we love we start to feel better. This day, it took a couple hours to feel normal--as normal as I ever feel.

 Did I mention the rain? Almost all of the other students had an advantage over me: no experience riding in the rain. They had not enjoyed the jarring experience of having your motorcycle tires lose traction on a slick road, so they trusted their traction. When we started the riding portion of this class, I found myself apprehensive about pushing too hard into the corners; I expected the tires to slip out from under me.

 Then it happened. My mind let go of the fear and I was slapping that bike between the cones like a skier bouncing between moguls. This was the most fun I've ever had with my rain pants on. It was like flying. I was struck with the epiphany that this is why I was in a class so rudimentary. There was some very basic stuff I hadn't taught myself. I have to say this joy was followed closely by watching new riders slaloming around the range like they owned it-though they had never touched a motorcycle before that day.

 Did I mention the rain? I was soaked all the way through my raingear. My buddy's leather jacket was soaked and everyone in the class was in the same boat, including the instructors. When the blessing of the lunch hour came, we leapt into my car and turned the heater up full blast. I had to keep my window open so the humidity from our clothing wouldn't fog up the windshield. We got our food to go so we could sit in the car and pull off our soaked boots and wiggle our bare toes under the heater's blast. We had to wring out our socks before putting them back on. Yes, this is considered "fun."

 

What happens after being chilled to the bone and then warming up-especially after lunch? That's right, you get sleepy. Just in time for a couple hours of classroom instruction. I literally nodded off a couple of times during the PowerPoint presentation. We even dared to drink AM PM coffee, which has cathartic abilities immortalized in songs sung before the white man came to this valley. Nothing keeps you awake like an intestinal tract coming to life. But, we still dozed. This had nothing to do with the quality of the material.

 The next day on the range was a little more challenging.

 Technical note that might bore the civilians: 
In 1973, Ralph Nader pushed through a law that all motorcycles had to have their foot shifters on the left side and the rear brake peddle on the right. Since the Brits don't even know what side of the road to ride on, their shifter/brake is set up opposite that of the Japanese and indigenous motorcycles populating American streets. Many people on those pre-'73 bikes were not keeping the rubber side down because the brake was not where it was supposed to be.

 I learned to ride on these Brit bikes, and it took decades to rewire my brain to the "proper" position of the controls. However, once back on a bike about the size of my old Norton, my brain unwired. A couple of times on the range I tried shifting the gears with the brake pedal. Not my finest moment showcasing my decades of experience.

 We practiced braking. Get 'er up to 20mph and then squeeze on the binders. The wet pavement did a wonderful job of letting us know when we were applying too much braking to either wheel. We practiced turns, lane changes, evasive maneuvers, picking up chicks, and so on. Through all of this, no one dropped a bike, which is a fine testament to the capability of the instructors.

 Something I was grateful for: no one talked about how much experience they had on two wheels--even the other experienced riders in the class. Everyone was starting from the same place: the basics. One of the instructors is a regular at the Darkside. He knew this was not my first day on a motorcycle and made only one comment: he apologized for not having a Harley for me to ride--but only when we were out of earshot of the others. 

 I was persuaded to take this class because several of my homies said they would take it if I would. I forgot to say I would take it only if they did. I wanted company because it was scary for me to take the class. My safety record on a bike ain't bad. Did I really want to mess with a good thing by taking a class that will change the way I ride? When I got my motorcycle endorsement long ago--a long, long time ago--the "test" consisted of answering a few questions and taking a ride around the parking lot. The trickiest question was, "How did you get your motorcycle here?"

 "I pushed it?"

 "Good answer." He signed off on my endorsement and set me loose.

 I have a friend who is an ER doctor and he calls riding a motorcycle "risk-taking behavior." I guess compared to a day spent golfing, it is. When it comes right down to it, I wish Team Oregon classes had been available when I was commuting on an old CB350, back when disco ruled the airwaves. As the class progressed and I acquired new skills, I watched more and more of the "risks" of motorcycling fade away. Yes, motorcycling is more dangerous than driving a car. In this world of airbags, crumple zones, ABS brakes, and computers that call the mother ship if an airbag inflates into a crumple zone because the ABS brakes failed, it is a good thing to have a motorsport where you are the only person responsible for your personal wellbeing. Even as basic as this class was, I feel like I now have a few more tools to deal with the student drivers returning to Corvallis, and a few of the year-round residents. You know who you are.

 

Where is up?

"Okay, this ain't good."

I was watching TV. Bad TV. The kind of TV a proprietor of an art cinema would never admit to watching. But it wasn't the TV show that I was talking about.

 I was talking about the fact I had just fallen down. I was sitting when I fell down. My wife is not prone to practical jokes so the chances of my drink having been drugged were very slim. Lainie looked over and asked what the heck I thought I was doing on the floor. I tried to stand. Not a good idea. Soon I was back on the ground.

 Now, 25 years ago this would have been old hat: not being able to walk, room spinning, not knowing where up was, praying to all that was holy and a few entities that were not holy to make it stop-combined with the oath that I will never again mix tequila, rum, and fast food. But this night I was eating a soft brie and crackers, with a glass of water tapped from the refrigerator door.

 Whatever put me down made it clear that it is a lot more fun being on the floor with the disassociation that comes with the drug that put you there than it would be just lying there thinking clearly: something is up.

 Somehow it struck me that standing was all I needed to do to get this dizziness under control. Lainie pointed out I weigh twice what she does and her being responsible for keeping me from keeling over was one of the worst ideas I've had since mixing tequila with rum and a Big Mac with fries. Well, I had to try.

 It was a no-go.

I was down on the floor on all fours in seconds telling her it would be a great idea to clear the path between me and the bathroom. I know motion sickness when I feel it and this was it. I was already on hands and knees, so it was somewhat alarming that I couldn't even stay balanced in this close-to-the-ground pose. I was rendered flat out on the carpet. At least the nausea went away if I kept my eyes closed. Still, those who've been made gravity's bitch know not to trust the waning of nausea. Thus, it became incumbent upon me to at least get to the linoleum. So, like a soldier in a trench, I dragged myself toward the bathroom.

For a lot of people, panicking might seem an appropriate response to losing one's sense of up and down. Again, over two decades ago, this would have been the result of a normal weekend on the town. Lainie was doing her best to not get caught in the drama and to keep me going in the right direction. She too had seen combat in the 70s and 80s party scene so getting an "indisposed" person from point A to point B wasn't a particularly novel experience for her. She also knew that if I told her to leave me the hell alone and stop worrying about me, it would be best to leave me the hell alone.

I soon determined that lying on my back was somewhat more pleasant than any other position, assuming I kept my eyes closed. While resting, I tried to touch my nose with my fingers. This was easy. My smile felt symmetrical. Awesome: I wasn't having a stroke.

By the time I got to the bathroom, the nausea was less threatening. However, the linoleum was cool. Those in the know, know how delightful cool linoleum can be against one's face under certain circumstances. An added bonus was that this was Lainie's bathroom, so it was operating-room clean.

Soon it was clear that I wasn't going to get sick, so I wanted to lie down on something more sleep-inducing than a hard floor. With great caution and very little speed, I crawled back to the bed. Getting myself up on the bed was a bit of a challenge, but as soon as I was all snuggled in, I had to pee. As in: right damn now. So, even untrusting gravity, I rolled to the floor. I crawled with great directional ambiguity to the bathroom. Once facing the toilet, it struck me standing wasn't going to happen. I've always rehearsed peeing as a solo act, which meant I could only perform unaccompanied. Lainie diplomatically stepped out of the room. I grabbed the tub and the wall and it soon became apparent I was not going to be able to stand. And rising to a sitting position wasn't happening either. Well, now. Thus, I knelt in front of the porcelain. With all my visual clues moving like an acid trip, this could go very badly very quickly. This was Lainie's bathroom. It was clean. The towels are sorted by colour and the literature is filed neatly in a basket. My bathroom has dark towels to hide the grease, and all manner of shop manuals and Wired magazines haphazardly left where they fell. What this means is "missing my target" wouldn't be prone to applause. I found that I could feel both of my thighs against the cool porcelain. Doing some quick geometry, I figure this meant I should be right on target. I was.

With no muss or fuss, I managed to finish up, determine down from up, get on all fours, and creep slowly back to the bed. As soon as I accomplished the herculean task of getting back up on the bed, I had to pee again. Once again, I slipped to the floor and navigated my way, a few inches at a time, into the bathroom, and then staggered back. I had just fallen asleep and was dreaming of pitching and tossing on a ship in World's Deadliest Catch when I was awoken, having to pee again. Okay, this was losing its charm. At this point, I still had no idea why I was experiencing my environment as something like an unkind carnival ride. But, it's kind of like when a car loses its brakes. Figuring out why the pedal is going all the way to the floor isn't as important as getting the damned car stopped. So, now that I had the ability to maneuver (to be generous in describing my abilities) I had the energy to wonder what the hell was going on.

Time to do the research to see what this was. Google happened to be downstairs. There are twelve stair steps between the upstairs bedroom and my MacBookPro below. When I got to the edge of the stairs, I had to pee again. Triple checking to make sure I was going to the restroom and not down the stairs, I made it to the bathroom. Soon I was back to the edge of the stairs. It took about five minutes slipping down one stair at a time on my butt, but soon I was on all fours in the living room, which was spinning like a roulette ball. "Place your bets. Place your bets." I managed to get my computer onto the floor without falling on it. I groped for my reading glasses and, against all odds, found them where I had left them. When I opened the laptop it was so bright l felt like I was looking into the briefcase in PULP FICTION. I guess I could add photosensitivity to my list of complaints. I had to press my face to the screen to get it to stop moving enough to read it.

"Benign Positional Vertigo" came up when I asked the Google oracle why my world wouldn't stop spinning. I liked the benign part. With a little research I found out I had about 48 hours of this shit before I could pee standing up again. Oh, and peeing every few seconds was part of the fresh new hell this disorder visits upon its victims. I emailed a doctor friend of mine and asked him for something to speed this process along. One of the drugs indicated for this is Valium. When he talked to me on the phone before calling the pharmacy, he explained the biochemical reason why this drug works. I wasn't really interested at the time. I just wanted to be able to get around the house without rug burns on my knees. There are worse drugs than Valium to be stuck taking. Oddly, the drug worked almost immediately.

I work with the public and handle money. I have a lot of antibodies running around my blood stream. It had been years since I had so much as the sniffles. Then this nasty virus found its way into my inner ear. The more arrogant I get about my immunity to sickness, the harder I fall.

I am signed up for a motorcycle safety class that will soon become required for all Oregon motorcyclists. This class is about as basic as it gets. After 33 years and over 150,000 miles on a motorcycle, the state of Oregon decided I needed someone to tell me how to ride my bike? (I smell another essay coming.) The fact is, many people in the class are riding motorcycles one-fifth the size of mine. This could be particularly embarrassing if my sense of balance checks out during the riding section of the class. So, I'm hoping this malady goes the way of the dodo before I have to show proficiency in front of an audience.    

Tonight, 48 hours after grappling with gravity, I jumped around the booth, climbed platforms, ambled up ladders and didn't have one moment of dizziness. All seems well with my universe. I also feel a huge amount of gratitude this didn't hit in the middle of my motorcycle tour of national parks, or when I was dealing with rush hour traffic in Sacramento. As much as this bug sucked out loud, it made me realize that no matter how invincible I feel to the bugs and germs that inundate our lives, they can kick my ass anytime. I hope to employ this humility when some instructor feels the need to show me the difference between the muffler and the turn signal.

Timing

There is always construction on Glacier Point Road, or so it seems. Between temperature extremes and shifting rock, the environment of Yosemite National Park is not conducive to the long life of a roadway. The only time the weather is good enough to do road repairs happens to be the same time tourists are all over the park. The bright orange Flagger Ahead sign foreshadowed what was coming: a wait. A well-equipped Jeep I'd been following (hoping that his Hi-Lift jack was secured better than it looked) stopped in front of me. We were the only two in line so far; bad timing, since we had just missed the last line of cars going in our direction. The flagger was a middle-aged man whose affect indicated he was done taking shit about the wait so I kept my disappointment to myself. He sat on the roadside wall, keeping his STOP sign erect. A young couple stepped out of the Jeep in front of me and asked the flagger how long the wait would be. He let out a deep sigh and said it would be about 20 minutes.  I shucked my jacket and pulled a peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of water out of my saddlebags. The granite expanse of El Capitan was across the valley. I was hard pressed to find a better place-in the world-to eat a peanut butter sandwich on the side of the road while waiting for the pilot car. The couple from the jeep seemed cool with the wait, too. Then traffic started to back up. One guy yelled from a few cars back, asking if anyone knew how long the wait was going to be. This set off a chain reaction of everyone down the now impressive line wanting to know when traffic would be moving again. The flagger communicated through body language his unspoken annoyance at the impatience from the line of cars behind us. So, I suggested to the jeep couple that we take out their camp stove and cooler and set them up in the road like we'd been there awhile. He even had a guitar to strum. That way the next bout of unpleasantness could be greeted with, "Man, we have been here for hours. No one knows if we'll ever get off this hill." The Jeep couple liked the idea. The flagger said, "That would be funny-and if you try it I will have you arrested." Later, the full moon declared itself with a near deafening brilliance that set the water in Mono Lake aglow. The mountains around the lake rise out of the water and seem to soften as they absorb the moonlight. There were no cell towers blaring with red lights like the LED on an answering machine signaling an unwanted message. I stood there for the better part of an hour drinking what I would find out later wasn't decaf.  There is a beguiling spirit that lives in such places and cuts loose when the perfect full moon rises over the perfect lake without a cloud above or urban clutter below. The surrealism of the scene makes reality malleable. At 7000 feet above sea level there was little between the moon and me, which seemed to draw me deeper into this place. In the midst of this arguably hallucinogenic moment I had the feeling that my mom was nearby. She was actually standing next to me, holding her favorite coffee mug, looking at the moon. She looked a lot better than she had in years-even before she died. She didn't look at me. She just nodded at the moon. Better living through hypoxia, I surmised, figuring high altitude and I were not on speaking terms. I was getting the feeling that there were other people close by. Slowly, I looked to my other side and there was a whole line of them, in a gentle arch, looking at the moon.When I looked back at my mom, a line of people had formed beside her, too, and  some of them were also drinking coffee. None of these people acknowledged me. It was as if I were just as much a specter to them as they were to me. Perhaps they didn't believe in me. They seemed to be talking amongst themselves, but I couldn't hear them. I knew these people. Some were relatives. Some were friends of my parents. Some were people I'd grown up with. Some are mathematicians. Some are carpenters wives. All their faces glowed like the shimmering water and the adoring hills. They spoke to each other in short, silent sentences of small words and big gestures. Why were all these dead people having coffee with me? Perhaps a better question would be: are there special places on Earth where imaginations or perceptions break free? Do these geographical and geological marvels of creation possess the powers to blur the line between dimensions? Do the Creatures of Creation live in these places? Creatures of Creation must live somewhere, so perhaps it is in the granite, in the water, and on the feminine slope of the treed hills. I do not need to believe in them for them to be there. They do not even need to be there for me to visit them. No more than I need proof that my mom was standing right next to me, holding the same coffee mug she used every morning most of the years our lives overlapped. Do severe and uncommon emotional reactions indicate a mental imbalance-or perhaps moments of novel clarity? And, while the questions are rolling, was I sure that was Sweet N Low I put in my coffee? Though I was supposed to be blessedly out of cell phone range, I had the damned thing in my pocket and the little bastard came to life. It was work calling, of course. The sound had all but dropped out in auditorium three. I had to mentally wander down the paths of possibility to solve the problem, long distance. When I pushed the kill button on the phone the moon was still mooning over Mono Lake. The water still whispered and the hills were still coy. Most of my company was wondering off in twos and threes. Mom was still standing beside me looking at the moon. She silently sipped the last of her coffee, smiled at the moon, then turned away and walked off. And that was that. It was time to go to bed. As I walked back I felt I had been given a gift:  a few moments with someone I lost a long time ago, who is not lost to me. This was the reason I had traveled 800 miles-not just for the non-decaffeinated coffee. It was for the perspective that where I come from is not the real world. This is. Great art can be made from representations of places like this. Ansell Adams put together silver and light to render some of the most beautiful photographs in the world. Yet, for a $10 day pass, I got to see the real thing. This is the magic of places like Yosemite; it is as analog as it gets. No degrees of separation. Being there shaves away the borders between what I do and who I am. I would gladly pay to even hold an Ansell Adams glass negative in my cotton-gloved hand. But seeing the objects of his artistic affection in Yosemite underscores the knowledge that looking at the photographs never gives you the whole picture. Tioga Pass is an east-west, sixty-mile ride between Yosemite and Mono Lake. It has the main thing that makes any road a great place to spend a day on the motorcycle: a swooping road that hugs the wall on one side and drops off the edge of the world on the other. It was the later part of September, which means most of the RVs being piloted by people who have no business driving something larger than a shopping cart have gone home to terrorize their own neighborhoods. And it was perfect weather when I pulled out of the gas station and turned onto the pass road. It's amazing what can happen to weather in a few thousand feet of altitude. I knew the clouds were a bad sign. But I had the good sense to pull over and put on my rain gear, which I needed in exactly seven seconds after hitting the road again. Rain and I are old rivals-we've become intimate during my long career riding motorcycles, which means I know when to be scared of it. When the temp drops about 25 degrees in a few miles, it is a great time to be scared of it. I pulled off at a viewpoint and waited to see what was going to happen next. The clouds parted over the back of Half Dome, creating a moment of grace. I even forgot to be concerned about staying alive. When the ice pellets hit, I was snapped back to fretting about this winding road 9300 feet above sea level. I had a choice: do I wait to see if this bad weather will pass or do I head out now before the roads freeze over? I put on every piece of clothing I had in my saddlebags and was still cold. This meant that trying to navigate this bad road through thin air with limited visibility and hypothermia might mean my mom and I would be reunited sooner than I'd like. But the roads hadn't frozen yet so it was time to go right damn now. Then I saw the kid on the spankin' new Honda. He had on all the indicators of a new rider-namely all his gear was uniformly new. He had on the latest in a high tech jacket, slick spendy boots, and even one of those neon green vests that make him look like a construction flagger. Through the cozy hole in his full-face helmet, I could see he was scared. One of the very best things about getting older is that you have lived through it all before and know it will be fine. The look on his face indicated he had never been through anything quite like this. I walked up to him unceremoniously and told him to follow in my tire tracks, since I'll be clearing the road. He nodded furiously and that was all the conversation we needed. Over the rumble of my engine I could hear the hiss of the ice pellets under my tires. I checked only once to see if he was behind me and poured the rest of my attention into keeping on the road. After dropping about 500 feet in altitude the temp shot back up and the road started drying out. I looked into my mirror just in time to see the kid signaling to pull off into a vista point-my guess was to remove that significant portion of the seat he had undoubtedly sucked up his ass. In a few miles I had to stop and strip off all my gear. It was about 80 degrees and sunny, but my knees were still a little jittery. When I rumbled up I-5 past Mt. Shasta the temp was a perfect 75 degrees. The wind fluttered through my T-shirt and the bike was in a good mood. These moments in the saddle are bookmarked in my mind to return to when the dreary winter consumes the Northwest. We have lived through the long months of grey weather before and know we will make it-just like we survive everything else. This year, my mom's birthday fell on a full moon in early summer. I was at a party that night. I'm getting better at parties, even now that I'm drinking less. Lainie affectionately watches me, knowing that left to my own devices I will find another biker in the crowd and huddle in a corner for the rest of the evening discussing favorite rides. However, when someone said I should step outside and see the moon rising, I bolted to join her. It was the only time that day I was able to be still. Venus was toying with a perfectly round moon-both lingering over Marys Peak. It was enchanting, and I was not coming in until the show was over. It took about 30 minutes for Venus to drop behind the mountain. Just as it slipped out of the sky my phone beeped. It was a text from a friend who had lost her mom about the time I lost mine.  What was in the text was unimportant. It was all in the timing.