Coop's Corner: One Year

Monday, December 24, 2012

One Year

After a year of writing and enjoying the publishing of my blog it seems only right that I should comment on how much fun it has been. Fellow blogger/rider Erik and I connected online last December when he was still a Wisconsin neighbor. Though he's still a Wisconsin neighbor, he's moved a bit further away than he was when we first made contact. Erik's old photos, stories of his rides and his background inspired me to follow his lead. With a few of his kind suggestions, I was off and Posting.

As rewarding as it's been to tell some stories to go along with my archived photos, the truly best part has been in 'meeting' fellow bloggers with varied shared interests. Erik and I actually did meet in person this fall, at a location that we'd teased each other with, but neither of us showed up on two wheels that day. No matter, the food and time together was worth the wait regardless of how we had arrived.

The cherry on top of everything else good has been sharing stories with my Canadian friends. I don't honestly think my affection for Canada has more than a faint connection to them being our nearest neighbors though I'm sure that's a part of it. Very possibly it has much to do with the fact that though different, we mostly get along in harmonious ways, still not always in agreement on things.

Riding along the Shenandoah Parkway one spring day long ago I met Christopher, hitch-hiking from St. John's. I pillioned him down to the Winchester Apple Blossom Festival and our two days together were rich; his tales of Puffins and life in St. John's led me to be a visiting Newfie the following summer. After a week in the bottom of the Grand Canyon mostly alone, "Lethbridge Jim" and I met while hiking back up to the rim together, one of the more memorable days of my life. The Hot Toddy we celebrated our journey with 'up top' left a buzz I can still feel if I choose to pull it out from the deep layers in my head. I listen to 990AM from Winnipeg when the atmosphere allows for proper bouncing of the waves and our local public radio affiliate makes As It Happens a joy if I can stay awake long enough to listen. Red Green has given me uncountable hints in my R&D fabrication career. The points of 'foreign' connection spread inward from both coasts.

New friends from everywhere are gifts, new Canadian friends have a special sparkle all their own. So there you have it, an affinity with the country to the north and some sort of kindred spirit we must share.

This blogging thing has been very rewarding and I expect to partake at the very least, for one more year. Warm friends, interesting places and cool machines make a very fine recipe.

Thanks to all of you that have shared your time and thoughts with me. Here's hoping that continues......

10 comments:

TrobairitzDecember 24, 2012 at 5:47 PM
Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Canada has a certain mystique. I may be biased since hubby is Canadian, lol. Often times we think of moving back to the great white north, but we enjoy our little town in Oregon just a little too much.

Happy New Year and all the best in 2013.
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Erik RDecember 24, 2012 at 8:47 PM
Merry Christmas Doug and Congratulations on your 1 year old blog!

It was great to meet up with you at the Delta Diner. Let me know when you're going to be up this way next summer and we'll do it again. I'm glad to have been a blogging inspiration. It's been really neat to meet so many interesting people through blogging.

Erik
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RichardMDecember 24, 2012 at 10:24 PM
Merry Christmas to you and your family!

I don't know about mystique but I really enjoy my visits to Canada or should I say through Canada. (I think I'm up to 19 trips through Canada)
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UnknownDecember 25, 2012 at 5:08 PM
Coop:

Merry Christmas to you two

We are just like you, except a bit north of the 49th parallel. I am also grateful for all the bloggers I have met. It's like having friends all over the country (world), not strangers, but more like friends "yet to meet"

bob
Riding the Wet Coast
My Flickr // My YouTube

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VStar LadyDecember 31, 2012 at 4:21 PM
Coop - congrats on one year and an eloquent year you've had. I'm happy that our paths have crossed as bloggers and perhaps someday you'll vist Ontario (not that far from Wisconsin ... and we have a Delta as well - so there's no diner in Delta, but there is an LCBO!)
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayDecember 31, 2012 at 4:36 PM
Karen, thank you. You are right, Ontario (it's a big place) isn't that far from Minnesota. We're within a mile or so of Wisconsin, so even though we're Minnesotan, we're so close the line is blurred.

The central part of Michigan has been on my radar the last couple of years and had been a possibility last fall and then plans had to change. Now I've discovered that the National Guzzi Rally will be in Lavigne, ONT in August. There's a really good chance I'll see both places this year.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)