Coop's Corner: Saturday Morning Coffee, Dec 1, 2012

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Saturday Morning Coffee, Dec 1, 2012

Well, an early, pre-dawn ride didn't happen today; it was a lovely late autumn drive however. Though nice for December 1st, at 5:30AM we had 34 degrees and what felt like warm fog when I peeked outside. Still, that fog was a deal breaker. I jumped in the car instead and headed to Northeast Minnapolis, saving my riding for Sunday when the weather is to be both drier AND warmer.

The building that houses Lucy's Diamond's Coffee Shoppe is part of an old warehouse/manufacturing/storage/etc complex that is now in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. Lucy's shop shares space with various art studios and small businesses, very busy places during the week as well as on weekends.

What was once a large walk-in safe, with doors on both ends. The space beyond is where most of us gather.....

Our typical gathering of enthusiasts, looking much the same no matter the season. Some of us are there at the 7AM opening, others drift in later, coming and going all morning long. If I had to guess and therefore I will, there's maybe 12,483 years of motorcycle experience in this room; these guys know of that which they speak. I joyfully choose to often feel like a youngster in this crowd.

The Safe Door on the left.....

There were 4 bikes present today but I never saw more than 3 at one time. John's '46 WLA HD, Mark's Buell Blast(a.k.a. Purple Haze) and Paul's Ural sidecar rig.

I was surprised that John didn't have his sidecar on the Harley today so I asked him about it. "Oh no, I put that on in the winter."

John's time in China during WWII gave him lots of exposure to these bikes in Service. When John came home, the U.S. Army had crates of these HD's that hadn't yet been used. As an Honorably Discharged Vet, he was able to purchase this one for $370. It was shipped to the Twin Cities and soon made its way to John's central MN farm home.

We talked farming today and I learned a lot of things I'd not yet known about John. One of 13 kids, none of his 5 brothers stayed on the farm. Once the conflict started and John was about to be drafted, his dad wondered if John wanted deferment; something his father was willing to apply for. "I told him I'd seen enough of the a** end of horses, the Army was the place to be."

The HD was of course army green when he brought it home and the story we've all heard is "once I painted it blue, I was a chick magnet." In all of John's years, he's had one wife and one motorcycle; you're looking at both of them.

Photo courtesy of the John Eiden Collection

Paul's Ural rig; he commutes on it almost every day, all winter long.

After the Buell left, a newer GS arrived.....

3 comments:

googlesAugust 7, 2013 at 11:58 PM
John Eiden is my grandpa and the greatest of men! Thanks for writing about him; he gets such a kick from it!
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EricAugust 27, 2016 at 6:48 PM
Thanks for sharing
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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)