Coop's Corner: Saturday --- A Motorcycle Day.....

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Saturday --- A Motorcycle Day.....

Though I never even threw a leg over one.

The trailer had been hooked to the car Friday evening so that I could leave home early for coffee with the boys in Mpls. After a quick stop at my place of employment to pick up something I'd forgotten Friday afternoon, it was off to North Mpls for coffee.

Besides the things we normally discuss and debate, Saturday's 'edition' included an event on the BNSF tracks that run next to Diamond's Coffee Shoppe. The local Steam Train enthusiasts had completed a restoration of #261 and it was making its first voyage up to Duluth on our North Shore.

Rail enthusiasts had to be cautioned by the local constabulary for encroaching on the tracks in places on the cool, blustery morning.

After coffee I headed across the river into rural Wisconsin to carry out a grim task (and the reason for my m/c trailer) of picking up our good friend Walter's crashed Moto Guzzi. I learned the sad news Wed. afternoon that Walter had been airlifted from the site of a deer/motorcycle crash. Thankfully the power company lineman found the bike and Walter lying in the grass and stayed with him until help could arrive.

The crashed Guzzi needed to be picked up from the tow company and taken back to Walter's home. I've got photos of the bike and 'other' that I won't be sharing, but our evaluation of the bike, Walter's gear and the evidence that we could muster tells us that the deer essentially knocked Walter backwards off of the bike; any damage on the machine was high up and the damage to his helmet and everything else pointed directly to the brain trauma suffered. Wife Elaine and son Thomas would really appreciate your thoughts and well-wishes. If you visit, note the many comments by Selena....it was her dad that was first on the scene; her dad's kindness a gift to us all.

Evening plans were carried out, namely visiting one of Minnesota's higher learning institutions for the screening of the locally produced film "Girl Meets Bike". Our combined review would be.... disjointed story that was hard to follow, beautiful cinematography of rural MN and WI roads and scenery, fine European machines featured, smooth sound track and special attention paid to fine, fine (and accurate) motorcycle sounds. In other words, Guzzi's sounded like Guzzi's, Norton's were definitely Norton's, Triumph's were where they belonged, etc. More sex and more liquor than I needed (are we really like that??) but overall, fun to see real machines, ridden by real riders in places locally that we know. Dinner and discussions with friends capped off the evening and made for a very long day.

Today, time spent with mom and her sister for Mom's Day.

For Sonja and Roland, this very old family heirloom.....

10 comments:

Dar May 12, 2013 at 10:19 PM
Coop - I will put your friend in my prayers.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayMay 13, 2013 at 7:29 AM
Thanks Dar, they can use our help.
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SonjaMMay 13, 2013 at 7:33 AM
I keep my fingers crossed for your friend's speedy recovery. Glad that somebody found him, and had the courage to help.

Your family heirloom must be quite old. By the language at least 100 years?
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Erik RMay 13, 2013 at 9:25 AM
My riding buddy in St. Paul is quite a train fan. I'll have to ask him if he knows anything about #261.

Sorry to hear of your friends crash.
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TrobairitzMay 13, 2013 at 11:36 AM
I was so sorry to hear of Walter's accident. I sure hope he makes a full recovery. From what you've said it sounds as though the deer were leaping and caught him as he was going forward. So scary. Keep us posted.

But on a side note that train sure is purty.
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Keith - Circle BlueMay 14, 2013 at 6:19 AM
My heart always breaks when I see the words brain trauma. It nearly always changes everything. I know of these things. It sounds like he has other challenges as well. I hope all things turn out well.
~k
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayMay 14, 2013 at 7:08 AM
Thanks Keith. Walter's body has had a hard life already and we are all hoping for the best now.
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"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)