Coop's Corner: January 2015

Friday, January 30, 2015

Bet You Didn't Know

Up until a week ago, most of what I knew of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) I learned from Lorelai and Rory (Emily too). A few Octobers ago I stopped along highway US 56, just a couple of miles west of Council Grove, KS to get a better look at this monument.

Santa Fe Trail 1822 - 1872 Marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the State of Kansas 1906

Early this week while on business, driving in northern MN I just happened upon this sign. Already behind schedule on my way up, I didn't take the time to stop but did when business was complete and I was on my way back home.

Forests? DAR Forests??

From the DAR Forests website.......

In 1939, the President General, Mrs. Henry M. Robert, chose the Penny Pine program as one of her Golden Jubilee National Projects. Each state was to have a memorial forest, beginning in 1939 and culminating in 1941 on the NSDAR 50th Anniversary. Each chapter across the country was to pledge, at the very least, one acre of pine seedlings. Five dollars an acre at a penny each equals 500 trees. The Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), under the supervision of the U.S. Forestry Service, would do the actual work of planting and care.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the CCC in 1933 to solve two problems. It would offer employment to Americans age 18-26, who were out of work because of the failing economy, and it would help the National Forests that were in deplorable condition due to over-harvesting, devastating fires, and little replanting. The CCC would revitalize our National Forests and employ millions of young people.
With new assistance from the CCC, the National Forest Service started its program of replanting and growing pines in National nurseries throughout the country. These pines would be sold to organizations and individuals for a penny each to help share with the cost of the project - hence the popular term Penny Pines. It was patriotic and popular enough that stores and post offices set up buckets for people to put pennies into, and that's how the NSDAR became involved. Some of the states could not participate due to prolonged droughts in their state and the National Forest Service recommended planting many large trees on private lands.

Each state's forest is described on the website, this for the forest I was standing in that day....

DAR State Forest was established in 1929 when the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) donated 1,020 acres to the Commonwealth. Almost 750 additional acres have been acquired since then, including Upper and Lower Highland Lakes. The forty-acre Minnesota DAR Memorial State Forest is on the state map located in Pine City in Pine County in the quad known as Askov Lookout Tower. The forest was dedicated in 1941. Today there is a half-mile road and overnight camping facilities.

I've been digging in and learning more about the DAR this week; an interesting organization and mission.

So there you have it.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

A Wealth Of Riches

The other day a copy of an area newsletter was sent to me, jogging my memory of an afternoon I spent in September back in 2009. It was a Saturday and a result of something I'd seen on my way home from work the day before. South from the Twin Cities, just into Red Wing, I met 4 or 5 Vincent motorcycles. Now meeting 4 or 5 (even 40 or 50) H.D. twins would have been a normal occurrence but 4 or 5 of those H.R.D.'s??

After some online poking around, I found out that a gathering was taking place a couple of towns away so on Saturday, I fired up the Helix and headed west. A wonderful bonus that day was that friends Walter and Elaine showed up as well, they on another twin but theirs was a big V Yamaha.

This one was more in the spirit of things than my yellow one was.......

I have no idea how many parts make up a put-together Vincent but let's just say 1000 for a round number. When I first arrived, 750 of them on this guy's bike were spread out on the parking lot. Most everything by this time was back in place.

Leaning different ways.......

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Coffee And Ridin'

A mild January morning here, 29.7 degrees F as I'm typing, a flawless pre-dawn sky and as reported by the same people that are dividing our degrees up in to tenths of those smaller "F" degrees, a "waning crescent, 6% visible" moon. Just back from getting gas in the plow truck, I can attest that it's a lovely morning. It would be a lovely morning for a bike ride, other than the harsh reality of that 29.7 degrees F part and our very icy driveway.

My cup is here next to me, full, hot and after coming in from parking the truck, it felt really nice having my fingers wrapped around the big mug. I've not felt well the best part of a week now and have spent far too much time lying down, staying warm and quiet. Naturally, thoughts of (warm) riding and coffee are easy to come by, especially easy for me early on a Sunday morning.

Almost exactly three years ago I Posted about a Coffee Ride that happened 5 short years ago. That one found a group of us gathering on Washington Island, just about the northern most point of Door County, Wisconsin. It was officially a coffee gathering and truer by definition for my friends that rode up from the Chicago/Milwaukee area since most if not all of those folks came up for the day. I went over for a long weekend (something I feel absolutely no shame about) and we all had a great time, day trip or not.

This morning though, my mind wandered back to C.R.'s that were more normal, i.e. out early and home before the rest of the family was awake :) Memory took me back to August of '09, a lovely late summer day. Of course my ride that day started before sunrise on the Helix, Ultimate Touring Machine.

At the Minnesota/Iowa border marker, New Albin, Iowa. It was too early to stop for my favorite jerky, so that had to wait until I was on my way home.

Early morning, summer fog.....just imagining that warmer wet air is feeling good!

I pretty much followed my normal path to downtown Dubuque, Cafe Manna Java our destination..... Hwy 26, Iowa Cr-X52, Hwy 76, X56, US 52 into Guttenberg. No I didn't stop for ice cream but if it had been later in the day.....wait, I DID stop later in the day. South on a short stretch of US52 before turning on to the world famous C9Y through Balltown to Sageville and finally to downtown Dubuque. It seems that I've almost worn these roads out following the Mississippi down the east coast of Iowa but no worries, there's simply no danger of that.

We found it. Surprisingly enough, many of those same characters that gathered on Washington Island for coffee back in '10 were thirsty enough to make this trip as well.

Ahhh.....coffee!

Naturally the yellow one finds its place among the other Ultimate Touring Machines.

Filled with coffee, most everyone decided to swing north out of town and ride that aforementioned famous C9Y.....some of us quite a bit more rushed than others.

There was a stop at the overlook in Balltown.....

Another one at Pike's Peak State Park......

Most everyone else had come over from Wisconsin and Illinois; Don was the only Iowa rider as I recall and I the only one from MN. Heading back north, I for the most part took the same route though did make more stops than I had on the way down.

Never stopping before at the Heitman Landing, this was the trip to remedy that problem.

This very green carpet is not really.

410 miles for the day and though I don't remember for sure, it was entirely possible that it was time for another cup.

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)