SOMETHING TO ADDRESS

Outside of whining about my bad knees from time to time, 

I steer clear of discussing personal health here. 

This’ll be an exception:

 

 

 

So I took the little red rooster (my Royal Enfield) on a delightful ride Tuesday – 60 miles through foothills, redwoods and vineyards. Green hillsides dotted with poppies; deep forests smelling of moist, rich duff; dry roads perfect for a little sightseeing; fresh air.

 

     Then about 2:00 AM on Wednesday, then again at 4:00, then again, in the awake-hours-morning a couple of times, I had another spate of those – for lack of a better term – arrythmias. Felt like a constricted something-er-other (or, at least there was some real pushing going on) and a little light-headedness or dizziness and, after three to five minutes of reclined rest, back to normal – until some next one comes along. 

     I’ll experience these being distributed through a few hours once every 10 to 12 weeks, then nothing. After each little event there are only shadows of the incident but, it’s always in the back of my thinking. 

 

Speaking of that thinking, I got to thinking how unfortunate it would be should one of these occur while riding at sixty-five-plus miles per hour on US 101 or out on some back road with no cell service. So, today, I began thinking about marketing the bikes: Both that sweet little 411cc Enfield which I absolutely adore, and the more substantial and visceral 850cc Moto Guzzi traveling companion. 

     Before I got too deep into that hole, I decided to do a bit more research. Hell! The Church of the Open Road was built upon sharing motorcycle adventures, wasn’t it? 

     As it turns out, when it comes to things cardio, of the seven or eight do-s and don’t-s listed with a number of reputable sites like the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic, and as elucidated by my Kaiser doc, I seem to be doing okay with all but two: eating enough fresh fruit and vegetables and keeping it to only one or two drinks. As much as I have declared I’m going to cut way down on the wine, whiskey and song – okay, maybe not the song –  lately, I’ve been plowing through the better part of a whole bottle of cabernet or zin or some nice red blend every evening. EEE-Yikes! 

     Enough already!

Either that stops, I’ve decided, or I sell the bikes. 

     Big test on the horizon: Shortly, Candi will be out of the house playing bunco. (I wonder if Joe Friday or Bill Gannon will show up.) I have a small beef filet and baked potato – and some veges, dang it! – on tap for myself. A nice Cab is being eyeballed. Can I hold myself to one or two glasses?

© 2025

Church of the Open Road Press

WITHER THE PENNY?

 …my two cents worth…

 

Stop the presses! The practice of minting the penny is going to be halted. Discontinued. Stopped. One of the two current Presidents of the United States has demanded it!

     Why? Because, while the little copper colored disk has a face value of one cent, the cost to manufacture one costs 3.7 cents.  It’s a money loser! It’s among the reasons the treasury of this Grand Republic is going bankrupt. It’s nothing personal; it’s strictly business. “I know, Godfather,” ~ think Abe Vigoda here ~ “Strictly business.”

 

But consider this (understanding that the pricing references in this commentary may be a bit out of date ~ like by about fifty years): On his way home from second grade, Billy drops by Harvey’s Market and, pulling a penny from his pocket, buys a hunk of Fleer Bubble Gum. Or maybe Bazooka ‘cuz their comics are better. Billy has gotten his one cent worth out of the penny and the coin goes into Harvey’s till until Mrs. Jones offers seventy-five cents in the form of three quarters for two bundles of carrots priced at twenty-nine cents a bundle. Billy’s penny leaves Harvey’s till as Harvey makes seventeen cents change. In dispensing the penny back into circulation, the one cent coin has seen two cents worth of action. Before Mrs. Jones goes home, she must go downtown to purchase some new boxers for Mr. Jones at JC ~ wait for it ~ Penney’s. But because of those damned parking meters, she must drop two pennies in the meter in return for twenty-four minutes parking. One of those pennies had belonged to Billy about an hour-and-a-half earlier. Around 6:00 PM, Rita ~ you guessed it ~ the meter maid, empties the parking meter which includes the traveling copper of this opinion piece. It has now returned three times its face value. Rolled and returned to the bank, the city receives value. Harvey, needing change for another day’s marketing shows up at the bank and buys ~ among other coinage ~ two rolls of 50 pennies each for a buck. David, the candy and tobacco wholesaler swings into Harvey’s Market to drop off several boxes of 24/fives (two dozen five-cent candy bars costing Harvey 90 cents a box) and two 10 pack cartons of White Owl cigars wholesaling for $3.18 each. The penny becomes David’s. David uses the penny when he stops by Big Al’s for a burger and fries and a low-cal Fresca at lunch and Big Al turns the penny over to a customer in change a few minutes later. In less than twenty-four hours, the Billy’s penny has changed hands eight or nine times returning eight or nine times its face value – far more than its cost of manufacture.

Coins are simply tokens ~ tokens that represent monetary value. But they are not the value itself. As the penny is exchanged its worth as a tool increases. The longer it circulates, the more worth is accrued. (The same might be said for us old people.) 

     Now, following this little diatribe ~ which I shall loftily refer to as ‘logic’ ~ it is evident that the minuscule penny holds far more worth than its face value; far more worth than its cost of manufacture.

     Truth be told, I don’t really care if the US mint quits minting pennies, but given the above scenario and related elucidation, the death of the penny might well be viewed as a little ‘non-cents-icle.’

 

Author’s Note: What if the preceding wasn’t simply about the lowly penny? What if it was about USAID? Or the National Park Service or Forest Service? Or the reduction in IRS personnel charged with both expediting tax refunds and fighting tax fraud? What if the above was a metaphor for the indiscriminate ‘cost saving’ hatchet that cripples services to all Americans and our leadership in the twenty-first century world? What if, indeed...

 

© 2025

Church of the Open Road Press

RICHARD FLORES, FIRST GRADER