THE BROTHERHOOD OF RAINY DAY RIDERS

THERE’S A BROTHERHOOD of riders (closed circuit to “Fishy” and “Demenshea:” make that “sisterhood” or “personhood”) who ride in the rain – stronger than the bond between those of us who simply ride. Here’s proof: On a sunny day, the wave you afford any oncoming rider may be met with a wave in return. But, then again, it may not. On a rainy day, we’re all too eager to greet one another. Suddenly, we’re all in this together, battling the same elements.


MOM’S BEEN IN AND OUT of the hospital as of late for various ailments natural to one who is looking at ninety. Three weeks ago, the late night punches she received in her chest, followed by the hot pain radiating down her left arm would signal anyone that something cardiac was going on. Mom, of late in an independent living home, looked at the illuminated digital clock next to her bed and seeing it was well past 11:00, decided to wait until morning to pull the cord for help. A mid-morning call the next day precipitated two or three 100-mile trips up and back for me without complaint. She needed her son.

Yesterday she complained she was “hallucinogenating,” her word, not mine. Concern was that it might be a result of the medications from the earlier ordeal. Or, it could be a result of her sad and on-going macular degeneration. Those eliminated, a test was ordered to see if there may be some sort of lower GI infection.


I SCOOTED NORTH on the BMW, clothed for fifty-five to sixty degree temps. My timing was such that if I went straight to “the home,” I’d find myself crashing lunch. I’ll do anything to avoid “crashing lunch” at “the home”, so I waylaid myself at my favorite Chico area greasy spoon – the Kalico Kitchen – with an omelet, coffee and a chat with Chris, the waitress who talks much younger than I suspect she is.

Departing the Kitchen, I noted that a screw and nut holding the crash bar to the frame on my GSA had fallen off. Lunch was still probably underway at “the home,” so I ventured over to Ozzie’s BMW to see about finding a replacement. “A part fell off my bike,” I announced to the young man at the counter. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Yeah,” I continued. “I felt like I was on a British bike.” Laughs (undeserved, by the way) all around. Ozzie, the Dean of BMW shop owners in the entire country, I again suspect, entered. He helped his help find the part and waved off any payment for either the part or the installation.

I arrived at “the home” just as lunch was winding down – a statement that assumes anything ever winds up enough to ever have to wind down at “the home.” My good and reliable in-town brother was already on scene. He was ready to cart Mom off to the lab for the tests, and since Mom never has owned a motorcycle helmet or leathers, after a few phone calls to clarify the situation, confirm next steps and resolve one of those inevitable snafus, I was rocketing south toward home.  Brother told me he "had" this one.


BY THIS TIME, a rather warm and gentle rain began to fall. Acting on a tip I learned from the kind folks at Santa Rosa BMW, I slipped my REI Gore-Tex layer underneath my BMW Santiago three-quarter length (My Goodness! That is a wonderful jacket!) and headed south on State Routes 99, 149 and 70. A fellow on some bad looking American Iron, waiting in the suicide lane for a chance to turn left raised a hand as I passed. Two riders on KLRs waved a bit further on. I’m assuming the rider on the GSX-R north of Marysville was young, but he offered a low five. All in all, on my hundred mile return journey in the rain, I may have passed a dozen or more folks foolish as myself to be riding in the rain. None denied me a greeting. None.

I try to plan one or two rainy trips in the winter months just to practice for those conditions when I’m out on a road trip. I hadn’t done so yet this year – the weather’s been too nice (Damn!). Tomorrow, a continuation of today’s storm is forecast.

I won’t be here at the computer. I might be "scootin'" up north, checking on Mom.

Resources:

The Kalico Kitchen – http://kalicokitchenofchico.homestead.com/index.html

Ozzie’s BMW Center (Chico, CA) – http://ozziesbmwcenter.com/

Santa Rosa BMW – http://www.santarosabmw.com/

The Oakmont – http://www.holidaytouch.com/Our-Communities/the-oakmont.aspx

© 2012
Church of the Open Road Press

PUBLIC TRANSIT: PLEASURES AND PERILS

I DON’T DO MY OWN WORK on either of the bikes. Neither the Guzzi nor the Beemer. Long ago, dad convinced me that I wouldn’t be good with my hands – unlike my brother who could fix a space shuttle – so I’ve never pursued the honest work of a mechanic. Rather, I leave that to others. That way, if I want the thing serviced or fixed, when it comes home from being serviced or fixed, it’s serviced or fixed. Sure, I’ll carp about the nearly 4 figure bill that accompanies a 24K service and tire, but about eight miles and a couple of sweeping curves later, all is right with the bike, the wallet and the world.

kidport.com

Fortunately, I’m only a couple hour walk from the BMW guy; and unlike many, only 41 miles from my Guzzi guy. But that’s a bit more than two hours on the hoof. Hell, back in the day, Father Junipero Serra would have positioned a rest stop at about the half way point. (Recall the Padre’s plan was to place a missions “about a day’s walk” from one another, building 21 or so at twenty-mile increments along the 400 mile El Camino Real in early California.)

flickeriver.com

I LIVE IN A COMMUNITY of the eastern suburbs of Sacramento. The drive between here and there has become a freeway run where subdivisions and strip malls run together; where town or city boundaries are marked by signs rather than passage into open space; where sound walls protect the neighbors from the highway noise and where you don’t really need to go to Sacramento for much, because so much can be had at the local Galleria.

The localest of Guzzi dealers recently moved to southern-most Elk Grove, another twenty or so miles south of the capitol. Similarly, There is little but housing tracts and shopping centers between downtown and there – certainly no ground left for the good Father to build an additional site for soul saving or over-nighting.


THE KIND FOLKS at Elk Grove Powersports picked up my Breva in the middle of what was going to be a ten-day stretch of rain – a good time to have service performed. The fare would be a buck a mile, with the first 25 free. “No hurry,” I said as the driver pulled away. “I’ll pick it up once the weather clears a bit.”

Cool, I’m thinking. I can put my money where my mouth is regarding the practical and ecologically sound practice of engaging public transportation. Heck, last summer, a week and a half in both New York City and Boston found us frequently on the subway or MTA and never more than a few minutes on foot from our destination. Granted, granted, granted – things on the east coast are a bit more condensed than here, and the infrastructure for mass transit’s been in the ground for quite some time.

railroadpictures.net

While the Breva was in the shop, I did some research about our public transit: I can pick up a bus at the nearby community college. It will take me to a light rail station about eight miles away. Light rail will take me into town. Alternatively, I can take a commuter train from the station about a half-mile from here and ride it or a bus into town. From town, at a light rail exchange point, I can catch an express bus to Elk Grove, although the earliest one leaves at 3:20 in the afternoon. It will take 70 minutes to be “expressed” down to Elk Grove.

There, I’ll need to make connection one of several locals, hoping I end up on the bus that will take me within about 2.3 miles of the dealership, arriving sometime before the shop closes at 5:30, if all goes perfectly. Alternatively, I can take light rail south from the city about 4 miles, catch a bus to a Shell Station in the heart of a stucco encrusted subdivision and then call for a taxi to shuttle me the final ten miles.

Trolleyville.com

It seems the Sacramento area transit system, like computer technology, is still in its infancy. Ignoring that about this time 100 years ago, folks could hop on an interurban car in Chico and make the 90 miles to Sacramento in less than a day for under a half a buck and continue on to Oakland if they so pleased, public transit in my immediate area has buckled under the pressure to build further and further out linking populations with lane upon lane of freeway.

Movements to improve our area transportation by including diamond lanes (which we do have) or extensions of light rail are met with howls of protest about how diamond lanes serve to reduce people’s choices (huh?) and how public transit must self-fund or it is another step toward socialism (like taxpayer funding of roads and highways is not.)


I’VE USED LIGHT RAIL into Sacramento for shopping or to visit a museum or to take in a conference, when I used to take in conferences. But I’d never been confronted with the unwieldy task of traversing the greater metropolitan area using the hodge-podge of public forms. It’s not impossible, but I did find an alternative.

Brother Tim owns a classic late-80s Acura. He heard of my plight and volunteered: the ’88 Legend could use a road trip since most of his driving involves a Prius. He delivered me to the motorcycle shop in timely luxury. Along the way, I pushed him to tour the showroom and, perhaps, rekindle his long-ago experience on two wheels. He’d own a Honda 400-four.

But Brother Tim is a wise young man. Today, his passions include tennis, downhill skiing, long walks on the beach and a good bottle of wine now and then. He dropped me off and was on his way.

© 2012
Church of the Open Road Press

LOST

RIVER ROAD AND GRIDLEY HIGHWAY, 

OUTSIDE OF COLUSA, CALIFORNIA

Going back and forth between two points, like when commuting, it is difficult to find something new to see or some new way to go.  Such was the case when, returning from Healdsburg to Roseville via Clear Lake, I avoided taking state route 16 south from state route 20.  Instead, I hopped over to Williams, thence to Colusa.  Having been reared in Chico, I know this area of the Sacramento Valley, or so I thought.

A left turn at the end of Colusa’s main drag found me on a new-to-me lane.  “River Road” crosses the Sacramento and immediately bends northward.  After seven hours in the saddle, this was counter to the direction I had intended to travel.  But I knew the checkerboard pattern of valley farmland from flying Southwest Air on approach to Sacramento Metropolitan Field.  I knew that, very soon, some secondary road would beeline east and I would hook into 99 just north of Yuba City. 

I just knew it.

38 years ago, I’d been appointed to my first teaching position in Durham, California.  Durham is a pleasant agricultural berg a few miles south of Chico.  Durham Unified, while serving a relatively small population of children, spans the largest geographical area of all of the school districts in Butte County: east to the gold country, west to the river.  In and around town, almond orchards predominate.  The southern part of the district is primarily laser-planed valley floor filled with rice fields. 

I’d hired on to teach a small number of seventh and eighth grade students who were deemed too – today’s term is – “at risk” to succeed in the regular classroom.  These kids weren’t dumb.  Just squirrelly.  And I’d have them for most of their day.

Mandy Scottschild (a pseudonym) was twelve, maybe thirteen.  She lived out south in the rice fields.   

She didn’t lack smarts, but she did lack something.  Often, she wore the same outfit for a week at a time.  I don’t recall that she smelled particularly girlish – whatever that means.  And I know she annoyed the boys, the majority of my charges, by running up to them, doing something I never quite saw, and then running away. 

“She’s about as welcome as a horse fly at a beach party,” said a faculty member in the staff room.

“Yeah,” said another, “but by sixteen, she’ll have one of her own.”

Mandy’s pregnant mother attended my very first back-to-school night.  She came up afterward but only to comment that they’d named their daughter after the song.

“The song?” 

Mandy’s dad showed up at school a few of times, mostly to complain to me if the girl brought home too much work or had a run-in with a classmate. 

“Look,” he said.  “I’m a common laborer.  I can’t fix much o’ nothin’.  But you’re a teacher.  College degree.  You need to fix my kid.” 

He was a big man who wore aged blue jeans and a sleeveless used-to-be white undershirt.  His face had been shaven at one time, perhaps, but on his infrequent visits, he looked much like the last iconic photos we have of Saddam Hussein.  Although, back in those days, Saddam was our ally. 

I don’t recall what I said to Mr. Scottschild in response, but I don’t suppose it would have mattered.

Motoring north on River Road, I’m waiting for that turn that will point me east.  To my left is the river levee.  To my right, miles upon miles of valley loam filled with bright green August-level stalks of rice.  Occasionally, a pair of ruts will run through the paddies to a singular house shaded by a willow or a black walnut.

As the school year progressed, Mandy’s toying with the boys subsided only once her new sister arrived.  For a couple of weeks, she regaled her classmates incessantly about the newborn and how she cared for it.  Soon, however, she returned to simply bugging the hell out of the boys.

Two years later, Mandy and her colleagues moved across the parking lot to the high school and I was moved to fourth grade.  By Christmas break, the community was abuzz that Mandy had left school.  Pregnant.  It was scandalous. 

Scandalous!

Further north than I wanted to go, the Gridley Highway tees off to the right.  I steamed east.  “Steamed” because the temperature was in the mid-nineties and the bottomlands were still dense with moisture from a late spring, but also steamed at myself for having detoured this far out of the way.

Unlike River Road, Gridley Highway divides acres of rice stalks.  The river’s course disappears in my rear view mirror.  I find myself in the southern-most end of the district that gave birth to my career in education.  A dirt path splits off to the north.  It follows one of those graceful little dikes the farmers use to separate the rice fields by elevation in order to meter the water they flood over newly planted seeds.  You can see them from the air on approach to Sac Metro.  Maybe a hundred yards up that path, a graying little house stands on some long-ago engineered high ground.  Clothes flutter from a line secured to the side of the structure opposite where the willow or walnut grows.   

I only glance up the dirty little drive as I ride past.  But in that moment, what I’ve reported here resurfaces.

It’s been 38 years.  Mandy is a grandmother by now.  Perhaps a great-grandmother if my math is accurate.  That is, unless, somewhere along the way, some young first-year teacher broke through and, you know, fixed things.

© 2011

Church of the Open Road Press