Gator!

Alligator teeth

Nice to look at until the

Gnarly jaw snaps shut



On a recent trip to Florida, we went out into the Everglades and saw many of these monsters.

Matters of the Heart

Haiku My Heart
March 15, 2013

We meet here on Fridays and share our lives along with our souls. See more of Haiku My Heart at Rebecca's recur mi corazon.

Willingness to live

Taking life’s chances in stride

It does my heart good

By last count, the tally of motorcycles on the list that follows this post, I have owned over my lifetime. There are sixteen bikes listed. A few of these I had stabled in one garage or another together and owned more than one at a time, but most were just stand alone bikes, that is, I owned one motorcycle and rode it.

I had that first one in 1970 when I lived with my folks in Westchester, IL. I bought it right after I got out of the army when I got home from Vietnam. I was riding to work the first day I had it and I slid down on a shady stretch of slick dew covered pavement when the car traveling in front of me hit their brakes hard in an attempt to avoid hitting a family of ducks that were crossing the road. I was an inexperienced rider and although I don’t remember the details, I was probably following too closely and/or riding too fast.

No one was hurt, not even the ducks. The jacket I was wearing, an olive drab green army field jacket, took a black asphalt stripe from the wrist to the elbow on my left arm and to this day, I have had trouble with that left shoulder. I reinjured that arm twice more in non automobile accidents over the years when I crashed snowmobiles, once hitting a log and another time hitting a large chuck of ice. Both of these motosport mishaps took place in the 1990’s. Oh yeah, there was also the time I rolled a Polaris ATV when I drove sideways on a steep hillside.

That last bike, the 2011 Triumph Bonneville, is what I was riding when an oncoming car came over the double yellow lines and forced me to the ditch last September on a quiet rural Wisconsin highway. That bike was a total loss from damage sustained in the wreck and I have not owned a motorcycle since that day, September 16, 2012.

The morning after my accident, September 17, 2012

That is, until last month. I briefly had money down on a new 2012 Triumph Bonneville, but decided not to follow through with the purchase and asked the dealer to refund my deposit. In fact, I had thought about not every buying another motorcycle and giving up riding bikes completely as I took into account the fact that I have severe heart matters that compromise my overall health.

November 11, 2012,  a little more than two months after the accident

I ended up thinking that I want to live until I die, not just be alive, and that getting out in the fresh air on a motorcycle is something that I don’t think I’ll ever lose the desire to do no matter what physical condition I’m in. As long as I can still do it, safely, I will ride motorcycles. 

That “Safely” is a strong important word here. That means safely for myself, but more importantly, safely for others using the Nations highways and byways.

I had a friend tell me once, when I had an old Jeep that I rode up into the Black Range Mountains of New Mexico, that vehicles like that are “Death Traps”. He suggested a long time ago that it wasn’t safe to have such vehicles and ride them on or off road. I guess for that matter, with statistics showing almost 40,000 deaths on our highways every year, it is never totally “safe” to be in a vehicle of any kind. For that matter, no one is ever totally safe and no one gets out of here alive anyway!

I decided that 40,000 was a very small part of the 313 million people that live in the United States and that I would chance the odds.

Introducing the newest member of my stable, this 2009 Triumph Bonneville T-100.

I’m scheduled to drive down to New Mexico in early April with my pickup truck and bring it home. Hopefully, this time frame will have me riding as soon as the snow melts and the roads are dry.

The Haiku I penned this morning speaks to the idea that I will ride again and my heart soars thinking about it.

Peace

1970 Honda CB 350 Gold

1967 Yamaha MX360 Silver

1976 Honda 400 Four  Blue

1976 Honda 400 Four Red

1978 Honda CL450 Blue

1982 Yamaha SR 500 Black

1993 Harley Davidson Fat Boy Black Cherry

1986 Honda CB750 Four Brown

2004 Harley Davidson Sportster Silver

2004 Harley Davidson Dyna Glide Silver

2008 Triumph Tiger Orange

2008 Triumph Scrambler Orange

2010 BMW G650 GS Black

1973 Honda CL 350 Red

2005 Moto Guzzi Nevada Classic Black/Red

2011 Triumph Bonneville SE Orange

April 2013, Number 17

2009 Triumph Bonneville T-100 Green

Note: There has been an update to last week's Haiku My Heart with some explanation about my actions if care to wander back the the post below this one. Thanks.

Friday Haiku

Haiku My Heart
March 8, 2013

See more at recuerda mi corazon

Seems to me, things could

Be, can’t you see the burning

In my heart and soul

First of all, I apologize for not getting around to all your blogs to read your haiku and see your artwork and photographs. I have been very busy. I promise to better in this area in the future.

In the meantime, I want to explain a little about the Haiku I posted here this past Friday. These are parts of words to a song I wrote some time ago. It is sung to a Reggae beat and has one verse. Here it is:

Seems To Me
Joe Spado
1984


Seems to me, oh oh
My love is growin' stronger now

Seems to be, oh oh
A burnin' in my heart

Things could be,
Fine when we're together

Oh can't you see,
It hurts to be apart

That's right. A simple love song. I wrote it, but honestly, I didn't write it for someone or something that happened or was happening in my life either at the time I wrote it, or before or after.

I did see, by the comments that were left, that many of you wondered about what it might mean. And this wonderment reflected to yourselves and to me and my life. Conjecture was made, a rush of all sorts of feelings, for yourselves, for me, for someone you know. Even memories were stirred.

I must say, I didn't plan on such a response, so I won't take credit for some kind of experiment that I conducted. I was just so busy, and I wanted to participate in Haiku My Heart, so I tinkered with the words so they fit in the 5-7-5 Haiku format and let 'em fly.

But since the results came out the way they did, I will encourage you to take what you need and leave the rest.

Much Peace to all, and Thank you very much for coming here to see my offerings. 

Snowshoe Melodies

Haiku My Heart

March 1, 2013

Haiku My Heart is a weekly meme done on Fridays. We gather through Rebecca's recuerda mi corazon blog and share stories, photos, art and poetry. We visit each other and make our day a little brighter. To see more and learn how you can participate,visit recuerda mi corazon

First pair made in 2013

Deep cotton hillsides

Walking on top of snowdrifts

A thing of beauty

This has been a busy year for me making snowshoes. Five pair in one season. Seeing as I am retired and I don’t advertise for business, that makes it an extremely busy year.

We haven’t had big snow. We still never got that massive snowstorm like we’ve seen out East earlier this Winter season or in Kansas City and other midwest regions recently, but it’s better than the complete lack of snow and cold weather like we've had over the past few years in the upper Midwest. Better for the badly needed moisture in the ground and better for getting out and using snowshoes.

Dark frame, light colored lacing

Bending white ash strips

Textile weaving knots and loops

Uncommon art work

Might it be a statement about the economy? People buying snowshoes? I don’t have any idea. I don’t get rich from making these, and I don’t judge my own prosperity wholly by selling an item or two now and then.

Wolf tracks, wood burned and the toe wrapped in color

Love to see them used

Word gets out by talking heads

And playing in snow

Back in the day when I lived at the Canadian border in extreme Northern Minnesota, the silent Winter sports of dogsledding, cross country skiing, ice fishing and snowshoeing would take up much of the long darkness of Winter. 

My four direction logo

A whole day was wasted getting up, getting dressed in layer upon layer of garments designed to ward off the cold, then, strapping the snowshoes to your boots and pulling a sled laden with ice fishing gear a couple of miles, over a land portage, and onto Duncan Lake. Imagining the life under the thick ice sheet of huge lake trout just waiting to grab the lure, dropping a baited line and sitting there, in the deafening silence, waiting for the phenomenon of a fish striking your hook.

Light frames, dark colored lacing

Why I’ve had times when the 8” diameter hole wasn’t wide enough for the girth of the fish and I’d have to chop out the hole with an iron steel chipper with one hand while holding onto the ice fishin’ stick with the other in order to get it out of the lake. And that’s no fish tail either!

Then there was that hot thermos of coffee, the metal cup/top cap heating your mittened hand. The crushed snack crackers from the parka pocket as I watched an Eagle soar overhead. Getting home, reversing the process of layered clothing, cleaning the fish and eating, thanking Creator for the bounty. Ahhhhh, what a lifestyle I have had the honor and pleasure of experiencing through the years.

The wolf tracks

Traverse across lakes

Cold and snow, a way of life

The frozen tundra

Nowadays, I do like to sit indoors on a cold Wintery day and weave the age old pattern for the webbing as it’s hard for me to breathe that frigid air. I love to think, plan and do the wood burning and see how the burnt carbon area glistens when the varnish is applied. I’ve got a language of my own as well. Loops, crossovers, hitch, half-hitch, turns, wraps. They are all part of the process.

Ironically, I was watching old reruns of TV’s longest running western show, Gunsmoke which blended into an episode of Rawhide while sitting at my table using the Colwood woodburning tool. They were showing branding of cattle on Rawhide. My mind went back to 1840, on the grassy plains of Northeastern New Mexico and I saw myself branding the snowshoes just like they throwed, roped and branded cattle. Who says the old ways are lost and forgotten? Maybe I was there in a former life and that’s how I know how to do it!

These will be fitted with bindings to secure the boots.

Twists, knots, loops on wood

Wrapping, lacing, thick varnish

Lasting a lifetime

Anyway, working on these and other projects has been keeping me busy this Winter. I guess as I think about the fact that today is the first of March and we change the clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time in a week, I managed to exchanged travel to the Southwest for branding. Stay tuned for more finished folk art to show up here as Winter quickly wanes into Spring.

Peace

Saturday Morning Thoughts

I’m feeling like I should explain a little about This Post I wrote along with the Haiku a few Fridays ago. Bear with me while I recall my motivation for such a somber piece. Let me be clear to tell you that I was not complaining about people not coming to my blog or not liking my stories. I was not calling for attention by telling people I am a Veteran of the American war in Vietnam, and I certainly wasn’t feeling sorry for myself, although melancholy and waxing nostalgically can certainly sound that way, especially when read on a gloomy day.

Thursday afternoon, a good friend stopped by. His name is Nick and he is 73 years old. I’m 63. So, here we are, a couple of old men in an old Ford Escort station wagon, driving around the county on rural roads. It was a warm day for January, temperatures in the 40’s. That fact, in and of itself, is a story as it is minus 14 as I sit here and write this.

Nick and I enjoy smoking a cigar now and then. In the Spring, Summer and Fall, we sit in the garage or near the fire pit outside and enjoy each others company and a cigar. Sometimes, we use the patio at the coffee shop in Pepin, WI. We would ride our motorcycles down there on very twisty curvy scenic township roads through the forest, along the streams and through the cultivated fields of corn.

Lately, Nick’s old Escort was in for some badly needed repairs. It wasn’t sure whether or not Nick’s car could be repaired. This was problematic as Nick , nor I, smoke cigars in our “good” cars. Those would be the later model vehicles that we keep and other members of our respective families use for their conveyance. Only the old “beater” is used for smoking forays, and I was without an old beater at this time.

Now this will change as I have been busy horse trading and will go to St. Paul and pick up an old beater of my own this Sunday. It’s a 1999 yellow Dodge 1/2 ton truck, perfect for such country excursions for the purpose of no purpose at all, except to loan to friends that need to haul something and/or are moving and to smoke a cigar.

Anyway, Nick and I were driving around in his resurrected Ford Escort and the conversation was flowing to all kinds of places. Nick is well versed and as rounded as anyone I know when it comes to personal experiences and adventures. We never run out of subjects and each of our personal vignettes from different periods of our lives has an adventure attached to it.

We were nearing the end of our ride and we had just stopped at a brand new Flying J truck stop that had opened up along Interstate 94 near Roberts, WI at Exit 10. We both could swear that truck stop wasn’t there a week ago and that it was built, up and running and open for business, in what seemed like, overnight!

As we got back on the road after leaving the Flying J, I started talking about how glad I was that I no longer had to drive over-the-road trucks to make a living. The conversation went on and I recalled a few very rare stories that I don’t even remember telling anyone about ever in my lifetime. Trucking stories, being on the road. The many miles over the years that I put on driving big rigs, criss-crossing the country.

I related to Nick that I don’t usually get asked about my experiences from my old truck driving days, or any other job I’ve had for that matter, then I told him about my Brother-In-Law asking me about Vietnam when I was in Chicago visiting my sister before Christmas.

The conversation drifted to this idea that people don’t know all the things someone has done in their lifetime when they look at them, and most people don’t just start telling others their life stories at the drop of a hat. It was agreed upon that that’s one of the reasons why these discussions never come up in general conversation.

I thought about this when I got home and wrote my Haiku poem for the Haiku My Heart project that I am involved in on almost every Friday. 

So, today’s post is an explanation, and a short story from that cigar smoking session on that balmy day, spending time with Nick. Sharing the idea that when we see another human soul around us, at the coffee shop or a restaurant, at the grocery store or any outing, even glancing over at the person driving the car next to yours at a stop light, they all have lived a life and have a story to tell.

(As a side bar to the idea of a short story, the cigar brand I was smoking was an Arturo Fuente. Fuente was a premier Cuban cigar maker and made some of the most glorious cigars in Havana right about the same time that Earnest Hemmingway was living and writing in Cuba. As in most other things of this nature, cigars come in several shapes and sizes and use different types, colors and strengths of tobacco. Fuente has kept up the Hemmingway theme and has a line of cigar offerings called the Hemmingway series. One of these is labeled a "Hemmingway Short Story". It is short in length, a small cigar, and very satisfying. That is what I was smoking this day in Nick's Escort)

I would relish the idea of sitting down with a stranger, or with anyone, and spin yarns. Just get on a subject and see what is said. Bask in the images created in our minds from the words that are spoken. See the people, the landscape, the weather and feel the drama, laughter, pain and ecstasy of life. Too bad this couldn't happen outside on a shaded patio where I could smoke a cigar, and perhaps share a smoke with another storyteller, but the weather is too harsh for such enjoyment here in the Northland.

I think I will do some of this today and speak to a stranger at a coffee shop I haven’t been to before.

Peace

Privilege

Haiku My Heart
February 22, 2013

Haiku My Heart is a weekly posting of Haiku from participants all over the world. To see more and find out how to participate, please visit Rebecca's recuerda mi corazon.

Raw hurtful feelings

My heart aches for true justice

All those that conquer

It’s not supposed to happen. A person with white skin from the white race isn’t supposed to complain about racism to a person that is Black or Indigenous Native American, I’m being told, in a discussion that I entered into. They said I wouldn’t know anything about it and that I shouldn’t have hurt feelings at what was said because I am White.

What was said was pretty straight forward and simple. Someone was mistreated at work. They did some work and someone else, who was sloughing off all day long and tends to do so on a regular basis while on the job, took credit for it.

The person that was mistreated, a Native American, in his complaint, said, “Some white guy” did it. I wondered if he thought the guy did it because he was White. I wondered if this mistreated person thought that all White people did these things. I wondered if this person did these things to everyone or just minorities. I wondered if the word White even needed to be used to describe what happened.

I also wondered if people that have been a victim of racism measured their experiences with other minorities that have experienced racism. Like the Jews in Nazi Germany versus the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears, who had it worse? Whose persecution was harder to endure?

Maybe these people are right. Maybe I have no basis for defending myself as a White man because I don’t get a daily dose of discrimination and racist hatred thrown at me on a regular basis. Maybe. I don’t know. But I see it done to others and I know it to be wrong.

What I do know, is that I don’t do things, or say things, to people based on the color of their skin or their race. I also know that I didn’t choose to be white skinned when I was born. Whatever higher power or natural event that created us as human beings never gave me or anyone else a choice as to what race or color we would be. The decision was out of my hands.

I know that in America, white men have privilege. Many White folks don’t understand this concept. I am fully aware of it. There is nothing that I can do about having this privilege. I can’t get rid of it. I wish I could, but I have not figured out a way to get rid of white privilege. 

It just makes me feel terrible that some people insist that they must mention the race and skin color of someone that did something. They make it part of the conversation, then tell me that they are not racist. I just want Peace.

Peace and Justice for all

Birthdays and Anniversaries

Today is February 20th. Just another cold mid-winter day here in the Northland. For many years, I have spent this day, and many days on either side of it, away from home. My usual wanderings had me spending this time of the year in New Mexico or other destinations in the American Southwest.

It’s not uncommon for Midwesterners to travel to the Southwest, Southern Texas, Florida and other warm temperature climates to find some sunshine and heat. Many folks call themselves “Snowbirds”. The locals in places like Tucson and Phoenix definitely call people that travel to these places only during the winter, Snowbirds.

It’s been a great excuse. No one questions the decision to get away from Wisconsin, Minnesota and other Northern climates to land in warmer places anything else but lucky and fortunate because they could afford to do so monetarily, or have the time off from work to get away from the cold chill of Winter.

I say excuse because I have always had another reason for making these treks this time of year. You see, I celebrate, and I use that word carelessly here, the anniversary date of the day I was sent to, and subsequently sent home from, Vietnam in 1969 and 1970 respectively.

Sure, it was a long time ago, but the mind has a way of kicking the seat of my pants to remind me what happened on this date so many years ago.

Sometimes it is a conscious fact and I recall vividly the details of my arrival, and departure, in the war zone. Sometimes I just feel like crap and wonder what the hell is going on? Why is my head so discombobulated? Then I see a calendar and remember this date.

February 20th isn’t the only date that does this to me. Seems like there are many anniversary dates of tragic happenings that plague me for one reason or another. Unfortunately for my middle daughter, February 20th is also her birthday, and I can count on one hand how many times I have been at home to celebrate a good and wonderful day. A real Happy Birthday celebration when a child was born, my own daughter, my own flesh and blood.

But home I am. And aware I am as well. Aware that this is an important date in the history of the lives of all my family. I will do all I can this day to celebrate my daughter’s life by cooking her favorite foods, singing Happy Birthday and eating cake and ice cream.

I pray that I can stay focused enough on the happiness of the present to forget about the past and wake up tomorrow in a different frame of mind. I am so blessed to have a family that surrounds me with love and I ask The Creator to help me see that love every minute of every day that I am alive.

Peace