Here's To You

 "The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth."

Supreme Court Justice (ret) Anthony Kennedy

The First Monday in October.

"Jim," you might be asking. Or, "Sarge" if you are still uncomfortable using my first name...or, maybe you don't know it. Anyway, you might be wondering why the words are capitalized.

It's because this is a formal day of celebration. Not a national holiday - of course not. It's the opening session of the Supreme Court of the United States. The first day of the 2023 Term. Law porn season.

What, you ask, will they do beside infuriate us with their ideological games, their high-minded yet nonsensical interpretation of a document written and agreed to by people dead for nearly two hundred years? How many opinions will contain a "But, wait..." construct more fitting for poor, demised Billy May selling soap? Will we actually see fisticuffs break out (my money is on Gorsuch)?

It is almost always nail-biting, hair-raising edge of the seat stuff. They may decide a case in a manner that conflicts with your deeply-held beliefs. It's easy for me to write, "And that's okay."

Sometimes, it's not. In addition to real litigants being told that they went all the way to the Supreme Court - spent countless years and huge sums of money - only to lose, the Supreme Court routinely fields requests for stays of execution. They are granted very rarely. This is serious stuff.

But, it is our serious stuff. These nine lawyers are wrestling with many of the most important conflicts of our time. Sometimes, their decisions suit the majority of Americans, and sometimes confound them. Though we are not really spectators in a centuries-old melodrama, there is one thing I think we can all agree on.

We wish them inspiration, maybe some moments of humor, and above all that they recognize in themselves the frailties and fortitude of being human beings who have a very important job.

So, here's to you, you magnificent... Anyway, we raise a glass of "First Monday in October" to the new term.  

GC Kuss

 It's hard and cruel to be a professional cyclist. You suffer a lot in preparation, you sacrifice your life, your family, and you do everything you can to be ready. After you get here you realize that everyone is incredibly strong and its hard to follow the wheels sometimes.

Matej Mohorič, after winning Tour de France stage 19

Sepp and Jonas

Sepp Kuss, born 29 years ago in Durango, Colorado, riding for the Jumbo-Visma team, won the Vuelta a Espana's mountain top Stage 6, alone. He high-fived spectators lining the finish line, grinned that very Sepp Kuss grin and took the accolades on the winner's podium. He was within a short drive from the home he shares with his wife in Andorra, and these were his most ardent fans. He also took in a very healthy amount of the Cava (Spanish champagne) magnum the stage winner is handed. It was his moment to shine. Apparently, the last thing on his mind was the leader's jersey.

 Helping others is where Sepp Kuss makes his living as a high-mountain domestique. It is exactly as it sounds - he takes care of others so that, when the time comes, they can ride to glory. Fetches them water bottles, grabs a feed bag and shares its contents, paces someone back when they have something go wrong (or when they've had to make a nature break). As the brutal, steep and unrelenting climbs (that often decide a grand tour) appear, he is among the dwindling riders at the front. Sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, but always within striking distance of his team leader. Everyone is approaching their limit - the pain difficult to bear. Then, Sepp strikes.

 

His riding shatters the small group, leaving... Often, leaving only him and his team leader. Eventually he accedes to the reality of his role. The team leader, having been aided up the mountain, bursts forward to snatch precious second over his rivals. Sepp? Job done, he arrives at the finish spent, as often as not ignored by the cameras. Back to the bus, a shower, dinner. Prepare for the next day, which might be yet another mountaintop finish in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Apennines. Back to the front, back to supporting the team leader. Back to riding at his limit for as long and as hard as he is able. He's done that for every Grand Tour in which he participated, and whenever one of his teammates wins the overall, it's been with Sepp's help.

A funny thing happened. Fellow Jumbo rider (2023 Tour of Italy winner) Primoz Roglic won Stage 8, but... Math and hard riding put Sepp in the red leader's jersey - first in the "General Classification." GC Kuss, get it? Yay, Sepp. A fitting reward for all of his hard work. Something for his resume, a jersey to hang in his den. In a couple of days there was an individual time trial - the "Race of Truth." Remco Evenepoel (Soudal - Quick-Step), the world time trial champion (the defending Vuelta 2022 winner) would, inevitably, surpass Sepp and that would be that. Back to riding for his team leaders Primoz, and Jonas Vingegaard. 

"That's the first time trial I've ridden where no one passed me," Sepp said later, laughing. Two reasons. He started last - there was no one left to pass him. And, he rode an excellent time trial. He "exceeded expectations." Evenepoel - talented but mercurial Remco - did not ride well enough to take the red jersey. In the world of high stakes cycle racing, barring some kind of disaster (a crash, or horrible legs) that should have been that. Sepp's Jumbo-Visma team shepherds him to the finish, there are wild celebrations, and...

One of the alluring things about cycle racing is the human drama. Not just the competition, not just watching men and women wrest the very last ounces of endurance from their bodies. No - cycle racers are crazy. Let me tell you a story.

I rode for nearly a month, day in and day out, with a guy named Glenn - Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Long climbs, frightening descents ("Hold my wheel and you'll be fine," he said) and long stretches of monotonous flats. He'd "done some racing in California" he said in passing as I gasped for breath. Bicycle racers were assholes, he observed. He showed me the proper way to secure the quick releases on my wheels so no one could flip them as they rode past. He taught me to ride close to the wheel of another cyclist without overlapping, lest that person take you out. "Back in the peloton, guys trying to get position on you will fuck with you."

We were sitting around a fire in Teton National Park - soon after, we parted ways but remained friends for years - and other cyclists asked to join us. It wasn't long, or many beers, later that one of the guys pointed at Glenn and said, "Do you know who that is? He was cycling champion of California." That, I did not know. It had never come up. I turned to my friend... "Asshole."

So, there was always going to be drama. Jumbo seemed to implode with petty jealousies and pointless bickering. Team management seemed content to "Let the riders decide" - cycle racers are assholes - and it seemed that in a sport where fans loving a team makes the sponsors happy they decided on a different course. "Hear me out," said the pointed meme. "Let's see what happens if people hate us." Of the three strongest riders - teammates Sepp, Jonas and Primoz - it was often hard to see who was odd man out. Then, Primoz rode Sepp off his wheel. Social media went nuts.

It must have been an interesting team meeting. I can imagine the phone calls from sponsors - "Get those assholes under control before no one wants to shop in our stores" - which is something to which management is particularly sensitive. Suddenly, it was smiles all around. Of course they were riding for Sepp. Don't be silly. Etcetera.

That's what they did. They protected Sepp, kept him safe. They did for him what he had done for them over thousands of kilometers, all over the world. They made sure he was right where he needed to be. They chased down attacks, they helped him avoid the argy-bargy at the end of sprint stages. Behind the scenes, they made sure he knew how to win a grand tour.

One little moment... On a high mountain late in the Vuelta Jonas led, Primoz on his wheel and Sepp tucked safely behind them. A small group of climbers raced to the top. Suddenly several strong riders attack the group, opening up a gap. Like a shot, Sepp covers it - rides not just onto their wheels but past them. Big grin, fresh legs, he's racing his bike and having the time of his life. He jumps out in front and... Jonas Vingegaard, twice winner of the Tour de France, says something into his race radio. Sepp returns to the fold and the three teammates, with nothing more to prove, ride to the finish.

It's the end of Stage 21 and the team is celebrating Sepp's victory in the small paddock among the trucks and busses of the Vuelta caravan. Sepp's mom has found Jonas, still astride his bike and taking it all in. She embraces him and says "He's learned so much from you."

Sepp Kuss, deserving Vuelta champion, on a team that found their true identity as champions.

A Pirate Looks At Good Bye

 "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

Jimmy Buffett, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes," (1977)

Reflecting on the passing of lifestyle icon Jimmy Buffett.

Seventy-six hard charging years at the helm of sand, sail, and a business empire that the man himself said began with the realization he could sing. It has become a multi-billion dollar concern that is still growing.

It began with "Come Monday," a tune he said paid the bills for a long time as his music career took hold. He and his girlfriend - she became his wife for life - drove their old pickup to the beach so they could film a music video of that song.

Jimmy kept working at his brand, blending an ear for storytelling with a showman's gift of gab. Steeped in the Key West island sound, he played the bar scene until the breakout 1977 mammoth Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes introduced the world to the term "Margaritaville" which, Jimmy said a thousand times, was anywhere you wanted it to be.

The party atmosphere of his concerts promised not just good music and his unique island-style banter, but it stamped one's membership as a "Parrothead." You were part of the scene, no matter the venue. You could have an island lifestyle, whether you were in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, or Fort Lupton, Colorado.

Indeed, all it took was the music, a Hawaiian shirt and a superfood beverage made from distilled blue agave, limes and some kind of orange liquor. Walking into a Margaritaville restaurant in Cozumel, we were greeted by a pirate, who graciously posed for pictures with us...which, I assume, was his job. A seaside veranda table gave us a view of the Yucatan, excellent island drinks in souvenir glasses ("Pour me something tall and strong") and delicious seafood. Pictures of the man hung on the walls, along with seafaring totems - nets, sails... Below us, a swim dock with a slide, an aquatic trampoline and a dozen party-goers enjoying the water. Over the house speakers, of course, the sounds of the man himself.

 How pervasive was the man, and his trademark? He appears in the movie "Jurassic World," just another diner in an outdoor restaurant invaded by flying prehistoric carnivores. His moment in front of the camera? He is fleeing in great haste, but not before snagging a couple of frosted margs for the road.

Margaritaville, it turns out, is about sharing. Sharing an interest, sharing a place, sharing moments stolen from an otherwise hectic life. It is sipping a cold marg out on the back deck on a warm summer evening, in the company of the love of my life and the dogs that give us so much. It is sharing an unlikely island bar with a few dozen brand new Syracuse basketball fans during tournament time. It is a laptop, an array of characters and a passion for writing. It's Ubering to our favorite local restaurant on the day I retired - alive and with my dignity intact - to share a meal and a few margaritas with Pat.

It was a restaurant in downtown Denver, Mexican food and the best house marg in town in the company of an adult daughter. It was in the faces we made as we sampled an Oklahoma wine margarita, and how quickly we broke out her Margaritaville frozen drink maker. It's sitting on her back porch in Edmond on a 95 degree day watching her kids play with their dog.

Where is Margaritaville? With Mr. Jimmy Buffett to guide us, it is in the hearts of everyone who sees paradise as a state of mind, a place in your heart. Fair winds and following seas, sir.

Good Bye Claudia Jean

 “Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.” – John Grogan, Marley & Me.

Saying good bye to CJ.

6 weeks old

Most dogs are complicated, once you get to know them. Oh, the basics are easy enough - feed them what they want to eat, don't leave them too many scary places when you run off to vacation spots and if it's a nice day a lap around the park will do everyone a world of good. Car trips can be a good excuse to explore, a great way to find a new place to hike and a fabulous excuse to nap in the shade by a Moab waterfall. Those are givens.

It's the individual quirks that matter, and our CJ had them. A Portuguese Water Dog, she came equipped with webbed feet. That's what the true water dogs did; swim nets, retrieve objects, take messages from one boat to another. Protect the boat and the catch. Only...

No matter how much training and encouragement CJ got, she never really liked the water. "That's got to be the slowest swimming Portuguese I ever saw," said one judge at a competition. She used her hind legs as a sort of rudder, not that she ever went fast enough for it to work. At all. Throw one of the training "bumpers" into the water and she'd look at you with utter disdain. The look as much as said "You don't expect me to get that, do you?" She did like riding in the boat, watching our other PWD get wet. She just never really took to being an actual water Water Dog.

But, she had the protective thing down cold. She was with us at a time when we both endured significant work upsets. We'd walk for miles in her company, our Papillon Radar zigging and zagging while CJ trotted along beside us. Ever wary, she didn't get very excited by other dogs, but if we betrayed the least little discomfort with other people, it was all hands on deck time. The behavior wasn't overt - which is even more ominous to anyone with a mind to mess with us. It was the stink eye, the subtle warning, the body language that said, "You're close enough." She never tired of long walks to the park, never once thought that the long conversations Mom and Dad had were repetitious, or boring.

She was going to be my other writing companion, to go along with Radar. We had a second floor balcony, perfect for sitting on wicker furniture, sipping something cold and working on a novel. Radar had seen me through a couple manuscripts and CJ...went out once, looked through the railing at the ground below and quickly returned to the sliding glass door. Never again to venture out willingly. Or, for that matter, even enticed with a treat.

She found her stride, and her favorite moments, learning K9 Nose Work. The sport, a sort of hide and seek with scent (birch, clove and anise), suited her intelligence and even temperament. The sport was relatively new - her license was in the 300s whereas our almost two year old Joy's is in the ten thousands - and many of the teething issues were worked out with her generation. She titled her first time out, won several ribbons and not once did she have to go in the water. It was so perfect a sport for her that, even weeks away from the Rainbow Bridge she still enjoyed a chance to sniff the air for a hide.

When her health started to fail her in 2021, we brought in Joy, a high-motor Havanese, so that our other PWD Jed wouldn't be an only dog when the inevitable time came. It seemed to give CJ, of all things, a new lease on life. She joined in the backyard chase games, barking and running as though years had fallen away. Instead of being a bulwark against Jed being lonely, Joy gave CJ nearly two more quality years. Go figure.

Just a few weeks past her 16th birthday, the last of her litter, it seemed that the time had come. And so we said good bye to our girl, who had seen us through half our marriage, a chaotic and emotional period of moves and medical issues and the passing of our parents, and walked with us into retirement. We assume we will see her again when our own Rainbow Bridge crossing arrives, ready to walk again with us on our next adventure.

Flea Market Memories

"My mother used to take me to flea markets in my stroller, and I would just rummage through the piles. You've got to dig through the overstuffed racks that everyone else just walks by. It's the only way to find the cool stuff."

Lily Collins

Lolo Pass (Montana-Idaho border) June, 1976

I almost always begin any blog with a quote. I want them to be topical, perhaps introductory in nature. At least germane. So I searched "Flea market quotes." There were hundreds.

What amazed me - which I admit isn't a huge ask - was how many of the quotes began, "My [parent] used to take me to the flea market, where..." I'd thought I was the only one, except it was me taking my mom. And, I thank God for that.

How could that be? My mom didn't drive, not that she didn't try to learn. I think it was the time she nearly drove through the wall of the school kitchen at which she worked (it is called, blandly, "pedal misapplication" by automotive engineers) that finally did her, and her instructor, in. The day I got my license, in 1971, my dad, in high dudgeon and with great ceremony, handed me the keys to the family car - a Ford Torino. 

"Your turn," he said.

One of our destinations, on multiple occasions, was a large flea market. We bought books, mostly - both Mom and Dad were voracious readers. On one occasion, I found a treasure that became deeply important to me. I hadn't thought about it in 40 years.

And then, I had some pictures transferred from slides to digital... If that's the correct way to phrase it. And, there it was, in all of its splendor. The orange jacket I wore, through rain and bitter cold, in the early days of Bikecentennial '76. 

It probably cost a dollar. It fit fine, did the job I asked of it (warm, light and very visible) but had one peculiar attribute that sparked a question wherever, and whenever, I wore it.

"Where is East Campbell, NY?"

The jacket had, boldly printed on the back, "East Campbell, NY Volunteer Fire Department." Having never been a volunteer firefighter, much less one in East Campbell, I really didn't know. Purchased in pre-Google days (and lost by the time the internet was a thing) I had only the vaguest of notions where East Campbell might be. Since most of the fire departments in Western NY are volunteer, that didn't help, either. It was bright and warm and that's all I knew.

In August of 1977 I moved to Denver, to start life as an adult. My relocation from Pittsford, NY coincided with a resurgence...well, since they'd never been much I guess technically it's surgence...of the Broncos. Colorado was crazy for these now wonderfully successful football players, a team that featured a defense called the "Orange Crush."

After a particularly stirring gridiron victory by our hometown boys, I put on my East Campbell jacket and went out for a run. Well, you would think I'd been on the field that day, because the driver of every car that passed honked madly and waved at me with crazed abandon. My orange jacket, having been to Oregon and back, suddenly made me one of "them," but a good them, a collegial them. It was obvious, if one didn't get too close, that I was a Bronco fan and was sporting the required regalia.

My mom would chuckle, were she around to read this. That orange jacket was just another thing that bonded us over the years that I drove her here and there, ending only when she passed in 2015. JC Penney to pay her credit card bill, Wegmans to purchase ingredients for dinner, and an orange cast-off jacket from a volunteer fire department in New York.

Page Turner

"Here I am
On the road again
There I am
Up on the stage
Ah, here I go
Playin' star again
There I go
Turn the page"

"Turn the Page," Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band, Back In '72, (1973)

The risks attendant to letting someone read what you write? They are honest when you ask, "How'd you like it?" Actual answers:

"I hated one of your characters. I know you wanted me to like him, but he's an asshole."

"Real cops don't talk like that."

"It feels like two different people wrote this book."

"It was professionally written, but not for me."

Fair enough. But, I'm not sure what to do with information I received recently, a sort of metric that amounts to a review. 

Each morning, when I get up and go on line (mostly me and one of the dogs... One of the dogs and I are the only ones awake) I check my author dashboard on Amazon, to see what's cookin'. The other day... One page, zero dollars earned.

One page.

Technically... I made $.004. That is added to the monthly total, and gets paid out on the 19th of (almost) every month. But, that's really not the problem. Apparently, unlike potato chips, The Fort in the Harbor did not represent, at least to this reader, that ultimate compliment - "A real page-turner." One page?!

Because this method of author compensation relies on the Kindle version, let's look at what KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) believes is page one of Fort. It's the title page! Are they telling me someone stopped reading Fort after only the title page?!

Okay, so maybe it was someone who was in the middle of the book. Or, like a reader recently reported, they had one page left to be finished with one of my novels. But, one page?!

I do get it. Our kids are all themselves parents. They report reading the same page of a book multiple times due to kid/pet interruptions. Pet owners - I recently calculated that we've opened the back door to our house over 80 thousand times since we closed on this house in 2010. That doesn't include breaking up dog disagreements, rescuing lunch from counter-surfing Water Dogs (not always successful) and hustling geriatric pets into the backyard before they "have an accident."

But... One page? At least, before you set down the reading device, brush to the next page. Then I get $.008. And that shit adds up.

Oh, yeah. One of my books actually was written by two different writers. I wrote the rough draft in the middle 2000s, and revised the second half of the book extensively in 2020. In a sense, I was a different, and I hope better, writer when I finished the final product fifteen years after I started.

Cheers!

It's the Mileage

 "Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked."

Mary Schmich, "Wear Sunscreen" hypothetical commencement speech, Chicago Tribune, 1997

Some weeks ago - enough that they amount to "last June," I took the plunge, as it were. Not a big life decision, nothing like that. There have been plenty of those in the last three years. I mean that I ventured to "Mike's Cameras" and invested a few dollars converting into digital form about a third of the photographs - which I'd had developed as slides - taken during Bikecentennial '76.

It was the bike ride I took, from Reedsport, Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia...June through August. I was unprepared to see some of the images, having tucked them away more than forty years ago.

There is one taken in the very early days of the ride - my modest fitness level apparent in the shape of my calves. I am looking into the deep forest approaching Eugene, Oregon, in the first week of June. Everything, including me, is clean and bright. My journey had just begun and the miles, the many arduous miles, had not yet tempered us.

In another, I am somewhere near the top of a climb, looking back at the road I have traveled. I was riding a bike with (perhaps - I never really weighed it) thirty pounds of gear that represented home and hearth.

I had not arrived at that point effortlessly, but that I was there at all was a testament to naive optimism as much as skill or preparation. It wasn't long after that I reached the highest point of my journey, in Colorado.

It wasn't long after that a chance encounter led directly to a return to Colorado, mostly for good. She would enter the University of Denver that fall, in the same school year I would graduate Northeastern University in Boston. Although the relationship was short-lived, the roots I set in Colorado proved impossible to ignore. Less than two years after I moved to Denver I found the law enforcement job that I sought, and that would be the beginning of a career that provided - and continues to provide - everything I might ask.

In Missouri I met a couple from San Francisco who, like many of us who'd been on the road for nearly two months, were ready to be finished. "I just want to get to the fucking end," muttered the male half as we rode together in the late July heat and humidity. In August, I got there. The last stop, the last office of Bikecentennial '76. The trailhead that marked the official end of my journey. Good byes.

I had no idea, then, the adventures, the possibilities, that were ahead. Sitting here, happily retired in the company of the love of my life, and our companion animals, I don't look like the young, exceptionally fit rider who met an improbable challenge in one of the summers of my youth.

So many miles have disappeared under the front wheel of my bikes in the intervening 47 years. I am blessed that the front wheel is still turning.