Shoulda Known

Embarrassing things happen to people.  Some people keep them to themselves, others blog about it.

Sunday was a bedside Baptist day for my family, what with Alyssa traipsing off for another week of camp that morning and Nate asking if he could accept a caddy assignment.  We don’t skip church often, perhaps since we both were raised with the fear that skipping church would send us to hell without passing Go.  Sometimes it just feels right and that is just how it was last Sunday.  The weekend had already been busy, so the extra rest was welcome, the sleep better than I would have gotten during my weekly church service nap (kidding, just kidding.. really.. I am).  I slept almost until nine, stumbled downstairs for a bowl of cereal and to catch up on my Words moves.  The morning was slow, so perfectly slow, the kind of slow with no guilt, no expectations to accomplish anything at all, including personal hygiene.  As Alyssa stirred upstairs and I heard the shower followed by the clump clump of our hot water heater, I began to wake up, aware that I would soon be needed to load up her suitcase and things for camp, a dad duty that I find myself relishing.  Like a good bedside Baptist Sunday morning, that duty seems so right. 

And so my day began.  Quiet.  Building up to activity with the urgency of a snail on downers.  I have learned to savor mornings like that, accept them as a rare treat, and expect the day to build up steam as it goes on.  It did.  While I loaded Alyssa’s things in our van to catch the church shuttle to camp (she was going to church camp), Nate called and wanted me to bring his golf clubs to the course, where his round of caddying was almost finished.  He likes to use the golf range when he is finished, taking advantage of the perks that go with being a caddy at a premium golf course. 

“Bring your clubs too, Dad.”  There was a reason why he asked me to come to pick him up.  He likes me go to the range with him, hit some balls with him, something his mother can not do.  Athletics are not her gift.  There is a certain amount of pride involved, a chance to show off for Dad, and I spend much of the time on the gold range watching him show me how his drives are improving or a trick shot he has learned.  We always finish the bucket of range balls off with a closest to the pin competition.  Sunday’s competition was to determine who got to choose where to go for lunch.

I won.  Portillos, best place in Chicagoland to get a hot dog.  Their jumbo chili cheese dogs with onions are to die for.  Nate scarfed two dogs to my one, but we both downed a ton of ice cold Coca Cola.  After hitting range balls in the hot sun, we were thirsty. 

First things first.  This needs to be shared before my story begins, a bit of knowledge I found on the internet that relates to the little tale I am about to share.

“Subject: Pepsi/Mt. Dew, Cramps, Diarrhea

George Beinhorn mentioned cramps, and Ed Furtaw mentioned diarrhea after using these drinks a lot in an ultra. There are three contributing factors in using soda as a sports drink.

1. They usually contain either high fructose corn syrup or      sucrose as the sugar source. Sucrose is split into glucose and fructose in      the digestive tract. Many people get diarrhea from large      amounts of fructose. As Ed notes, it tends to pull water into      the intestines. That reverses the hydration process and causes diarrhea.
2. If you take a lot of caffeinated soda, you may over      dose on caffeine, particularly if you don’t use it much away from the run.      Caffeine      and other xanthines ( tea, chocolate are sources ) cause relaxation of      smooth muscle. Net result: urgency along the way. Combine that with the      tendency for diarrhea caused by too much fructose, and you’re primed for      extra potty breaks….”

Interesting to those who have a fascination about diarrhea symptoms, especially if what is described above has actually happened to you.  An ice cold Coca Cola is down right refreshing after a long bicycle ride on a hot day.  I always have thought the throne visits that followed were from chugging too much of the acid beverage, irritating my innards.  Apparently that is not the case.  Fructose is the culprit.  Fructose and water.  I guess it makes sense.

Nate dropped a real nice bomb on me during lunch.  Golf.  18 holes free with a cart at Cantigny, the course where he caddies.  He had earned a free round for him and a guest.  So he invited me to play that afternoon.

SCORE!!!

We rushed home, changed into our golf clothes, and went back to the course.  Nate checked us in and got a cart while I put on my shoes at the car.  I stood up to take our clubs out of the back of my PT Cruiser, a bit humored by the gurgling my stomach emitted as I stood up.  I should have heeded the warning.  I really should have.  The liquid fart shot out like a water cannon.

Oh freaking no.

What to do?  I called Nate, asked him to come down and pick me up, telling him I had suffered a personal emergency.

He was disgusted.

“Dad you smell like shit.”

“I’ll be all right.”  No way was I passing up playing a premium golf course, with my son, for free.  Nate didn’t want to pass it up either.

“OK. Well let’s go then.”

And we played despite the stench, which wasn’t too bad once the cart got moving.  Like the guy on the internet said, it was mostly water.  Thank goodness for premium golf courses — the bathroom at the fourth hole was nicer than the one in our house, and with covered trash cans……

 

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Eggbeaters

Tags

Crank Bros, Eggbeater pedals, mountain biking, wimpy cycling

Sometimes the best way to learn something new is to just do it.  So I did it.  I rode Eggbeaters for the first time.

Sounds kinky, eh?  Don’t worry, it’s not, but there are those who read this who now might need to wash their brain.  Eggbeaters are a product name for a mountain bike pedal made by a company called Crank Bros.  Oh geez, that sounds kinky too.  Maybe I am in one of those moods and should be taking a cold shower right now instead of writing a blog.

ANY WAY, Eggbeater pedals are called as such for an obvious reason — they really do look like an eggbeater.  They were recommended to me for mountain biking because the design is not susceptible to clogging from mud like other off road pedals.  The pedals are a simple four sided spring loaded design.  A cleat is attached to the bottom of the rider’s shoe.  That cleat engages with the pedal as the rider steps on the pedal and holds the shoe to the pedal.  It’s efficient and easy to use once you get used to clipping in and out of the pedals.

Like I said, these pedals are called eggbeaters because, well, THEY LOOK LIKE AN EGGBEATER!

The key phrase is ‘once you get used to it’.  Until you get used to it, especially learning to disengage the cleat from the pedal quickly, you have a tendency to fall.  You don’t necessarily crash, but you fall.  I did that a few times tonight, coming to the top of a knob without enough momentum to clear the knob, barely having enough time to exclaim “Oh crap!” before tipping over.  Also, learning to pop the cleat in is not all that easy at first.  Try doing that when you are standing at the top of a ravine on a narrow dirt trail.  Oops.  That makes the descent even more scary as you struggle to pop the pedals as you scream towards the bottom of a ravine at 30 mph or more.

OK, so it’s a bad picture. See the bottom of the shoe? The metal cleat?

Trust me, it’s fun.  It took a while, probably two hours, but I got used to clicking in and out of the pedals, enough that I kicked up some muck by the time I was done tonight.  Geez, that sounds dirty too.

Time for that cold shower.

Band Nerd Haven

Tags

alyssa, Drum major, Marching band, Miriam, Nate, Nerd

Marching Band LFPS (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My daughter is a marching band nerd and proud of it.  Not only that, she is the head nerd, the drum major, making her pretty dang special.  She can snap one off with the best of them and I have seen it enough to know.  Put that together with some kick butt very naturally curly red hair, you have a kick butt pretty dang special marching band head nerd.

Don’t believe me?  The girl has lots of awards, winning top honors last season for her band in all but one of their competitions.

She’s at drum major camp this week, the Smith Walbridge camp.  We drove her three and a half hours south on Sunday morning to complete registration, take her to her room in the college dorm, waited a few hours while I pried her mother away from her (Mom was much worse than daughter on the anxiety scale) and tried to keep Nate from falling asleep in the dorm room closet.

“I have never seen so many nerds gathered in one place, Alyssa.”

“I know.  Ain’t it great?  Marching band nerds are proud of their nerdiness, Dad.”  Alyssa smiled an honestly proud smile.

“There are some good looking nerds here, right Alyssa?”  Miriam had to chime in.  Alyssa nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

“Just think, drop a bomb on this place and it takes out 50% of the world’s nerd population.”

“Funny, Dad, but true.”

Alyssa is at the Smith-Walbridge camp, paid for by her marching band.  Nice.  It still cost me plenty to drive her there, but still nice.  The place is serious, with each camper selecting a series of electives that they have to take during the week along with drill classes.  Each camper is issued the camp ‘bible’ at registration, a thick volume that must be studied each evening.  Campers are subjected to tests each day and go through an evaluation at the end of the week.

Miriam was a bit testy last night.  Alyssa had not returned her text messages.

“Um, I think you ought to give her at least 24 hours of peace, dear.  Take it that she is having a good time.”

“Maybe they take away their cell phones.  That place is like the military.”

Before bed time we got a text from our daughter.  Her squad got first place honors for the day, was squad of the day.  Not only that, they had a camp dance with “lots of good looking boy nerds to dance with… DAD”.

Nice.

One Female Direction

Tags

clueless, fathering a daughter, screaming teens, understanding women

The house I grew up in was a man house, three boys and a father, with one solitary mother left on her lonesome to care for her four men.  My childhood years were filled with baseball, playing in the dirt, riding bikes, fighting with my brother Mark, mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, farts and burps, walking around the house in my BVDs.  Mom cooked and cleaned for us, kept us in good clothes, taught us to care for ourselves and gave us chores to do, disciplined us, defended us when we needed it, showed us where we were wrong when we were wrong.  Mom is a tough woman, still is, and the female influence in my life was a good one up to adulthood because of her.

But she was my mother and a boy can only learn so much about women from his mother.  I had a lot to learn about women as I entered my teen years.  Girls frightened me simply because I knew absolutely nothing about the way a girl thinks.

I know.  I know, I know.  I just described pretty much every male.

I want to say I envied my friends who had sisters, but that is not really true.  Growing up with brothers was pretty cool and we never had to do girl things.  Then I got married, to a girl of all things, a girl with six sisters and no brothers, and I found myself wishing I had a clue.  I didn’t.  Still don’t.

God laughed when my daughter was born, my first born, I am sure.

That is part of the fun of it all, pain and all, the pleasure coming from experiencing and being privy to a girl’s world.  Life with girls in my personal world teaches me something new every day.  Being married has taught me a lot about patience, showed me my own lack of patience.  Having a daughter as a first born gives me new reasons to smile simply by being privy to her world, seeing her transition from each phase.  Joy comes to me from watching her. 

I drove Alyssa and Miriam to the First Midwest Amphitheater in Tinley Park last Saturday evening.  They bought tickets over a year ago to see One Direction, a boy band.  I had to listen to One Thing and You Don’t Know You Are Beautiful while we sat for over an hour in traffic waiting to get to the theater, a buzzing of teenage girls filling the air as SUVs and vans filled with overly hyped up girls converged in one place.  Oh, I know which boys in the band are the best looking (Niall is the preference of both of the women in my life) and many cars and homemade signs proclaimed the allegiance to Harry or Niall, seemingly the two most desirable to the teenage female heart.  I watched as girls bounced out of parked cars, pulling on tshirts also announcing their love.  I am sure each girl there thought they might catch the eye of their prince on stage, prompting a proposal for marriage on the spot.

I couldn’t help but laugh.  This was all new to me.  I have never seen anything like it.  Alyssa shrunk in the backseat of our car as I chair danced to the music on the stereo, the car load of girls in front of us joining in the dance.

“Dad, don’t you know they are making fun of you?  You should be embarra… oh wait, I almost forgot who I am talking to.”  And she chuckled as she joined in the chair dance, Miriam blushing in the front seat as our car and the car in front of us bounced from the dancing.

As I dropped my two girls off to join the gaggle swarming on the theater, I stopped and yelled a loud whoop out the window of our SUV, cackling as the excited girls whooped in turn.  Mir and Alyssa whooped with them as they disappeared into the melee.

The place was up for grabs.  Nary a single male did I see save for the men dropping of their daughters, though it seemed like most men had left that task to their wife, not risking the danger of the out of control feminine atmosphere.  It was dangerous, a risk, a world really not meant for male.. um.. exposure (probably not the best word to use here).

It was pure fun, an experience I sure not had ever experienced with my brothers growing up.  The closest I ever got to the same kind of experience was a Van Halen concert in high school.

My instructions were to return two hours later to pick them up.  I arrived on time, a little early, and the parking lot attendants directed me to a waiting area at least a quarter mile from the arena.  From the dark of the lot, the waiting parents could see into the arena, from a behind the stage perspective, the forms of the standing crowd enjoying the concert clearly visible.  Swoons and screams reached out to us, the swell of singing girls filling the air mixed with frantic shouts and screeches.  I sat on the hood of my car, a smile on my face as I sent my son up to wait for our girls at the gate, ready to guide them back to our car.  I joined Nate for a while at the gate, soaking in the atmosphere outside the theater.

“Hey Dad, look at that.”  Nate pointed to a chain link fence gauntlet that had been constructed leading from the back of the stage to the fenced in area where the band’s bus waited.  Guards were stationed elbow to elbow along the outside of the chain link gauntlet.  After the concert was over and my girls had joined us in the parking lot, the excited screams a loud clink of bodies against chain link fence as the girls fought to get a close up look at the objects of their affection.

And I would never have seen anything like this had I not had my own girls.

Don’t worry.  Nate and I played eighteen holes of golf the next afternoon.

*grunt*

 

 

Good Bye My Banana Friend

Tags

bananas, friends, retirement

Last week my friend and coworker, Joan, retired.  Over the past 24 years, Joan and I have spent a lot of time in close proximity to each other, with Joan our sales file room clerk and I the most esteemed salesman our company employs.  Don’t believe me?  Just ask me.

Joan is one of the most humble people I have met, unassuming, with the simple values of someone who has lived a quiet life.  She lives close to work, close enough to walk to work when she needed to.  While her husband was alive, he drove a small bus and often would take her to and from work.  A frugal saver, her clothing has always been a uniform of stretch pants and a button down collared smock, clean and pressed every day, her short hair military neat, certainly habits developed during her years in the Army.  She drove the same small car almost all of the twenty four years I have known her.  When her husband died a few years ago, she indulged a bit to purchase a new Toyota RAV4.. and she paid cash.  A visit to her small two bedroom ranch home, something I have done a few times with our friend Frank while we helped remodel her bathroom, revealed the same simple and neat lifestyle.

Joan is a strong woman.  Intelligent and inquisitive, yet happy to work the file room job for many years.

I could always count on Joan to bring me some calm on those days when work’s stress was getting the best of me.  A quick stroll to the file room found Joan, eager to share stories about one of our favorite topics — our animals, especially our cats, and our kids.  She always wanted to know what book or books I was reading, liked to chime in on conversations that always seemed to happen in the semi private atmosphere the file room provides.

She still loves to tell the story of the year, soon after Joan had extensive foot surgery, our friend Frank and I escorted Joan up to the front of the banquet hall at the company recognition dinner as she received an attendance award and bonus.  To this day, Joan calls us her male escorts.  When she says that, she lets out an embarrassed laugh and turns beet red, something that I adore about her.  Every chance I get, I try to get her laughing so hard that she turns red and gets choked up.  It seems to be my gift to accomplish that with a lot of people.

It was my honor to be invited to her retirement luncheon yesterday.  Our company limits the number of people who can be invited, so it’s a great deal to receive an invitation.  Her family was there, sharing the steak catered by the local Weber Grill restaurant, listening to the stories we shared about Joan.

Our friend, Jenn, stood up to share about how wonderful it is to watch Joan laugh, describing how Joan gets so amused she turns red and can barely breath.  Jenn shared about the afternoon breaks that we used to share as part of ‘Joan’s Gang’, how we used to get Joan laughing during those times.

I had to interject, seizing the opportunity to start Joan on one of her laughing fits.

“Remember the banana incident?”  Jenn slapped her forehead as Joan immediately started turning red, laughing so hard that she had take remove her glasses to wipe away the tears.  I didn’t go into details and didn’t need to.  The banana incident is exactly what any dirty minded individual would imagine it is.  I will leave the details to your imagination, as a matter of fact.  Let’s just say that Jenn and I had Joan laughing so hard that afternoon that the paramedics almost had to be called.. and we got a bit of an insight into the dirty details that sometimes lurk in a 70 year old simple woman’s mind!

Joan is retiring at the perfect time.  Our office is going paperless with most of the file job turning into a scanning job instead, that also going away soon enough.  In a few short weeks, our company is moving into a much larger building, no longer close enough for Joan to walk to work.  It was time.

Her replacement is some young chick who is obsessed with her appearance, wears hooker heels to work every day, and has zero personality.  I don’t go to the file room much any more, don’t hang out there when I do.  I am going to miss Joan.

I hugged her, complimented her family, and said goodbye as Joan took her last stroll out of the doors of our building.

It was nice to know her.  And it’s also nice to have a new taunt for our friend Jenn.

BANANA!  That’s all I have to say.

 

Revolver

Tags

confusion, judgement?, teen homosexuality, traditional world view

Brianna (Photo credit: Яick Harris)

If time stood still, if nothing ever changed — children never grew, people acted and looked the same and never died or became sick – everything stayed the same, I would never learn anything. In order for human beings to learn, one needs to be willing to step outside of the familiar now and then, to accept that things do indeed change, realize that this world does indeed change and needs to.

————-
I am a small town guy at heart, even after living in the Chicago area for more than twenty five years, and there are times where I really have to resist the small town that still resides deep down in me. There is an aspect to the small town mentality that resists change, that holds on to tradition and the way the world must be, the way thing always have been. It’s a comfort. And it’s not necessarily a bad way to live. The world often looks at small town people as simple and narrow minded, a stereotype. I call it a common sense approach to life.
My wife and I have raised our family in a town that has a small town feel to it, with lots of open space, even cornfields. Warrenville has a population of over 13,000, large compared to the some 1000 people that lived in the central Illinois town of Rochester where I was raised, small compared to the rest of the suburbs and city close by. People here know each other, say hello, stop to talk. Our youth sports programs are small, enough that everyone knows everyone. I have coached a lot of those sports teams in the last ten years, whether it be girls softball or basketball, coed soccer, boys basketball and baseball. That means I know a lot of boys and girls, their parents, their grandparents.
A holiday like July 4th becomes special as I celebrate with my family and friends at the small festivities our city puts on in the city park, with bands, food, and fireworks. Everyone gathers there on the 4th early in the afternoon, coolers out, sitting in the shade as the children play and get reacquainted after not seeing each other for a month. It amazes me to see how much the boys and girls I have coached have changed since the last time I have seen them, some so much that I don’t recognize them right away as they approach. Mir and I laugh as a large herd of teenage boys pass by in a swarm, the group swelling around the most popular boy. Usually in the near vicinity are one or more swarms of like minded teenage girls.
“Hi Coach!” “Hello Mister Henry!”
The boys are always stoic, but genuinely glad to see me, and I love talking to them. The girls almost always greet me with a hug, one of the differences between coaching boys and girls. When a season was over, a team of boys always would come over to tell me thanks, some shaking my hand, some just mumbling a thank you. I know they mean it. Girls always gave me a thank you card, almost always with a personal message, and many thank you hugs.
There are favorites, kids who just plain were a joy to coach, the ones who clicked with me in a special way. In a lot of ways, those kids are like my own.. Years after serving as their coach, they always go out of their way to greet me when they see me, often leaving the comfort of the swarm to do so.
Brianna is a little spark plug with electric blue eyes that constantly light up with enthusiasm. When Alyssa decided to play basketball in middle school and played in the park district program to get ready for the school tryouts, Brianna was one of the girls on her team. I coached her for two years, a pure joy to watch as she dove for every loose ball, out rebounded girls much taller than her. It was never unusual for her to sit down and talk or challenge me to a game after practice. There are few kids I have coached that have clicked with me more than Brianna. I love seeing her and her mother when I am out shopping or at a school function. A few years later Brianna still greets me with the same enthusiasm as always. She is the reason I am writing this blog, the reason I am fighting off tears as I type this sentence.
My small town sensibilities are putting up a real struggle right now.
A few months ago, I saw Brianna with her mother at the grocery store. Brianna has always been a cute little brunette, her long hair bouncing all over the place as she careened around the basketball floor. But her hair was cut very short when I saw her in the store, enough of a contrast that I commented on the change. There was a bit of hesitation as Brianna’s mother looked at me, her smile fading for a moment as she lost eye contact.
“Yeah, well you know how kids change. She’ll be wanting her hair back before you know it. After all it’s just hair!”

Her smile returned as Brianna smile back at the both of us. The conversation changed to the walking boot I was wearing at the time, my questions turning the focus toward Brianna’s success in making the high school basketball team. I detected then that something was different. I know now why I had that sense.
The same enthusiasm bombarded me as Brianna hugged me from behind during the July 4 festivities a few days ago.
“Hey Coach!” Same smile too. But something was different. The short hair was parted to the side, like a boy’s. We talked for a moment as she asked about Alyssa, wanted to know how she was doing, wanted to know if was coaching any more. “Hey, I am going to be over there” she said as she pointed to a blanket spread out on the grass, close to where my own chairs were set up. Brianna gave me a hug as she bounced over to her friends, taking the hand of a red haired girl that was standing next to her.  I guess I didn’t think much about it at the moment. Brianna is always demonstrative, seemingly without inhibition. Perhaps the short hair and clothing should have given me a clue.
Those who know me just shouted in unison “SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CLUE!”. OK, smarty pantses, you are right this time.
The evening passed on, a pleasant cool night with a little breeze. As Mir and I relaxed with our friends in the growing circle of folding lawn chairs, the crowd began to fill the grass outfield of the baseball field.
“Pssssssst. Hey Steve have you been watching that?” My friend Paul poked me in the arm and motioned in the direction where Brianna had settled on a blanket with her friends. She was still holding the red head’s hand, close together, cheek to cheek. Then she kissed the girl.. not a friendly kiss on the cheek, but a deep drawn out kiss with a caress on the cheek. She put her hand on the red haired girl’s hip and kissed her again, pulling her closer with a smile as they paused for a moment then immersed themselves in a full blown make out session.
I didn’t know what to think, so I didn’t. I turned around and wondered at what I just saw, hoping I would forget what I had just seen. Paul just shook his head at me, muttering “Can you believe that?”.
Remember, I am a small town guy who was raised in a small town and in an age when those who chose an alternative lifestyle moved to the city, away from town I lived in, away from the prying eyes and gossips who feasted on the juicy opportunity to talk about ‘those types of people’. Where I was raised it doesn’t matter if you went to church or not, ‘those types’ are freaks and going to hell.
And now you know why I am struggling. Here in front of my eyes participating in a lesbian makeout session, in full public view, in your face and I don’t care if you see it, was a girl who I..well.. like. This was as close to my daughter without it being my daughter.
What if it was my daughter? What would the struggle be like then? How would I react?
Not the same way. I wouldn’t be able to ignore it like I was able to do with Brianna. I would not be able to accept it either, at least not condone it.  I can hear myself saying “Not in my house.”  Or “You’re just confused. You’re not mature enough to know what you are doing.” And I might be right.  And I might say that I don’t agree with your choice, but I love you any way, will treat you like my daughter no matter what.. and cry myself to sleep at night worrying about the inevitable struggle she would be facing as a result of that choice.
Please don’t debate with me about whether homosexual sex and the choices that go with it is right or wrong, a mistake or a liberating happiness. I won’t deny that I think it is not a wise choice, a choice that is likely not going to be the liberating happiness one thinks it might be. I won’t deny that I am offended when someone shoves it down my throat (hard pun intended), in the way those two young girls were demonstrating on that blanket July 4th. If my girl was making out with a boy in public like that, it would be just as offensive, just as in your face rude. And that is what I find the most offensive – that those who choose the homosexual lifestyle don’t care and choose to demonstrate that choice in public. It makes me sad. It makes me a bit angry.
And it changed the way I feel about one certain little girl, which she still is, a few days ago.. because it hurt to see her that way.

In order for human beings to learn, one needs to be willing to step outside of the familiar now and then, to accept that things do indeed change, realize that this world does indeed change and needs to.

Is that true?

(the photo I chose for this blog is not Brianna, but the girl sure reminds me of her)

Ride With Those Who Ride

Tags

bicycling, friends, july 4

July 4th is always a family oriented holiday for me, but it’s also always my day.  Maybe that is why that day is one of my favorites, a day that I come away from relaxed and regenerated.  I love July 4th for a lot of reasons.

Every July 4th starts with a bike ride, usually a long one that gives me that tired and satisfied aura, perfect for the relaxation that follows with my family.  My wife has learned to give me my time at the beginning of the day, enjoys what the bike ride does for my attitude.  This past holiday was no exception, with a three hour mountain bike ride with two friends early in the morning.

The picture is blurry, taken by my friend Jon as he laid down across a bend in the trail.  I growled at the camera as I leaned over the handlebars, about to negotiate the turn in the direction of my outstretched knee.  Jon and Eric are experienced riders, much better than I am, but also happy to be out riding with me.  It’s great for me to ride with them.  They make me a better rider, motivate me to get out and bust my butt.

My riding friends remind me of the truth of Paul’s words, more complicated than one might determine.

“Be happy with those who are happy, weep with those who weep.”  Paul in his letter to the Romans (12:15)

They are happy when each is having a good time on the bike.  Thursday morning, we each took a good spill, one that made my wife happy (translate as “amused”) when I came home and popped three ibuprofen and moaned on the couch with an ice pack on a bruised shoulder.  We each enjoyed the good fortune of a good bike with each other, shared in the badge of honor that a good spill can be.  It’s not a matter of comparison, it’s a matter of sharing.

I find that very cool.  Very relaxing.  Frankly, I like to ride with guys like that more than the ones who rejoice in making each other weep.  Or those who drool over new bike equipment, wishing they have what the other has more than being happy about the good fortune of the one who just got the nice stuff.  Some guys are more about the ride.  Some guys are more about having the best stuff, more about being number one.

Oops.  I’m preaching.  It is Sunday after all.  I did do that preaching thing in my previous life.

Yesterday morning I met with the same guys and a few others for a ride on the road.  They met me a block away from my house, took that route strictly to make sure I would get out of bed for the ride.  It was early — 6:00 in the morning.  They pulled me for close to 53 miles, not minding that I needed to take advantage of their strength and not take the front to do the work.  There is no way I could have gone that far without the motivation my friends provided.  And I had energy to spare when I got home, enough to mow the lawn and function the rest of the day.  In previous years, with other riders, that has not been the case.  Once again, I felt the satisfaction.

It feels good to be on the bike again, to be out riding.  After my foot surgery last January, I really did not feel I would be riding like I am now, even though I hoped I would be.

And I like it.