Tuscan Potato

Red and I worked pretty hard today, me on a ski patrol class I'm to teach and she in the yard, so afterwards we booted up and rode "Great White"up to Roslyn, Wa for dinner...but everything was closed. I guess they do that on Tuesdays up there. So we turned around and stopped at the iconic, traditional, Sunset Cafe in Cle Elum, Wa. Not exactly overcome with excitement, I ordered the "Endless Soup and Salad." "What soup," asked the friendly waitress. I almost ordered my regular Minestrone, but, on an impulse, I asked what other kind she had. "Tuscan Potato," she replied. I smirked and said, "I guess I'll have any soup with the gall to call itself 'Tuscan Potato!'" She grinned and moved off...but then she brought it, and then I tasted it, and then I gasped...... huge chunks of potato and Italian Sausage in a rich, thick, creamy soup that was absolutely, incredibly, unbelievably even...delicious. Best soup I've ever tasted.  I couldn't get enough. Ate two whole bowls with Italian bread.....considered a third bowl, but my wife's eyebrows were already disappearing with alarm up into her eyebrows, so...... blimpo.....

 Now, trust me.... if someone in the Sunset Cafe in Cle Elum, Wa., USA,  offers you a bowl of "Tuscan Potato" soup....take it! Another good thing.... looking out the window, barely able to breathe, I saw a massive, very old man with a stability cane stop and stare at our Goldwing.... he walked very laboriously and deliberately completely around it staring at the seat, the dash, the fenders, the tires, the brakes....all the while talking loudly and gesturing to his tiny old wife, who stood there patiently waiting, motionless..... after awhile they finally entered the restaurant. We had our helmets on our table, and when he saw them, he made a steady but laborious beeline directly toward me. When he arrived, finally, with his eyes barely able to peer out of his beetling brows, his good will shining from every wrinkle, he put two huge brown spotted hands down on our table, and said, "I am .....enthralled....absolutely enthralled...with your Goldwing! What year is it?" I grinned at him, couldn't help it. "It's a 2005, sir, Silver Anniversary Model......" "Well," he thundered. "It looks brand new!" I kept grinning at him, couldn't help it. "Yeah, it was pretty much a garage ornament.....want a ride?" "No," he thundered again. "If I did that, I'd try 'n buy it!" I laughed. "Yup, I'm the same way, can't keep off the thing!" He turned to me, and the unmistakable yearning and hurt was there, deep, deep down in his ancient eyes.... "Well, do it while you can, son, do it while you can....." And he moved off, painfully, a huge, good man, I think, shuffling like some old and huge bison bull toward his table... and his oblivion, very soon, I fear.   "Yes, sir," I whispered. "I shall."

A favorite ride....

My wife, Red, and I ripped off one of our favorite white liners in the Pacific Northwest

today: Ellensburg through the Yakima River canyon to the the Old Naches Highway to White Pass to Cayuse Pass to Chinook Pass, and back down to the Old Naches Highway to the Canyon...and home..... first time for both of us together on the bike this season.....   Lovely ride, and talk about bikes? Thicker than male Democrats at a porn convention! There was a time, believe me....when Red and I seemed to be the only two motorcyclists out there!  Now they're chock-a-block.....

 Two of my favorite passions, motorcycling and skiing, are very, very closely related in many ways.....both are verbs! Motorcycling and skiing are something you do... motorcycling and skiing are actions, and require volitional effort -- hence, they are not things that happen to you. They are things you do. Motorcycling and skiing are not situations, they are activities freely chosen, and they require decision after decision after decision from you, sometimes dozens of decisions within a half a minute! You are the actor, not the acted upon.... not unless you refuse to act, and then things do happen to you, and quickly!

 Motorcycling and skiing have another commonality: both are performances, dances if you will, incredibly precise and beautiful dances between the realms of earth and sky. When you ski or ride, you seem to slip from the earth, although not really; you feel almost like you're flying and the sky seems to open up to you, although it doesn't, really....... but there you are, suspended between earth and sky, totally dependent upon your own decisions or actions to determine whether you will prevail, or suffer total disaster... In other words, in that dance -- either on skis or a bike -- you're about as free as a mortal man can be, at least for awhile!

 I don't think any true happiness ever comes to you, without it being the result of something you do..... something you have an effect on.... For instance, put me in the back of an acrobatic airplane, with someone else at the controls, and give me a wild, one-of-a-kind, all over the sky ride.......and I wouldn't be as happy as if I had the knowledge and skill to handle the controls myself, even in a flat line, boring, beginner's flight.... Other than physiological or organic issues, most human unhappiness is caused by the true or the perceived lack of personal control..... give me the slightest chance to have an effect on my world, and I can go on living......happily. Take away all chances, all ability, to do that, and I shall die, and soon.

People who don't ride or ski.....how do they live, and why?

(South Tyrol, Italy, 2012)