Going to Paradise

Its hot, so I turn around and decide to do a shorter bike ride by going around the loop next to the Bay, where the wind will cool me down. About two thirds done, I hear the familiar sound of experienced gear clicking behind me, and I know I have a biker on my back.
Competitive cyclists, especially bike racers, have tight social protocols. We don’t wave or get friendly with other cyclists. Just pass. Check out the lycra, recognize one of our own, and a snapped nod of the helmet gets one back. Done.
The guy behind me starts to pass.
“Hey, how’s your day going?”
“Fine”.
Not one of us. One of us doesn’t say anything when passing.
He’s in front now. He’s a big guy and has on a killer design racing jersey for a team in Tennessee. He’s got legs, so he has to be training.
“My day is going great now that I have a wheel!”
I jump on. Who am I kidding? I’m coming back after too long off, I’ve been working hard at it, but no way am I going to stay with him. Unless he just got here from Tennessee and doesn’t know Paradise Loop. I’ve got the tight turns and gear shifts down from hundreds of training rides and it’s my only chance. He looks back regularly to see if he’s dropped me yet, lets up a little, I am still a foot off his wheel, and we're still at a good pace. I guess this won’t be a hammerfest, so a conversation starts as we roll.
“No, I live in Mill Valley, not Tennessee. I raced with them until my accident.”
“Road race or criterium?”
“Neither. My and my buddy were sprinting, I went down, the pavement hit my forehead first and missed the helmet. It was bad for a while. My wife kept asking if I would live. That’s all she asked.”
“How did she cope with one kid and another on the way?”
“She was calm. Didn’t freak out, just kept asking if I would live. I’m getting my conditioning back though, but no more racing.”
“Yeah. I was lucky for the ten years I raced, so I quit while I was in one piece. So, did you have that Ah-ha moment people talk about after you recovered and realized you were still here?”
Whatever he said to me, I honestly don’t remember. I think his actions for the rest of our ride just overwhelmed whatever came out of his mouth.
Along the bike path section, its cluttered with joggers, dogs, kids, baby strollers, old people, other cyclists – he slows down the pace, which I have learned is a sign of higher intelligence. Training with hammerheads that just yelled everyone out of the way was the life I lived.
But this guy – he was strangely different. He actually had what seemed like a deep five second conversation with every human he passed.
“Hey little buddy, move to the right. Yeah, that’s good.
Coming through folks. How’s your day going?
Hang right there sweetie, we’re passing you on the left.”
It’s like the whole world was his kid or his relative. I wasn't prepared. Never had I ridden next to anyone like that who took competition seriously.
We split in Mill Valley. He went home to his still pregnant wife and his still successful software company and still alive and still on the bike.
I rode on without a thought, an emotion, an anything. I was just in awe as the awareness of my blindness to people now hammered itself into me.

Hedge Fund Manager seeks jazz gig

I’ve got another design review committee assembled to evaluate my new mylar business card at the local feed zone. My reviewer is waiting for a friend to show up and drink the other half of his bottle of Merlot, and he’s more than late. Two more bar stools left, its Sunday night, still they are going fast. Another sits between us and gives his business card to my reviewer. He eats, talks about hedge funds, and leaves.
My reviewer hands me the guy’s card. It tops mine. On the front, an investment firm. On the back hand written “jazz combo for hire”. We smile, assured everyone is in this economic downturn together.
One conversation turns into another, and we end up comparing world travel notes. He’s a pilot of his own little jet and likes to fly solo.
Every pilot I know can’t resist their personal epic story of “had fun and lived to tell about it”. His was over Barrow, Alaska, and as usual, involved running out of gas. He escaped with some cool polar bear pics and his life.
I’ve got a story too, but his friend shows up and he’s gone.
It’s too late. My mind is racing thousands of feet up in the air. I don’t see polar bears, I see tiny spots of range cattle scattered around a dirt runway. We are bouncing sideways as we hit in a stunt plane.
Had fun and lived to tell about it.
My friend Sally was the daughter of a rancher in Northeast New Mexico. Middle of nowhere. We had launched a couple hot air balloons, got a view, and collected at the ranch house. Her father’s stepson is 16, and can’t let it go until we take a ride in his father’s stunt plane. Great. Loaned the keys to his stepson. I think this will be interesting, so I show some interest.
"Wow! Let's go for it! Like, now!"
The others take the bait and line up outside next to the dirt runway that doubles for the road to the ranch.
He taxies toward us in the World’s Smallest Plane. I re-evaluate my enthusiasm as he hits the brakes, stops on a dime, pelting us with gravel. My brother, a hang glider pilot and my rival sibling, is in the group. This is my chance to get even. Since even he looks a little edgy, I grab first place in line.
My pilot flings open the door and yells at me to get in over the noise of an engine that sounds like a lawn mower.
I don’t even have to jump. This thing is slightly larger than a remotely controlled hobby plane. Its made of cables and canvas with wheels about the size on a baby buggy. I look around inside and all I see is a value pack of toilet paper behind my seat.
Is this good or bad?
My pilot jumps in, and we’re off, everything shaking and squeaking as we kick up the runway dust.
This plane does not want to fly. The cables go taut like snapping rubber bands, canvas flapping in the wind. We leave the ground just in time to miss a dozen cattle that completely ignore us and are obviously familiar with this drill. The plane turns into a vertical projectile. Cattle and sagebrush turn into sky.
“Yeeeehaw!”
It is my pilot speaking.
Hey, how you doin' back there?”
“Fine!”
The plane heaves again to horizontal. I have one eye on the ground and the other on his arm bracing the window so it won’t collapse into the cockpit. Another vertical. Then a stall in mid-air. The engine cuts out to a sputter. Slipping back a little, then forward, we take a nosedive. Well, ok, this is it.
“Heeeeere we go!" he yells. Picking up speed, we are going down.
“Hand me a roll of toilet paper!”
Oh joy, he’s also about to lose his lunch. Or worse.
I had not unwrapped toilet paper that fast in my entire life. I push it into his hand outstretched in my face with all five digits spread like a baseball mitt. Sliding back the window, he throws the roll out. I watch it unfurl like a corkscrew jet stream. Its very elegant. Not a bad last visual of life.
Then, the plane stalls a little, and miraculously goes into loops, tracking the toilet paper and chopping it into artistic bits.
“Awwwwright!”
Its my pilot again. I guess he is still in control, and now on a roll.
Just when I think we’re having fun, the ground shows up. The cattle get bigger. The waiting fans and the ranch house get bigger.
“We’re gonna buzz ‘em!”
Well, ok.
I sense I am in for the Big Racking Move. Sure enough, what is feet from the dirt turns into a switch in direction that gives me an eternal appreciation for aviation technology. Wings flapping, windows sucking in and out, metal cable whining, we just miss the ranch house, loop, and come back parallel to the landing strip. All motion in reverse, we skid to a side stop, pelting the fans with more dirt and gravel. My pilot is pleased.
“How’d ya like it?”
Having an audience, I give nothing away.
“That was just, uh, awesome!”
My brother is next up and I don’t want to ruin it for him. He watched me eat dirt on hang glider landings several times with no pity, and now its his turn. One fan after another willingly goes up and comes down, now that I have broken in the trail.
That evening at the dinner table big enough to seat the next town, we all eat and calmly compare flight notes. My brother stops talking, stares at me with a mouthful, and lets out one of his signature laughs, head rolled back at the ceiling.
I have not disappointed him.

More quiet beans for dinner

My New Mexico blood never left me. Its the only excuse I have in Marin County for being a frequent diner at a Mexican restaurant.
I like the half hour drive north. Since I don’t commute to and from my office, I am obligated to make those gas prices worth something. And it clears my head.
This Mexican Restaurant is my favorite. They made the mistake of treating me like family the day I walked in, so now it feels a little like home.
One of the owners is a car collector. He bullies me regularly with the ultimate compliment he is buying my 2002 ALMS cherry red Audi TT when I sell it or else. So I park right in front, walk in . . .
“no David, not selling”.
I checked this place out several years ago. There was a fountain in the front patio huge enough to be in Heaven.
I then walked over to a stainless steel pro BBQ grill that was loaded with oysters equally huge that reminded me of digging them up in Puget Sound during a daily sail. I was an instant regular customer when the other owner told me they were flown in from Seattle Fish twice a week.
The first few orders, after I emptied the shells, I would turn them over one by one and just look at them. It had been so long, but, no way was I going to walk out with any. That would put me right up there with the people who leave the Christmas lights up until June or load up the front yard with mollusk shards.
The bartender there is infamous. Not famous, infamous. He is the epic drink chef, remote TV operator, food server, order taker, substitute manager, dish busser, free entertainment, and waitress heckler.
He doesn’t cry. He only laughs. I come in crying, leave laughing.
Tonight David asks me what's new. I tell him I finished my website, finally rented my place in Park City, and started a blog.
“Really. What do you put in a blog?”
“Stories”.
“About what?”
“Rhinos”.
“?”
"I also wrote about a restaurant I went to, so maybe I will write about others.”
“Uh Oh.”