“When in doubt, make another pot of coffee.”
—Dana
Best insight of the day
August 23rd, 2006Open-agenda meeting of bicyclists
August 22nd, 2006
After months of organizing, public relations, and preliminary activity,
the B.I.K.E. group
we started last spring sponsored a meeting in the community room at Inter-County Energy, opening the floor to any bicyclist who wanted to show up and suggest ideas, express concerns, or identify issues that need attention. In my remarks I said that our common objective is to find solutions that will enable the community to become more bicycle friendly. I thought we could declare some success in boosting participation in local cycling and increasing awareness of cycling as an emerging trend. I challenged those present to take the framework begun and to build a vision for a community where it is safe and enjoyable to ride a bicycle. Whether we take this groundwork and develop effective partnerships to make improvements happen depends on the interest, enthusiasm, and energy of the cycling community, because the imagination of the general public won’t be sparked unless they see those of us who ride bicycles take the lead to identify, promote, and work for beneficial projects.
Steve did an excellent job of facilitating the session, and out of it came three major and three minor priorities:
Major
• Public Awareness of Cycling Issues
• Bicycle Infrastructure Improvements
• Grant Applications and Project FundingMinor
• “Share the Road” Promotion
• Safe Routes to School
• Cycling Events
It wasn’t a huge turnout. Many more people routinely show up for a Wednesday ride, but it was a quality group that will become a corps of activists. They took the time to be there and define the projects to which they are willing to devote their volunteer effort. They included a city commissioner who wants to promote cycling at a regional level and a Centre professor who wants to study the economic benefits of bicycle friendly enhancements.
It’s almost as if my flights of fancy from last December finally settled back to earth in front of me…
Stout of heart, carry on
August 21st, 2006Dana put it best in her brief notice to family—
“Born in ’66, Bruce turns 40 years of age today, due to your intercessory prayers, no doubt.”
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my stalwart son. I love you, forever…
A murder of crows and David without his rook rifle
August 20th, 2006You know you’ve found a bit of heaven when you can have berry pie with your early morning coffee, while sitting on a porch that overlooks a natural pond, and then complete a pen and ink sketch of a woodland path in time to be served a broiler-fresh asparagus frittata for brunch.
Janet and Jerome didn’t get to stay over last night and missed the patented Simpson Cabin Lazy Sunday, which, come to think of it, ranks right up there with the patented Yorkshire Estate Lazy Sunday.
Open That Bottle II
August 19th, 2006Janet and Jerome joined us at the Simpson cabin to open some bottles and indulge our Epicurean leanings. We stared with crack-&-peel shrimp and a zesty gazpacho, added a plate of fruit and cheese, which was followed by a main course of grilled ka-bobs with garden vegetables, marinated lamb and venison (from the 2004 Martini-Henry buck), plus asparagus pinwheels, red-cabbage slaw and Mexican jicama, closing with a frozen strawberry dessert. To accompany our extraordinary menu we tasted a merely satisfactory Californian chardonnay, an interestingly ancient South African cabernet, and a magnificent Sonoma Valley pinot noir, in addition to a bright, smooth sherry from Texas. Before our “guests” arrived, David provided me an opportunity to shoot my Enfield military .303 rifle and British “foxhole” revolver, both surprisingly accurate, once I learned the peculiarities of the sights. While we were up at the range, he tested his .577/450 double rifle and quickly nailed a small iron target at 300 yards—twice. This man is a sharpshooter. Maybe I can get Jerome to come earlier next time. I know he’d also enjoy shooting targets with these antique arms.
Large Marty
August 18th, 2006Marty was here to interview me for a writing assignment, and it’s impressive to see how seriously he’s taking the school project. I filled one side of a cassette tape during our Q & A. That should give him plenty to work with for his rough draft. After a hearty supper of turkey burgers and sweet corn, we hauled more loads of brick from across the street. Since Marty started lifting weights, he’s gotten noticeably stronger. He matches my height now and, judging from his big shoe size, he still has some growing to do.
Back to the rockpile
August 17th, 2006Today is Bill’s birthday, and I just saw him yesterday morning. No present or card this year… nothing for Jay either. That’s just how things are these days, and it’s quite a contrast from that 200+ handmade-cards-a-year era not so long ago. Much of today felt like decompression from yesterday. I wanted to swim laps, but Centre’s pool is closed for maintenance, so I ran a bit and lifted. As if that wasn’t enough exertion, after Dana and I attended the Chamber’s Business After Hours reception, I used Dadbo’s old concrete-hauling wheelbarrow to start retrieving stone and brick rubble from the site across the street. Please tell me I look like Mack building his rock fences and not Clem the Gem with another load of scrounge.
My brother, my mate, and my true friends
August 16th, 2006Last night I stayed in Tipp City with my chum Bill and we enjoyed our shared anticipation for a September fishing trip to Michigan. Even though I failed to reach him by phone and he was bone tired from a day in the sun (after clearing fallen trees from the Great Miami with a chain saw), he welcomed me with a bear hug and set his last Bud Light in front of me—that’s what I call a friend.
It took me ten hours to get home from Ohio today. The joint in my rear drive shaft broke south of Kenton County, but I was able to arrange a tow and successful repair before the end of the day. I felt like I’d sweated off a couple gallons, baking on the shoulder of I-75. It was almost the exact spot where years ago a state policeman pulled me over after the Cincinnati Marathon to test my sobriety. Old “Ned” continues to give me fits if I don’t keep spending money on him that I’d rather not. I’m glad this didn’t happen yesterday with Mike.
Crucial to getting out of my predicament: 1) Dana insisting on Monday that I carry a cellular phone. 2) Being able to talk through the details of the breakdown with my brother Jay, an expert truck mechanic. I was so focused on his long-distance analysis and advice that I completely forgot that today is his 45th birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother, “Bub.” I love you, forever…
Sitting for a long time at a garage in what barely passes as a “waiting room” can be a strange experience. I watched part of a “Gunsmoke” episode featuring Anthony Zerbe playing opposite himself in a split-screen double role, but my mind was on a personal crisis more critical than a broken pickup. I thought about the counsel of my best friends from youth. Each has his own brand of wisdom, having survived his own chapters of adversity. Both genuinely care about the particular challenges it’s my turn to face.
Dadbo once said to me after his buddy Joe died that a man is lucky to have one or two true friends in life, and now I know what he meant.
Ripples of timeless meaning
August 15th, 2006Mike’s mom is doing well. I took my small bicycle with me, so last night, Mike and I prepped his old ten-speed and did a short “shakedown” to see his brother Tom, a former apartment mate of mine from university days and in more recent years a client. During this visit, Mike’s been using space in Tom’s conference room to complete a book manuscript that’s due at the publisher on Friday.
Today we loaded the bikes in “Ned” (my truck) and set out to fulfill a mutual promise from the 1970s—to make a “pilgrimage” to the grave of frontiersman Simon Kenton in Urbana, Ohio. Our first stop was in West Liberty, where we bicycled out to the so-called Piatt Castles, built by two brothers of contrasting personalities on land their father settled after leaving Cincinnati in 1828. I hadn’t been out there in over 40 years. The adventurous risk taking that it represents became a metaphor for our day-long discussion about what we face in middle life as individuals and friends. Afterwards we had lunch at the small regional airport. Tom had recommended the little cafe beside the runway. There was a B-25 displayed on the tarmac, so Mike and I just let ourselves through the chain-link gate to nose around, almost as if the War on Terror hadn’t made it yet to this neck of the woods.
From the airport we drove to the campus of Urbana University and got back on bikes for our ride to the cemetery. Mike wanted to ask for directions. I knew we could find the grave-site on our own. A caretaker wasn’t around, but we had no difficulty locating the prominent location, with its impressive bronze sculpture and concentric rings of monuments and markers. I wish I could explain what it was like for me to be there—to sit at that spot and know it was my hero’s final physical destination, after a life that was too bold for fiction. To be honest, I don’t have the ability to record my impressions of the time we spent at the site, including the meeting of a goal that literally took a generation to fulfill. At some level we must have understood that the fullness of the graveside experience would first require a chunk of transpired lifetime. Perhaps that’s why we put it off for so long. Now I’m hoping for the inspiration that will enable me to transcend my verbal capacities and somehow capture the day’s insights.
Spur of the moment
August 14th, 2006After my noon Advisory Board meeting at the Salvation Army, I’ll be heading to Dark County, Ohio. My best buddy Mike is there from Tucson, Arizona, staying at his folks and keeping an eye on his mom, who’s recovering from a pacemaker replacement.
Optimizing enjoyment through actual occasions
August 13th, 2006I gathered with friends at the cabin early for Shared Silence and Milton’s summary of what we’ve learned about Process Theology—how the language of religion and the language of science can be translated into a third, new language that integrates spiritual, philosophical, and metaphysical concepts with the most current understanding of quantum physics and string theory.
I lent a hand picking up litter and trash along our adopted highway, Chrisman Lane (Kentucky 1273). When I first started doing this I figured I was making up for the candy wrappers I tossed on the ground as a kid and the beer bottles I threw at speed limit signs after I turned 18. I don’t know how many garbage bags it took before I figured I’d balanced my karma. Now I do it in tribute to my friend Mack, who I miss every time I travel his favorite road, one of the prettiest in Boyle County.
After sending out an email notice to areas cyclists, I made the drive to Blue Bank Farm. I mowed the Clan graveyard, helped Jeffrey pick garden vegetables, and brought some apples down from the orchard for Mombo. When I got back home, Dana and I finished cleaning up the porch and front yard before munching down on fresh tomatoes.
God — Friends — Community — Family
When it comes to the important things, days probably don’t get much better than this.
Various & Sundry, part forty-two
August 12th, 2006— David and Lee scheduled an appointment to look at a house on the 400 block of West Broadway, so we tagged along. I had a bad feeling about this. Californians bought the house last summer, and it seems as though they had more money than good sense. Workers and dumpsters suddenly vanished a few weeks ago. Our look through the property confirmed my worst suspicions. One of Danville’s finest historic homes had been hung up and gutted like Duke Brian in “Gorky Park.” Reportedly, the owner can’t be located. To add a ludicrous element to the whole thing, a daughter is now asking prospective buyers to pay an even higher price than her mother paid for it—a perfectly livable home that was stripped, raped, and left for dead.
— Analysts are predicting that the demand for refurbishing Web formats may soon overtake the need for new site designs. Prices for domain names are dropping, a clear indication that the market for original sites is slowing down. Some agencies and firms are staffing specialized divisions devoted to economical “creative makeovers.” Deep within his Sanctum of Fortitude, Website Makeover™ Man is contemplating his fate.
— Watched a copy of “Broken Trail” last night, which Terie taped for us (before our vacation with Marty), because we no longer pay for channels like AMC. It was interesting to study the similarities and differences in Duvall’s performance, compared to “Open Range,” along with the contrasting directorial styles brought to similar subject matter. And speaking of contrasts, the radically different character that Church personifies, versus his memorable Jack in “Sideways,” is worth the viewing. As much as I liked “Broken Trail,” and as much as I admired its aura of authenticity, the screenplay does suffer unfortunately from what I’ll refer to as presentism. For the most part, in my opinion, Costner managed to avoid presentism when he made “Open Range,”—an impressive personal achievement, quite frankly, since his indulgent first western reeked of it. Nevertheless, who doesn’t like the entertaining “Dances,” in spite of its PC tone?
Regional planner? I just play one on TV
August 11th, 2006I had a city commissioner, our tourism director, and the lead economic developer look to me to suggest some bicycle-pedestrian language for the Bluegrass Area Development District’s “Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy” document. Admittedly, had they done that last fall I might have totally freaked, but today I was able to come up with something in short order, essentially off the top of my head. Hmmm…
Distinctively Frondybo
August 10th, 2006• He’ll answer to the name of Jeffron, GrandyFron, or possibly Stenchpit, or maybe even Crocboopdile—if he’s had his nap.
• Erstwhile Innmaster, he had no trouble explaining to his disgruntled tenants why he cut me so much slack. That was a long time ago, but he still does. The generosity of his father resides in his heart.
• Like his father, he’s a gardener, outdoorsman, family man, and natural leader. Unlike his father, he became an errant Elizabethan and perhaps the truest Thespian in the family.
• He was the first of the Clan to “go back to the land,” but he’d already won my admiration by then. Soon after, he showed me what it meant to be a stepfather. He continues to help me understand ideas like ingenuity, self-reliance, and fidelity.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother, “Fron.” I love you, forever…
Keep them dogies movin’
August 9th, 2006We broke another record with tonight’s ride—around 40 participants, although I didn’t get an exact head count. They broke into three fairly even pace groups, just like they did last week. Dotti was passing out flyers for the open meeting for cyclists and collecting email addresses on her clipboard. Rick S had commitments that caused him to hand leadership of the C-Group to me, and it got a bit wild at first when a few teens wanted to squirt too far ahead of the pack, but I think I managed to get their respect by outriding them.
“Don’t try to understand ’em. Just rope, throw and brand ’em.”
Finally crankin’ in sync
August 8th, 2006An important thing happened at my
B.I.K.E. meeting tonight. The people that showed up took the bull by the horns and put my idea of holding an open forum back on the table. The difference this time is that it’s going to be for bicyclists only, by invitation, and not promoted to the general public. An experienced facilitator agreed to moderate the event. The consensus was that it’s time to put our organizational framework in front of the cycling community and see what they want to do with it.
I think that many who were there felt a bit uneasy about moving things sharply away from my proposed agenda items, but I was pleased with the development. My goal all along was just to provide enough leadership to get a team of volunteers moving forward with their own defined priorities.
Prospecting the high country
August 7th, 2006Despite the difficulties in punctuality I had pulling myself away from the Dixons of Broadwing Farm, we managed to arrive on time at our appointment with representatives of Lincoln Memorial University. Our primary goal was to follow up on Jerome’s prior contact with the dean of the new DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine, but due to understandable concerns about the comprehensive visual identity of the parent institution, other administrators wanted to sit in. We had no problem with that—it dovetailed with our own philosophy of image management and it gave us the opportunity to promote our creative services to a wider audience. The meeting seemed to go well. I’d never heard of LMU, but it’s a beautiful setting and progress on the new College is moving along rapidly. Faculty will be in place next winter and the first incoming students are scheduled to begin classes in the fall of 2007. Now is the time for them to invest in projecting a high level of graphic credibility. Dana and I are ideally suited for this work. Will they choose wisely?
After leaving LMU, we headed through the tunnel into Kentucky and found a decent Mexican lunch in Middlesboro. (Home of Lee Majors, who Brendan’s dad always liked and I still admire for his work long ago in “Will Penny.” He got his start, like my pal Andrew, at Pioneer Playhouse, here in Danville.) We decided to go through with our idea of making a cold call on the University of the Cumberlands. The weather was awful, pouring like a sonuvagun, and I was trying to safeguard the portfolio. All the time I wondered if the whole thing was a forlorn hope. Quite the contrary. The timing seemed almost perfect, and we sat down with the director of community relations just as he was thinking about severing ties to a big expensive outfit from Iowa (the same kind of specialized organization that nearly recruited Dana and me back in the 80s). That meeting seemed to go well, too, and I found myself getting more and more comfortable with that KY-TN border region as fertile ground for the graybeard prospector.
Finally… our return to the high valley of the French Broad
August 6th, 2006Drove to Hot Springs yesterday via 25-E, which, during the daytime, is a much more pleasant route than the Interstate. It gave us an opportunity to locate the LMU campus and learn that it’s quite close to the Cumberland Gap tunnel. Much of the way I read to Dana from “Simple Loving,” a book that used to belong to Joan and Joe. By the time we arrived at Broadwing Farm, we were thinking sufficiently “outside the cube” to make our short breakout worth it, even if nothing comes of our appointment tomorrow. Bob and Carol had a delicious supper prepared and we talked until sleepiness held sway. Typically, we spent today in deep conversation, fueled by natural foods, fresh air, a majestic view, a run to the nearby coffee hangout, and a dip in the spring-fed pond. Carol turned us on to Sarah Susanka, Bob convinced me to start watching the series “Band of Brothers,” and Pete gave me some hemlock slabs from the sawmill for my woodcut experiments. The regional infestation has worsened to the point that he’s been forced to harvest a lot of hemlock from the forest, but the timber is being put to good use in building a horse stable and a third rental dwelling. This one will be called Cedar, and will surely add to the success of Poplar and Pine at Broadwing Natural Bath Cabins.
Wish I were there
August 4th, 2006I finally completed my log entries from the recent trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Of course, there’s nothing like being there, but it all comes down to one thing—the memories.
Tales of the Graybeard Prospector XX
August 4th, 2006• The road trip is back on! The bewhiskered one is loading the pack mules and setting his sites on Broadwing Farm first and then Lincoln Memorial University.
“Off to the hills! Best take the Medicine Woman for good measure.”
. . . G B P . . .
d a n g
August 3rd, 2006We thought that circumstances might be shaping up for a long but interesting weekend, but everything to do with our sought-after prospecting loop through Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee fell apart today…
Wednesday Night Bikes
August 2nd, 2006Tonight we had over 30 cyclists show up for our ride from downtown Danville, a new record. Most of us would agree that it has a lot to do with the outstanding bicycle coverage provided this year by the Advocate Messenger.
B.I.K.E. has had a goal of boosting participation in regular group rides. A turnout like we had this evening causes us to intensify our focus on safety. Another priority for us is to increase awareness of the “Share the Road” attitude. I’m hoping that our advocacy organization can work my connections at the newspaper to develop a story idea that better explains the issue of motorists and cyclists coexisting on local streets and highways.