Cocoon mode* - day 12: Kalib and Caleb pedal off on their bikes to listen to Peggy Sue

So I stepped outside and there was Kalib, sitting on his bike, like he was going somewhere - Texas, maybe.

Then Caleb came along. "Nephew," he said. "Let's go! The open road awaits!" Little Kalib's legs were too short for him to properly pedal, so he propelled himself by chugging with his feet.

Off they went. Soon they disappeared. I went back into the house to read the newspaper. Later in the afternoon, my cell phone vibrated and shook. It was them. They had called to let me know that they had gotten a little carried away and had pedaled all the way to Texas - Lubbock, to be precise, where they had gone to pay tribute to Buddy Holly.

They had called from Lubbock's famous Buddy Holly Bar and I could hear "Peggy Sue" in the background, mingled with the sounds of random gunfire and brawling.

Trouble was, they were too tired to pedal back home. 

I sighed, climbed into the Escape, drove to Lubbock, picked them up and brought them back home.

It was not at all how I had intended to spend my afternoon, but I could not leave them stranded in Lubbock, Texas, even if the entertainment was good.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

Cocoon mode* - day 11: Old man charges up steep grade on four-wheeler and then charges back down again; fall from the car

As I rode my bicycle along the two-foot wide path on the other side of the guardrail from Seldon, just over the steep drop off that could surely cripple or kill me if I were to lose control and plunge over, I heard the screaming engine of a four-wheeler, churning out more RPM's than it was built to churn. I could not see it, because there were some leaves hanging from some bushes that blocked my view, but I immediately surmised that it had to be a kid, trying to charge up the steep grade you see here.

Just ahead, there was an opening through the leaves, so I pedaled to that spot as fast as I could. When I got there, the four-wheeler was nearing the top. I stopped, dug into my pocket and pulled out the pocket camera.

Auuugh!!!! 

It was still set on last night's settings for very low-light photography: 1600 ISO, 1/10th of a second. If I were to try to take a picture at those settings, under this bright sun, all I would get would be a blinding, white, glare.

I quickly dialed the ISO down to 100 and set the shutter speed at 1/400th of a second, but by then the rider had topped the hill and had turned around to go back down.

I was surprised to see that he was not a kid at all, but an old man, with white hair and a white beard. Just like that, he dropped over the edge and charged back down the grade.

I then hoped that he would turn around and charge back up again so I could get a climbing picture, but he didn't.

He just kept going and drove through the abandoned, dug-out gravel pit that the lying developers never did turn into a pleasant neighborhood lake, the way they had promised they would do way back when they first tore up the wetlands above it. In those horrid days, a lone man sitting on the seat of a gravel extracting machine would work all the way through the summer night and if the air was flowing from him towards our house, I could not sleep over the rattling and crunching of the gravel being ground through that machine.

A few times, I got out of bed and went to talk to the man doing the extraction and his response was... "f.. you." It was summer, it was light and he was going to work through the night, the peace and sleep of the neighborhood be damned.

I would return home, climb back in bed and, unable to sleep, would fantasize about returning with my 30.06 so that I could pop the rude sob right off the seat of his machine.

Irrational, I know and I knew it then and I would not have done it, but so works the human mind when it is tormented and deprived of sleep night after night just because someone is rude.

At least when it was all over, we were to have this nice neighborhood lake, but instead we got an ugly pit.

As for this old man who charged up the hill today and then turned and charged back down, my feelings were mixed. On the one hand, I admired him, for not yielding easy to the calendar, for not giving into his years.

On the other hand, after he exited the gravel pit, he continued on and I saw him disappear into the marsh, the one behind my house. He was headed toward where the property owner across from us keeps putting up signs and baricades to try to keep the four-wheelers out, because they have done so much damage to the vegetation. Yet, the drivers just keep finding ways to get in and they just keep tearing up the property.

With kids, you can kind of understand, but with an old man whose hair is white...

But then, I don't know... perhaps he turned away before he reached that man's property. Perhaps he lives in one of the houses further down from ours that borders the marsh. Perhaps he has a trail that leads into his own backyard.

He might just be a decent fellow who would never trespass and tear up another man's wetlands.

I just don't know. I must give him the benefit of the doubt.

I pedal on, back onto the road where there is no guardrail to push me into traffic.

I took this as I drove past in my car, on my coffee break.

I would have driven slowly across this bridge so that I could have gotten a couple more frames out of the pocket camera, which is a very slow camera to operate, but there was a truck behind me so I had to rush across and was lucky to get even this one.

Technically, I have somewhat exceeded cocoon mode tonight. Oh well. The weekend has begun. I must have a little fun.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

Cocoon mode* - day 10: I see a babe in the Metro Cafe; I feel frustrated; lament for Mary

I am frustrated now. I took a series of photos this morning from my bicycle and another series this evening, of Kalib, and I would like to post both series in their entirety.

But I haven't the time. I am in Cocoon mode. Furthermore, I am exhausted.

So this one of this very cute baby who did not wave back at me will have to do. I am at the drive-through to the Metro Cafe, where I have just ordered two coffees, one for me and one for Margie, who stayed home.

It will still be hot when I deliver it to her.

Carmen tells me that the local classic car club will be coming to her grand opening Saturday, noon till 2:00, Lucille Street, just south of Spruce. So there should be some neat cars there.

Too bad Melanie and Charlie have gone to Portland. Charlie could bring his Oldsmobile Starfire and we could go in that, spill coffee on the upholstery and then dab it up with cinnamon rolls. Then we could eat the cinnamon rolls and reminisce about the good old days, when people drove about in Oldsmobile Starfires, dipping their donuts into their coffee as they listened to Peter, Paul, and Mary sing about little boys and dragons, flowers that go with soldiers to the graveyard, and jet planes that take you away even though you hate to go.

And now Mary is dead.

It just doesn't feel quite right. But then it never does, even though that is how it always goes. 

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

Cocoon mode* - day 7: Caleb sits down to make a stand in the TV room; Kalib saturates himself in incense from India

When they were growing, all three boys slept in this room and sometimes it got pretty chaotic. In time, we enlarged the house, but soon only Caleb and the girls were still home, and then the girls became women and moved out into the world. 

After awhile, Caleb moved into the middle bedroom, which had grown with the enlargement of the house and had briefly been occupied by Rex. Not long after, we put a TV in the original room and called it, "the TV room."

In time, the room began to fill with things that we did not know what else to do with, so we put them there.

Still, Caleb found the space to go in and watch TV.

Then, after Margie got hurt this last time, we had to move a bunch of stuff from our bedroom in order to clear space to accommodate her needs and so into this room it went.

And still, Caleb holds his TV room territory.

One day, perhaps, we will figure out what to do with this stuff. 

I am not certain where he found it, but little Kalib got ahold of some packages of incense from India and then flung the scented wands around as if they were pick-up sticks. By the time I came out and discovered what was going on it was too late to stop it and Jake had just saw it as an interesting learning opportunity for Kalib and so had not interfered.

Afterwards, Kalib carried the scent around on his body and clothes. Aroma wise, being around him was kind of like being back in India. Even when we took him out driving, the aroma of India came with us.

His parents now go house-shopping at every opportunity. Soon, this house will be less chaotic than it is now, but we will have to learn to cope with it.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

Cocoon mode* - day 6: I conduct a scientific experiment involving the rain, my bike, a pickup truck and a cow moose

Come noon each day that I was in India, I was quite taken by the fact that my shadow was directly beneath me. This, of course, was because the equatorial sun hung pretty-much directly overhead. Here in Alaska, even at noon in June, the sun always angles its way in, so one's shadow always falls away from him. It never appears directly beneath him.

Or so I have always believed.

Then, this morning, I was riding my bike through the rain when I looked down and saw what appeared to be my shadow, directly beneath me. I reasoned that this was because the rain-filled clouds had dispersed the sun's rays, causing them to come down upon me from all angles, as if from a big, dome-shaped lightbox, but that fewer of those dispersed rays actually struck the ground directly beneath me - hence, the shadow.

But then I got to wondering if it was a shadow that I was seeing beneath me at all. Perhaps it was just the reflection of myself and the bicycle, caused by the thin layer of water upon the pavement and it only looked like a shadow because too much of the light was being absorbed by the pavement to reflect the colors back.

I noticed that when cars and trucks drove past, I could see their reflections on the wet pavement, traveling directly beneath them.

So I was very confused. I decided that I would take a picture of a truck passing by and then study the reflection beneath it and see what I could learn.

So here is the picture. I have studied it and I have learned nothing.

Later, I took my coffee break in my car. By now, the rain had ceased. Just before I reached home, I saw this cow moose standing in someone's driveway. I decided to continue the experiment and so photographed her posing with her shadow.

I figured that once I got home and could sit down and take a good look at this picture, all my questions would be answered.

As you can see, very strange things are happening with the shadow of this moose.

I end the day in an even greater state of confusion than I began it.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.