Union,
MO
He sings hymns. He
can’t help it. He was born into it.
We’re westbound on
the Half Buck. The sun, rising directly behind us, illuminates misty fields. Our
long shadow precedes my front wheel.
These hymns reside
someplace in his brain where memory cells still function. They come to him,
usually in multiple verses, these old-time gospel songs. This morning, it was
“When the Roll Is Called up Yonder.”
Especially the
lines:
“On that bright and
cloudless morning.”
And,
“When the morning
breaks, eternal, bright and fair.”
This time of day is
Old Danny Boy’s fix, if you will, – the open road, the purr of my engine
(remember, he’s deaf and rides with his hearing aids in an Altoids box). He
feels close to Whomever and Whatever it is that isn’t here. He is peaceful,
happy, and content.
I asked him, “What
if the roll WAS called up yonder this morning and now you ARE
there?”
He allowed, “That
may have happened. There sure aren’t many people about.”
Then we remembered .
. . it was Saturday.
Okay, YOU ride with
somebody every day for a month and see what YOU talk about.
US 50 did what it
does, mutating from two lanes of local access to busy divided four-lanes, then
back. Being Main Street for Small Town, USA. Going through larger cities is a
challenge as the “50” signs disappear. GPS isn’t always reliable as it wants to
be efficient and practical. So it’s seat-of-the-pants dead-reckoning when it
comes to following the Five-O in cities.
In the countryside,
there always seems to be a sign on the far side of any intersection with a
numbered highway. ODB likes it best when the GPS screen reads, “Continue on US
50.”
Continue on we did,
right on to St Louis. Freeway construction afforded us a place to pull over
while he snapped the “Gateway to the West” arch. The west? Seems like we just
started through the Midwest yesterday. We have six days of “the West” stretched
out in front of us.
This afternoon we
passed a Six Flags amusement park here in Missouri. My rider paid me a nice
complement when he said, “I have all the thrill ride I’ll ever need right here
under my butt.” He’s a sweet guy, that Old Danny Boy.
And that brings me
to this, a couple of e-mail queries:
This from “Your
Faithful Reader” in Eugene, OR: “How can you write?
You’re a motorcycle and don’t have any fingers.”
It is not necessary
to have fingers in order to write. All you need to write is to have something to
say.
Furthermore, I have
staff.
And this from “Just
Wondering” in Poughkeepsie, NY: “You and ODB seem to
be in a relationship. Are you two in love?”
I had to check in
with Old Dany Boy on this one. It’s a toughie. First of all, I’m not a person.
I’m a thing (and proud of it). Hey, according to the US Supreme Court, some
things ARE people. But I, like Bad Hat’s John Perry, digress. .
.
Mr. O. D. Boy
remembers not only hearing, but believing that “You shouldn’t love something
that can’t love you back.”
Fair enough. But
wait . . . What about your country. Do you love your country? And freedom, do
you love that? Those are not people. One is a place, the other a state of being.
Personally speaking,
I’m a machine. (That was a joke, right there. In case you missed it.) Okay, I’m
a machine. I can’t love any thing, any place, any way of being, or any body. So
that’s easy. I just am. It just so happens that other than my motorcycle
attributes, I can write.
The big question is,
Does Old Danny Boy love me?
He loves She Who Is
His Life Partner, his family, and his friends. He loves his country and his
freedom. He loves to play music. He loves to write (He’s a MUCH better writer
than I). And he loves the way he feels when he rides me, his
motorcycle.
When I pressed him
with, “But do you love me?” he thought about it. He considered how much money he
has spent on me, how much time he has spent with me, and how much fun, agony,
terror, and thrills he has had with me.
After a period of
silent pondering he sighed, nodded, and confessed . . .
“Yes.”
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