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Monday, June 30, 2008

New Harley - Day 2 & 3

June 30, 2008
Fort Collins, CO
It's fun having a new Harley in the house!


But guess what? It won't be long until we have to make room for another Harley! I found the model I've been looking for this morning! With a little help from Dad and his buddy Jim at Red River Harley Davidson in Wichita Falls Texas we found the 883 Sportster in Vivid Black. I didn't find it in the low so I'm having a standard bike lowered. If all goes well, I'll sign the papers in the morning and with any luck I'll have it in the house next week.

Here's a pre-view.

WOO - HOO!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

New Harley - Day 1

June 28, 2008
Fort Collins, CO.


OK Dad -- look what you've started!

Tim's new 2008 Harley Davidson Heritage arrived today just before 9 am. I guess it goes without saying we didn't sleep much last night. We were both up early. I've been after Tim to clean the driveway for about 2 weeks now. It finally got cleaned this morning, probably a little earlier than the neighbors would have preferred. I've made our apologies in that regard, but no one really seemed to mind.

Neighbor Al and son, John were nearby most of the morning. It was hard to contain the excitement as we waited for the Harley Davidson trailer to round the corner. Wes, the Harley delivery guy said this was his favorite part of the job. He's a really nice guy.

Well, we all had our pictures made with the new bike. John had to excuse himself for a few minutes so he could put on the Harley shirt I brought him recently from Red River Harley Davidson in Texas. Then, Tim took it down the street, s-l-o-w-l-y around the corner of the cul-de-sac and back up the drive and into the garage - grinning from ear-to-ear all the way. We called Mom and Dad in Texas to announce the new arrival to our household and the new addition to Dad's own personal and rapidly growing motorcyle club.

We spent a little time looking it over and maybe calming down over a cup of coffee or two. Afterwards, we buttoned up the garage and went shopping for gear. Helmet, leathers, gloves, boots. We found all but the boots which we'll get next week sometime. Neighbor LeAnn was over to look at the new bike as soon as we pulled in the driveway this evening. She said, Ah-Oh - this is going to be trouble... She may be right. Al is already saying I wanna... I wanna... I wanna... and John is saying yeah... yeah... yeah...

Tim took the Harley out for a second turn through the neighborhood this evening. Considering he's never ridden a real motorcycle, he did pretty well. He's one tired, but extremely happy Harley guy. Me, too. I'm a happy Harley Gal.

Now, we gotta find one for me, don't we Dad?

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Dreams do come true



That is: Harley Dreams Come True
June 25, 2008
Fort Collins, CO

Just ask Tim how his new ride fits... and then wish him Happy Birthday! It's about this time next month that the first payment is due -- haha

Tim's experience at Thunder Mountain Harley Davidson -- Loveland, Colorado was -- in a word -- his word -- awesome. We got a walk-through of the dealership and met people in each department. We had a person go over the bike, in detail, it's operation and maintenance. We have new T-Shirts, compliments of the dealership. Tim had his picture taken on his new ride, too. At Thunder Mountain when you buy a new bike, you have to bang the gong. That's right - a very large Chinese gong. It is loud. Correction - deafening. Tim gave it his best shot of course -- I'm pretty sure you could have heard it in Texas. Word is: new shirts with the gong design will be available soon. We'll have to have a couple of those. Oh, and while we were in the dealership you could hear thunder and there was lightning over the foothills. It is in a beautiful location. Like I said, it was a pretty awesome experience all the way around. I don't think either one of us will sleep a wink tonight.



We take delivery on the bike Saturday, June 28 before lunch. Stay tuned... I'm fairly certain that day is going to top this one.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Secret to a Long Life

June 19, 2008
Fort Collins, CO

A great story...
NO LEFT TURNS

My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet. "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, bull----!" she said. "He hit a horse."

"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars --the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.
My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, oftenas not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner,we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the familydrives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought aused 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealershipdowntown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps – though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my fatheran equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of themthrough their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, hewould walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.

If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to thechurch. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she droveanywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor,he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep theengine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then,when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."
If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and tomake sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?"

"I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

"No left turns," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article thatsaid most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."
"What?" I said again.

"No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's alot safer. So we always make three rights."

"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support "No," she said, "yourfather is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when yourfather loses count."

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked.

"Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."
I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.

"No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides,nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys andsaid she had decided to quit driving That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 becausehe was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are alot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer."

"You're probably right," I said.

"Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated.

"Because you're 102 years old," I said.

"Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet."

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have."

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was thatmy family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns."

By Michael Gartner
Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, 1997
Footnote: 06/25/2008 UPS has announced they plan their routes using only right turns (or as few left turns as possible) to save on gas and time.

Harley Kid

Wichita Falls, Texas
June 14, 2008

Bailey (the Biker Kid), Tedjr (aka Poppy), Ted (aka Poppy Ted) and Inez (aka Mama)

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Patriot Guard Send-Off

June 8, 2008
Fort Collins, CO

Wichita Falls, Texas - My dad and brother participated in a Patriot Guard mission recently. This mission was a send-off for troops departing from a Grand Prairie Guard Unit to Iraq. The Patriot Guard of the Dallas area escorted the troops to Bowie, Texas where the Patriot Guard of North Texas and Oklahoma took over and escorted nine buses carrying troops to Fort Sill, OK (near Lawton, OK).

Patriotism is not dead in little town America. Dad says the main streets of the small towns between Bowie, Texas and Lawton, Oklahoma were lined with Americans waving flags and cheering for our troops.

The Patriot Guard riders turned out in significant numbers to perform their patriotic duty despite the heat and high winds.