When Christmas trees grow up

Back in February of 1997 I asked Darian to find a good home for my little Norwegian pine that had fulfilled its duty as our holiday centerpiece. She planted it near the edge of the field bounding the south and west flanks (respectively) of Kresge and Porter colleges at UCSC (University of California at Santa Cruz). I didn’t half-think the little thing would survive but the bugger has flourished — so much so that it’s now visible from space! Check it out:

Latitude: 36°59′44.82″N
Longitude: 122° 4′2.26″W

Over the past decade I’ve stopped by the field during the several occasions I’ve found myself back in the area. You know, to pay a visit. The biggest shock came in 2003 after I’d just come back from Japan; I hadn’t seen the tree in years and when I went to where I knew it should be I couldn’t find it. That’s because I was looking for a sapling that had since grown several meters in height.

I’ve heard rumors that UCSC’s unbridled expansion will eventually spill over into the field, gobbling up Darian’s garden and possibly my tree, as well. Hold tight, friend, and if that dark day does come, make them curse it as they struggle to rip your deep roots free of the earth!

Thank you for flying, Aloha

With the sudden announcement of Aloha Airlines’ bankruptcy at the end of March, Hawaii lost its oldest airline (61 years) and Aloha’s employees lost their jobs (1,900 and counting). Not to make light of this event, but all the news coverage got me thinking about my own fictitious airline that I based on Aloha: Paradise Air.

When Grandma and Grandpa took us kids to Hawaii in the early 80s, we used to play a game whereby each of us would stake out a corner of our hotel room and set up shop. Todd, Andy, Jenny, and myself had each created a “business” that we’d operate to barter with the others for goods and services. Kid-o-nomics. (I think somebody had a carnival, which was fairly ambitious.)

My great idea was to provide transportation to and from all corners of the room on a fleet of paper airplanes I christened Paradise Air. I still happen to have one these planes (number 22, the “Mighy Mo”!), and here she is. I guess part of me always wanted to be a pilot.

Good-bye P-House

On Sunday, February 17, Birmingham’s grand dame —the Parliament House hotel — was demolished to make way for the future. Opening its doors for the first time during the strife of mid-60’s “Bombingham” Alabama, the Parliament House represented new hope and became the hip hang-out spot. Anybody who was anybody passing through town stayed at the P-House, myself included.

My connection to the place can be traced directly to Case, who worked there for a time as night auditor while attending UAB in the early ’90s. Because of the hotel’s toll-free 800 line, Case and I spent many a late-night hour on the phone together. So yeah, I have a bit of a soft spot for the old gal.

(Case, what the hell is going on here? First they sink the Deyo and now the P-House exists only on Google Earth’s outdated satellite photos. Talk about erasing your past…)

(History of the hotel)
(Parliament House demolition photos)
(local news story)
(implosion video)
(Birmingham library digital collection)
(photo of Casey working at the P-House)

Sheldon “CaptBike” Brown 1944 – 2008

A couple of days ago Todd informed me that Sheldon “CaptBike” Brown had passed away this last Sunday. After reading the first line of the forwarded email link I felt a cold knot begin to tighten in the pit of my gut. I’ve always had a kind of morbid fascination with death (call it my way of confronting the terrifying reality of my own mortality), but rarely do I feel this sense of tragic loss — especially for someone who lived the rich and full life that Sheldon obviously had. Stranger yet is the fact I never even met the man. (Or so I think. There’s a better-than-average chance I stopped by Harris Cyclery during the week I helped Meggin move to Newton Center, MA; the shop is not far away and I recall stopping by a place to pick up some stuff just before setting out for Chicago.)

To start, I never knew Sheldon personally, though over the past seven years or so I’ve come to greatly admire and respect him. (He even was kind enough to answer several email inquiries of mine, though lord knows he had a lot more begging for his time and attention closer to home.) Bicycles and bicycling never had a more passionate or enthusiastic advocate.

My first introduction came — as it likely did for so many others — when I stumbled upon Sheldon’s encyclopedic website of bicycle knowledge and fancy back in late 2000 or 2001. (I knew I liked him from the moment I saw that photo of Sheldon with the eagle taped to his bicycle helmet.) At that time I was living in Japan, and because of my schedule, Wednesdays were spent either hired out to elementary schools or parked behind a Bureau of Education desk at City Hall. (It comes down to being the lesser of two evils, really.) The stultifying boredom of the B.O.E. was mitigated somewhat when we (myself, Reg, and Damian) were alloted a notebook computer to use for preparing class materials, or, as was hoped for, studying Japanese.

I actually did do a lot of class prep at City Hall (after raiding the stocks of double-sided tape, magnets, and colored paper in the supply room), but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also do a fair amount of web surfing. It was during one of these online forays that I must have clicked on a link for SheldonBrown.com (and more likely days later before I got back out again). At the time I was doing quite a bit of research on bikes, either because I was in the market to buy or was in the process of modifying my own from parts off other junkers in the neighborhood. It’s hard to remember which.

The short of it is this: I found more than I’d come looking for and in effect began my education of how bikes really work. You know, for someone who likes bikes as much as I do, it’s pathetic how poor my mechanical knowledge has been in the past. For me it was always more about the ride than the repair.

But that soon changed as I began to explore the articles, references, and layman’s explanations that Sheldon was constantly updating to fill but one branch of his massive website. (He was equally fervent about his family, camera collection, community theater, music, traveling, books, and film, to just get started.) Sheldon’s unassuming writing style and utter love for his subject matter were evident in his posts. He had nothing to prove; only a desire to teach and eagerness to let some of his excitement rub off on us. Eccentric? Renaissance man? It’s tough to put a label on someone, but Sheldon definitely seemed like the kind of guy you’d love to have in the neighborhood.

The funny thing is, when it comes to bikes, I see much more of my brother in Sheldon than I do of myself. A lot more. For me, I’ve always identified more with Sheldon’s avidity for journaling, for getting it all down. For keeping the record. I mean, the man was a producing, publishing, and posting workhorse. And it’s the central paradox of this sort of effort — the record being only as temporal as the recorder — that I find both absurd and comforting. Making mention gives me pause to think: about what happened, about what it means. And this is good.

Looking at his journal over the past week or so of his life, Sheldon writes about doing some carpentry around the house, seeing his daughter’s music recital at M.I.T., joining a Revels Pub Sing, and hunting down a power supply for an older-model hard drive. He even throws in a few book and film reviews for good measure. In the entry for January 24th, Sheldon mentions the “spaces” feature of Mac’s new OS Leopard. He ends with, “I’ll need to play around with it a bit before I decide if I like it or not.”

In the very last entry, posted the day of his death, Sheldon gets excited over voting for Obama on Super Tuesday. And that’s where the site just freezes, the links inviting us to “Send eMail to Sheldon Brown” still there. It’s eerie to go there now because everything just looks so normal: a snapshot of the most recent update. I suppose this is something that is becoming more commonplace, but it’s still weird.

What I wasn’t aware of is how MS had kept Sheldon off two-wheelers for the past year or so. I can’t help but admire his attitude, referring to the disease as merely a “Really Major Inconvenience”. I’ve been stressing a bit myself lately over a lot of things I can’t control (or shouldn’t even waste time worrying about in the first place), when the truth is I don’t even allow myself enough time for the few things that truly bring me joy. That’s one reason I’ve asked Todd to send my guitar. I’ve got more music than I can possibly listen to (not least because I’m too busy ripping even more), and fretting over bit rates when the truth is my won’t ever be as acute as they once were. Better to just stop, sit down, and spend some time with a few good chords. Music is best felt.

But I digress.

Sheldon, god speed and thank you for everything.

(Link: Sheldon Brown memorial page)

(Link: Boston Globe obit)

(Link: 12-minute interview with Sheldon on Australia’s 3RRR radio)

Hear Blues. Drink Booze. Talk Loud.

The other day I was breezing through the bookstore when I saw some guy (an employee, taking inventory) wearing the exact same Kingston Mines t-shirt that I have. I should say had, as my original shirt disappeared years ago. [Topic for separate post: favorite clothing that vanishes without a trace. For that category I would have to nominate my Navy Pea-coat (dammit!) and a beloved, early-80s EPCOT t-shirt...]

For those not in-the-know, Kingston Mines is blues club in Chicago that we used to go to back in the days when you could still get inside such places without too much trouble. It was a real musical (and cultural) education, for sure. I’ve got some stories, but I’ll save those for another time.

Anyway, a couple of years ago I bought a near-replica shirt on eBay, though I still wish I had the original that I bought at Kingston Mines just as it was starting to go big-time commercial. My point is this: you don’t often see these shirts — especially not in Hawaii. I wanted to go over and say ‘hey’ to the guy but didn’t have time as I had to get to class.

Six degrees of Elvis

This is random. While writing the previous post I went to Wikipedia to do a little fact-checking on Bill Belew. A search for “Elvis jumpsuit” turned up 35 hits, the fifth of which (Relevance: 89.1%) was for Rick Saucedo.

Now, last month as I was compiling photos and writing little blurbs on the bikes I’ve owned over the years, the name Rick Saucedo popped into my mind when thinking about Kelly Clark (my 8th-grade crush whom I used to visit on my first 10-speed). She used to talk about him all the time: an Elvis-impersonator with a growing following in the greater Chicagoland area that her mom was either dating, or knew, or was tight with. I’m not sure what the actual connection was, but obviously I didn’t forget the name after nearly 30 years. So you can imagine my surprise when my search turned up his Wikipedia page. Who knew he was just getting started back then? I had no idea he’d still be on the scene. (Like an Ex-machine.)

Double-take

So, the other day I come home from school and flip on the tube as I begin to unwind. There’s a show on the history channel about modern-day Indiana Jones’. OK, cool. As I’m putting things away and getting something to eat, I look up at the screen and do an immediate double-take. “No, it couldn’t be,” I think as I’m grabbing for the Tivo remote to rewind the program. The shot lasts for only one second, but sure enough, there she is: Patti, down in a pit, sketch pad in hand, on some archaeological dig in Guatemala. Or, at least, I think it’s Patti. I wouldn’t doubt that it is her — as this is exactly the kind of thing I could see her doing right now — but I’ve seen her near-double before, so I’m still doubting myself a bit. Even so… makes you wonder.