Night of the Lepus....uh, Killer Bunny

There are many things I enjoy in life.  Long walks on the beach (or anywhere for that matter) with my beaugtiful wife, deep-fried cinnamon rolls the size of your head, the laughter of my children, The Princess Bride (and Star Trek, Star Wars, The Big Bang Theory) and Monty Python.  That being said, it will come as no surprise to those of you who know me that I recently had a Monty Python day of sorts.

I have now been in the process of gathering bicycles and restoring them in order to sell and give all of the proceeds to Sunrise Day Camp.  I call this project ReCycle for Sunrise and its the latest fundraising effort of Connor's Army.  As much as my beautiful wife Amy likes to take romantic walks on the beach with me, she's not too keen on my riding across the country again anytime soon.  So I've been converting my corner of the basement (meine kleine mannhöhle) into my bike repair workshop so I can fix the bicycles that have been so graciously donated to our cause.  Some I find on the road and others have been given to me by friends or family (thanks be to Joan!).  In working on them I often find myself feeling a bit like F.G. Superman in the sketch below;



Of course, I don't always change clothing before I get to work but you get the idea.  I've lost track of how many bicycles I've sold in the last two years (the project really started before the Ride Across America) but I know we've made over $2,000 from the sale of these bicycles alone.  I don't sell them for very much, basically for about half of what a comparable bike would go for on Craig's List.  I clean them all up, lube them up, replace any parts that need to be replaced, and true the wheels if they need to be trued.  I then look for a comparable bike and then print out a sign and place it on my front lawn here on Main Street in Northport during the weekends.  I've even had people come by and say they've heard about me and were wondering if I had a particular type of bike.  Word of mouth can be a powerful marketing tool I guess.

But aside from Bicycle Repairman, there is another connection I had last Sunday with my Monty Python side.  To really understand this Pythonesque moment, I need to give you a little background.   Way back in the day, although not completely "old school"(which from the graphic below you can see is a bit behind the front haunches but not all the way to the mid spine), I had a summer job with my friend Ed Trevorrow.

 

We worked for the German Civil Corps of Engineers which was attached to the military base at Katterbach, Germany.  Our summer job was basically to cut all the grass in the area below;

 

 

It really wasn't such a bad gig since we had self-propelled mowers for most of the work (every now and then we had to use sling blades) and for the first part of the summer we got to ride behind them on these trailer seats until someone decided it was too dangerous for fifteen-year-old kids to be doing that and they took them away.  It was also funny as hell because the four of us would show up about 8:00 every morning but we would never roll out until 8:30.  It would always take us 30 minutes to get there and then our German supervisor would have to take a break at 10:00 which would last half an hour.  We would work until 12:00 and then head back for lunch which would take an hour.  It would then take us about half an hour to get back to wherever we had left off.  We'd work until about 2:30 when he would have another half hour break and then finish up about 4:00.  It wasn't until half way through that we learned these "breaks" basically consisted of all the civil service employees meeting back at the garage to drink a beer or two.  I guess civil service can be the same everywhere.

 

So it was usually up to me, Ed and the other two summer hires to do most of the grass cutting.  One day while out cutting grass we came across a couple of baby rabbits.  Now, we were curious as any teenage boy might be and we wanted to gete a closer look.  Big mistake!!!!!  As we edged closer to get a look at the "herd" (yes, that is actually the technical term for a group of rabbits) big mama bunny decided we were a threat and came right at us.  Did you know they make a hissing sound when threatened?  And they do have a crazed look in their eye when they attack.  Now this was probably the summer of 1979 but since I had been in Germany since 1976 (and Augusta, GA before that) I had not really seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  It wasn't until years later that I saw the movie and realized that the "killer rabbit" was probably just a mama bunny protecting her young ones;

  

Of course, blasting it to bejeezus with the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch was probably a bit extreme.  This experience left a lasting impression of me and I've always equated the most protective act of a mother for her children with this mother rabbit's actions.  Needless to say we backed off and went to cut another section of the field.

This event also tied into another childhood memory of mine.  When my father was stationed at Fort Ord, CA we used to go to the drive-in movies quite a bit, to the UA Marina Auto Movie in Monterrey as a matter of fact.  It used to be something we did almost once a month and I remember seeing quite a few movies there.  I remember The Black Scorpion, The Blob and one that stuck with me for years, The Night of the Lepus.  What's that you ask?  Well, here's the trailer;



Go ahead.  I can feel your shudders of terror out there in cyber space.  But hey, for a seven-year-old it was pretty scary exciting stuff.  I had a great time but I have to admit it was a long time before I would touch a bunny.  And Easter would just freak me out.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't suffer from Leporiphobia I just happen to have a healthy respect for what these animals are capable of doing if you get them riled.  Which brings me to Sunday night.

It had been a wonderful day playing with the kids and enjoying National Ice Cream day.  We had home made pancakes and vanilla ice cream for breakfast.  We went to Baskin-Robbins for lunch and for dinner we had ice cream sundaes.  A little before dinner we noticed we had a rabbit in out back yard.  Now we had noticed this rabbit about a few times in the past but hadn't thought anything of it but this time the rabbit stayed and even came up fairly close to the kids.  It was a bit brazen in fact.  When it came time to move the bicycles off the front lawn and into the shed the rabbit didn't hop off like one would think.  No, it decided to lie down under the swing set and take a little siesta while I moved the bikes around not ten feet away from it.  The kids thought this was all fantabulous and we even got a few great pictures of our bunny pal.  Here he is placidly planning his next foray;

 

And here he is making an incursion into enemy lines to test the preparedness of our defenses;



 

 

Ultimately the entire family was delighted by our new lagomorphian friend.  He stuck around for quite some time and then moved to the front yard when the real fun began.  You see, I didn't want to scare him off but I did need to take out the garbage and move the car to the drive way.  But I was convinced he (or perhaps she?) would run off as soon as I got onto the walk.  So I kept checking every fifteen minutes or so which amused my wife to no end.  She started teasing me that I was afraid of the bunny.  Of course I reminded her of the killer lagomorph of Pythonian fame which only served to amuse her more.  But I didnt' want to scare the bunny!  I was enjoying the fact that we have a wild animal that is so at ease in our yard and I don't want to scare it off.  Of course the glint in its eye didn't help;

Beatrix Potter my henie, that thing is mocking us!

In any event I finally had to give in and move the garbage out to the curb and move the car to the drive way.  The bunny did move to the other side of the front yard but it did stay in the yard.  I guess it's not afraid of me lobbing the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch at it.  I'm just glad it didn't morph into this Pooka;

 

Now that one I may need to lob a grenade at, or maybe just pummel with a baseball bat.  It's enough to give you leporiphobia.  Of course, it would all be easier if like Raj, I were the King of the Rabbits;

 

 

 

Stay well my friends and I'll see you on the road!

The Rumors of My Demise........

Growing up, one of my favorite authors (among so very many) was Samuel Clemens, most famously known by his nom de plume, Mark Twain. As anyone who has read much of his prolific output can attest, his had a somewhat rapier wit. Many of my favorite quotes have come from his writings, including the one included in the picture above. I spent two years of my life when I was in middle school (in Georgia of all places) reading as much of his writing as I could get out of the school library and other sundry places. Among some of the other works I read were these;

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

The Innocents Abroad

Roughing It

The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

Sketches New and Old

Old Times on the Mississippi

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

A Tramp Abroad 

The Prince and the Pauper

Life on the Mississippi

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Pudd'n'head Wilson

How to Tell a Story and other Essays

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

The Diary of Adam and Eve

A Dog's Tale

The War Prayer 

Is Shakespeare Dead?

Letters from the Earth

So it's not surprising that in 8th grade I was accused by one teacher of having a "smart mouth".  I couldn't help it, I was influenced by all the sharp witicisms I was consuming from the pages of his work.  Of course, this was Martinez, Georgia in the mid-70's and my English teacher was thrilled that she had a student that was in love with word play and the power of the written word.  Not all of my teachers felt the same.

 

Although Mark Twain died in 1910, on two occasions the writer was incorrectly feared dead. Though only the second case would really be considered as a premature obituary, the first is often erroneously cited as the most famous case of the incorrect report of the passing of an individual:

1. In 1897 a journalist was sent to inquire after Twain's health, thinking he was near to death; in fact it was his cousin who was very ill. Though (contrary to popular belief) no obituary was published, Twain recounted the event in the New York Journal of 2 June 1897, including his famous words "The report of my death was an exaggeration" (which is usually misquoted, e.g. as "The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated", or "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated", or quite often "The rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated").
2. On 4 May 1907, when people lost track of a yacht he was traveling on, the New York Times published an article saying he might have been lost at sea.  In fact, the yacht had been held up by fog, and Twain had disembarked. Twain read the article, and cleared up the story by writing a humorous account in the New York Times the following day.

And its the first quote that I take as my inspiration for this blog entry. 

 

I have to admit I have never been a very good pen pal or correspondent of any type.   Back in the day (which as you can see below would have been somewhere along the mid spine)

 

 

I really did try to keep a few pen pals as that was before the joys of instantaneous internection connectivity but those brief forays into long range correspondance always faded after six months or so.  Therefore, it should be understandable that my natural proclivity is not able to keep up long term correspondence.  Its not that I don't know how to write.  Since high school I've received compliments on how well I express myself in the written forum.  Its just that given the choice, I would much rather read than write. 

 

There have been two notable exceptions to this natural order.  The first was during the long separations that I had from Amy when we were first together.  As young performers we would take work wherever we could get it and more often than not it meant that we weren't in the same place at the same time while doing it.  As a matter of fact, a month before we got married I was performing West Side Story in Berlin, Germany while Amy was performing Nunsense in Akron, OH USA!  Nevertheless, I would dutifully write her letters and cards to keep alive our connection.  It was part of the reality of that constant separation that caused me to leave "the business" as it became increasingly more clear to me that the only way we could have a family was if we were in the same place at the same time.

 

The other exception was this past summer when I made a concerted effort to try and write every day while on the road to let everyone know how the journey had progressed.  However even that was not a complete success as I have twelve entries in various stages of draft completion.  Although considering we were gone for 74 days, I guess that's not so bad for me.  Added to that I have five other drafts stretching back to 2011 that I started and never finished for a total of 17 unfinished drafts - but I'm working on it.  One idea I have is to collect all of those blog entries and create a book of our travels with each entry being a separate chapter.  For those of you who have followed my blog posts you know they tend to be long and verbose (despite my best efforts, this has been a lifelong "curse" I always write TOO much) so with a little judicious editing and addition they can be chapters unto themselves.

So what has all of this got to do with Mark Twain's quote?  I've been far to silent for far too long and I do know that I have followers who are interested in some of what I say as evidenced from the almost 30,000 views this blog has received.  I'm sure some of you who read my blogs somewhat regularly over the summer have probably wondered what the hell happened to me and what is going on?  To be sure, a lot has happened in my life both good and bad, most recently we had a scare of sorts with William but we just received word this past week that he is "clean" and healthy and that the likelihood of his tumor returning is pretty nil.  To be honest this has consumed most of our life here in the month of February.  The news has really brought us all back to life, pretty much the way this guy feels;
 

 

As you can imagine our lives are incredibly happy now because our little boy is healthy and clean. 

 

Another thing that has been going on is my incredible lack of motivation to ride.  I've chalked up my riding log and I've realized that I've only ridden five days since the first of the year.  I've had many colleagues at school ask me if I'm still riding and I've been incredibly embarassed to admit that I haven't.  Now I can justify a lot of the last eight weeks away by talking about how I'm just getting over the flu, how the roads were really bad because of Winter Storm Nemo, how I've been unable to ride on the weekends because I'm a member of the Northport Fire Department and I want to be able to go on calls, my nagging knee injury that made bending my leg near impossible for two weeks (which I treated myself, shhh don't tell my orthopedist), etc.

 

But in reality the answer is simply I SUCK!  I have allowed myself to fall into the post "I HAVE  ACHIEVED MY DREAM" doldrums.  Last year I logged the most miles that I have ever ridden in my life on the road (7746.26) and I've just been feeling worn out and unmotivated to get back out there.  I've been forgetting the reasons I started riding in the first place;

 

It's fun!

It's freedom!

I can make a difference!

 

So I'm happy to say I'm back and I'm getting back in the saddle and starting to pedal again to help those who need it.  For starters, I'm going to be part of the Bicycle Rescue Squad for the Doug Wood 5K Cross Country Run on April 13!  Its one of the reasons I wanted to join the Rescue Squad in the first place - to combine my passion for helping others with my passion for cycling.  Its my hope that by next year I'll be a fully certified EMT and I can really be even more of a help to folks.

 

Secondly, I'm joining my wife, daughter and one of my sons in shaving our heads for the annual St. Baldrick's event.  Amy and Sarah have formed a team called Bald and Beautiful and although they are beautiful, I'm just going to be bald.  The only problem is as of yet I haven't raised any money towards my $500 goal.  If any of you would like to help me get there, you can contribute to funding children's cancer research by clicking here.  C'mon, whose going to be the first?

 

Oh, and I got back on the bike today and rode in to work.  And that was fun.

 

So, I'm not dead yet, I'm coming back to life and I hope you'll all join me for the ride!

 

And to make sure I don't really die, at least I'm not dumb enough to do this on my commute;

Stay well and I'll see you on the road!

Yin and Yang Keeps All in Harmony

I'm not sure if Buddha ever rode a bicycle (even though he could have built his own out of bamboo).  Of course to do that he might have to travel to the exotic land of Brook - lyn to do so which is a far trek from Shangri La.  And under no circumstances should this be confused with the group Sha Na Na which started as a group called "The Kingsmen" back in 1969.  They had their own television variety show for a while.  If you never saw them, this is what they look(ed?) like performing "Get A Job" in 1973 which they actually performed in 1969 at Woodstock - yes THE Woodstock;



And what does all of this have to do with anything you may ask?  Its all about the Yin and Yang of Life.  Let's take a little journey, shall we?

For many of you who know me,  I have spent most of my life growing up in a Korean-American household.  This means I've gotten some really different influences in my life that I'm very grateful for but at the same time probably contributed to the Gemini/bi-polar mess that I am.  For those of you who have followed this blog, you know that I spent my misspent high school years in Germany at Ansbach American High School.  While there I participated in a variety of activities including sports (football, wrestling, soccer, baseball), band (marching, concert, jazz) and drama/forensics.  I was a very busy boy and yet I still managed to keep my grades up enough to be in the National Honor Society.  I have no idea how that happened. 

Anyway one of the other things I did while there to tap into my Korean heritage was to take Tae Kwon Do lessons.  Now I probably could have taken a form of Karate, or Kung Fu but my cousin was living with us at the time and he had some previous experience with Tae Kwon Do as well so I worked with him and with a teacher who was stationed at the base.  He was completely old school and we worked our butts off almost every day for two years.  We learned forms, we learned to use weapons and we learned to fight in a controlled environment.  I even went to a tournament once and I did okay but no trophy.  The point was he was old school and he treated us fairly but firmly and we respected him and really learned the material.  With my cousin's help I worked very hard and I advanced to second degree green belt in two years but that's as far as I got.  Now when I mean "old school" I don't necessarily mean this;



or even quite like this (sorry, this one is from Brazil so its in Portuguese - but if you've seen the movie you know what's going on);




So, no he didn't use anything to trick us into it rather he just made us work hard although I wouldn't have been adverse to this "old school" technique;



No, it was just hard work and lots of practice, drilling and sparring.  And we NEVER used pads.  We used mouthpieces most of the time but never EVER with pads.  I remember my cousin clocking me in the mouth with a spinning back roundhouse kick that knocked me off my feet.  That was cool to see coming at you but not so much when it hit.  My point is that "old school" training or even "back in the day" training (to see when that was just check below)

(you see it ranges from the front haunches to the mid spine - borrowed from Bikesnob NYC)

when you were really training to learn the art and the reason behind the technique and the traditions behind it you would never see five-year-old black belts trave;ing around and giving demonstrations or young Circassian boys getting their black belts in Tae Kwon Do;



Yes, they may have learned the "moves" but the maturity and understanding to use it correctly is not always there.  Nor the respect or the patience or the multitude of other things.  Now some may say, "well its not REAL, its only a junior black belt" but to the kids when they are bragging/telling others there is no distinction made.  They simply say "I'm a black belt".  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not jealous but let's be realistic here and see the real problem.  Everyone is after quick results and instant gratification.  A black belt in five years (that's assuming they started right out of the womb).  Where is the balance?  Where is the harmony?  How can there truly be any?

Why do you ask am I even talking about any of this at all?  Well today was a day of experience the true nature of Yin and Yang and the ebb and flow of balance.  Today was a day of sadness for me, much more than I thought I would have but it truly was difficult for me.  I had been preparing for it all week but  when it actually came it was a bit more than I excpected.  You see, today was my last day at Sunrise for the next two years.  Next summer I won't be at camp since at this time next year I should be somewhere in Western Virginia getting for the final push up the coast.   Yes, at long last it will REALLY happen, either solo or supported but next summer Connor's Army XC happens.

As exciting as that will be it was saddening to know that I won't be back, especially when so many of the campers told me how much they would miss me and drama.  This year I was the only drama teacher so I got to see every single kid in camp from the smallest Acorns to the oldes CIT's and all the counselors in between.  I saw some kids who couldn't be bothered to try drama become some of the first to volunteer or to come up to me during the day and say "what are we doing in drama today?"  Although I reall missed being able to teach dance as well, being the only drama teacher this summer really allowed me to make some connections - connections I hope will last me two years.

To counter act this Yin (blackness, negativity, sadness) was a good deal of Yang (whiteness, positivity, happiness) to even everything all out.

To begin with, after months of having pain in my lower back area and putting off going to the orthopedist, I finally went yesterday morning and found out I have sacralization of my L5 vertabrae.  Although I'll have to go to physical therapy (the Yin) I won't have to have surgery (the Yang) at least for now - Yay!

Secondly, we finally have our donation link up on the Sunrise Day Camp home page!  You can see it by going here - and if you happen to feel moved to make a donation - even better.  Go Yang!

Thirdly, I have been working with a camper who is a high school student (i.e., Leadership) and he came to camp with very little swimming experience.  He is an accomplished athlete and has great power but hasn't really swam much in the past.  I've been working with him to try to get him from level two (the small three foot pool with elementary/middle school kids) to the big pool (i.e., four to six foot).  We've had our ups and downs and he has gotten so close on so many occasions but the swim instructors were hesitant to put him up above.  Well today he made it!!!!!!   He was so incredibly happy and they let him stay there.  I was so proud of him and what he's accomplished!  Again, go Yang!

And lastly, we've been working on trying to get a sprinkler system and a patio put into our back yard.  The patio is not so important but I just don't want my grass to completely die while we're away next summer so we're putting in a system to keep it watered during the two months we're away.  We just found out that the company putting in the system might be interested in sponsoring us!  Woohoo!  Even if it's not much, every little bit helps and we'll be able to have the money we need to pay for gas!!!!!!

Now all this good news/bad news may not completely give me inner peace like our friend here;



but it really makes the sadness of not seeing my Sunrise family for two years (except for the occasional Sunrise Sunday) a little easier to bear (get it?).

Stay well and I'll see you on the road.