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
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;
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!
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