motorman

I wrote the original draft of this post a week ago under the influence of an adrenaline and endorphins high from an unlikely triumph. Today, reality has returned in the cruelest fashion, a very big buzz kill, requiring a redraft.

For those of you out there who support sports teams not by choice but because they are ‘your teams’ due to upbringing, locality, or some other ingrained reason you might be able to empathize with this post. For those of you who have ‘your teams’ and those teams happen to be perennial doormats you can further understand my frustration. And for those of you from areas with an inferiority complex – say the fly over country of the United States, the Pacific Northwest, or anywhere in Canada – you can totally relate.

Last week I spent four sun drenched autumn hours inside in front of an oversized television wishing, hoping, and willing a team of mediocre quality to beat a far superior team. In the last six game seconds my team finally made the pain of a 19-year loss drought vanish. Even though I was inside, my neighbors on my sleepy street probably wondered whether I was experiencing an uncontrolled spastic event as I ran, jumped, and crouched with football in hand to and fro across the living room in front of the room’s windows. I was excited, and for a moment my life made more sense, the glory of victory!

This week I spent four sun drenched autumn hours inside in front of an oversized television wishing, hoping, and willing a team of mediocre quality to beat a less (base on last week’s performance) far superior team. In the last thirty game seconds my team, as a good friend would say, ‘snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory’. A loss, no championship consideration this year – 44 years and counting.

On my way home the other day I met foggy and drizzly weather. For some reason I generally enjoy the bike ride home in inclement weather – rain, snow, god-awful cold, you understand the type – but yesterday I was enjoying the ride because a year ago at this time I was in a shoulder immobilizer. If you have never had the pleasure of a shoulder immobilizer it is especially pleasant when you are trying to sleep.

I was in this awful situation because a few days earlier on my way to work a car turned in from of me and before I knew it I was airborne. Now I bet you are expecting me to lament on the crash, how cars do not see bicycles and haw bicyclists are always in the right. That will be in another post and really I do not think that way we all have a role … like I wrote, another post.

I was airborne on a pleasant October morning – 50+ degrees – sunny – calm winds – no advanced notice of the flight – no ticket. What confuses me a year later is that from the time I realized that there was nothing I could do and I was going to collide with the front panel of some chevy sedan, like a rock, my reaction was unexpected, kind of, but still troubling. As I flew through the air my thoughts are not on the impending fear of impact but a slow motion examination on how I am going to make contact with the ground. Will it be the crash where the helmet splits? Will it be the time where I land on my feet, again? Or will it be the time from which I spend the next decade in elementary school gyms explaining the virtues of bicycle safety education?

I hit a primary downtown street surface scapula first, body second, bicycle a distant third to add insult. For those unaware or as forgetful of seventh grade health as I, scapula equals shoulder blade. Break it and the next three months are reserved for pastries, tortilla chips, and other evil foodstuffs in the face of the physician directed placid lifestyle.

As I leaped up from the asphalt I quickly inventoried the gear – head intact, coffee in the pannier a loss, no broken limbs well not at first check – then in between profanities I notice a man on the sidewalk coming to me asking if I am alright. I respond, “Did you see that, I bet it looked awesome.” As a group was gathering around me I all I was interested in is whether someone was able to take a picture.

Is it right to think about the action video that could have been or to think of your health. Hard to know. I do know this watch out for turning cars and if someone did take a picture send it my way.

I am now off to see whether it will be a useful expense of my time to become another of the millions who blog. I expect that the most interested readers of this will be me and maybe my wife. If I am successful, I can probably rope in close friends and my mom. The intent of this blog is to script some of my thoughts that come into my head as I commute to work on my bicycle— a man, who is in effect a motor, so hence motorman.org. Choosing the name of this site was actually not that clever, two months ago I walked by an exhibit on streetcars and there was a mannequin in a conductor’s uniform and the label on the hat was “Motorman.” And I kind of like it, so there you go.

If you have made it this far, thank you and congratulations. I will try to write in a fashion that does not bore you, on topics such as politics, books, public policy, and the economy or why there is Braille on the drive-up ATM at Wells Fargo. I will hope to write as much as I can so that some day my enemies can use these pages to highlight my ultra-conservative views on the world and use them against me at an opportunistic time.

Feel free to leave your comments and check back when you need to waste time or help falling asleep.