Promises

Letters to My Adult Children: On Riding With Pabs

Pabs and I ride together. It is the number one way we play. I remember the very first ride we took together. She was on her FX07 and I was on the Goldwing. We weren't very far from the condo when a car pulled out in front of Paula. I was pissed. My commitment to non-violence was being severely tested. You know how I ride. As we entered Multnomah Village, there is a light and it was red. The car stopped at the light behind another car. I pulled around him and got off my bike. It was the middle of the summer so I was undoubtedly in a sleeveless teeshirt, tats showing and I think I still was rocking my long hair. One thing I liked about my long hair was I looked a lot scarier than you know me to be. Can you imagine being the driver with tatted, long-haired me pulling around him at the light and getting off my bike to stare him down? Don't mess with Pabs. She is my life. I didn't say anything. I just stared, and he waited. I think I knew right then that my primary job when we ride is to make space for Paula. That is how we ride. I make space for her to ride safely. It is how I try to live. I make space for Paula wherever I can.

That means that if we are tooling up the road and a car pulls up and tailgates Pabs. I drop back and she takes the lead and I back the car well off. 

I remember chasing the Harleys down the freeway in Montana, and when it is straight, they tend to fly. So we are all doing about 85-90 MPH down the freeway, east of Missoula, passing cars in the slow lane. Colleen is leading, Jim is next. I follow him and then Paula is taking up the rear. Suddenly she reports and I see a lifted pickup pull up on her -- tailgating her pretty badly. OK, so I am noticing a pattern. I got a little pissed. I said, "Babe, pass me and switch," so we can stay in formation. She did. I let off my throttle. I think I slowed all the way to 50, creating some distance between the bikes and the truck. I turned around and glared. Then I throttled up to leave the lifted Dodge 2500 and rejoin my friends.

Riding in Portland traffic is never one of our favourite things to do. You know how the if you take the Ross Island Bridge the road winds into downtown Portland. It is kinda funky and Pabs and I were stuck in a lot of traffic. When we ride, we are talking a lot, probably more than when we are in the car. And we can be silly together. On this particular day, words escaped us at the time, and so we created our own lingo. On this day, we created the term, "Hootie-haw." There was a truck in the left lane. We were in the right. I was riding the lane lines and Paula was riding the shoulder line. She was at about four o'clock to me. The truck had space in front of him and there was a tiny gap between his front bumper and the bumper of the car in front of Pabs and me. So, I pulled in front of him and took my hand off the accelerator, widening the gap. Paula then shot in front of me into the lane. We did our first, "Hootie-haw." Now we just have to say, "Hootie Haw" and the other knows the maneuver. Hootie haws are nearly always done to the left because someone is not moving fast enough in the fast lane. They end up slowing up even more than they wanted to go. Such is the cost of cruising too slowly in the fast lane or the middle lane as the case may be.

Though neither of us likes traffic, it has taught us how to communicate more effectively. We need to make sure that the other sees what we are seeing as we ride together. So, she might say, "Let's get in front of that red truck up there." All of a sudden she has let me into her thought process. I will often ask, "Do you want to pass them?" She will tell me, yes or no. Then we can move in concert with one another. 

All these examples transfer to how we communicate at our best in regular life as well. When we know what the other is thinking, rather than assuming we know what they are thinking; we don't make the blunders that we might otherwise make.

We still fail. I get impatient much more easily than Pabs. I want to be able to see and I hate sucking diesel fumes. If there is a truck or van in front of us, I will want to take the first opportunity to pass. Paula can be much more content to lay off and fall back, not pushing it. Sometimes I want to pass, and she doesn't Very rarely she will want to pass when I don't. It has happened but I always follow. She doesn't. Then we have trouble. 

I'm sure that translates somehow too, but I'll let you figure that out.

We've had five bikes together. We currently have three. Here they are:

This is Paula's FZ07 and my 1986 Honda Goldwing InterState 1200.

This picture was taken across Lake Cour D' Alene from Harrison, ID on our trip to Banff/Canmore, Alberta. Paula was riding her silver 2010 Honda NT700VA, that she purchased to tour with me. We still own it. It is a fantastic bike. 

I remember that first day, we rode the back roads to a friend's house on the west side of Lake Cour D' Alene. It was exactly 400 miles. It was her first-day road tripping. It was way too long. Now we try to keep our days under 250 miles, just so we don't have to push so hard. We were smart enough to take a day off before pushing north. But man, we learned a lot that day too. It poured on us as we crossed the continental divide, and before we got there we rode for at least 20 miles on heavily grooved pavement that was under construction. While not pleasant and something that wouldn't bother us now, this was Paula's second day of road tripping and it was not fun for her at all. We never did see the tops of the mountains that trip. When we crossed back a few days later, it was pouring with rain again. We didn't take our rain gear off until Ravenstoke, BC. Now that is a cool town! By the end of that over 2000 mile trip, Paula was a different rider, and we'd figured a lot out about how we interact and communicate as we ride. So, every year we take off again on a different road trip to chase and create some more beauty together.

Here are our Triumphs, taken at the McClellen View Point in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Skamania County, WA. Paula rides a 2011 Bonneville America. It is an 869cc bike. I ride a 2010 Thunderbird 1597cc bike. It is my dream bike. I hope I will be able to keep her the rest of my life, even if I purchase other bikes to be my daily riders. Also, notice the UW sticker on Paula's helmet. You can take her out of the UW, but you can't take the UW out of her. I guess they did pay tuition for four years as long as she hit golf balls for them. And, boy, did she ever! I married an amazing woman. She is officially my Ninja Badass (#NBA)

Chasing beauty, Day 4 - A long, Beautiful ride north to Canmore with Paula Gamble Grant, MA, NBA

So it ended up being a long 384-mile day. My foot is messed up, swollen and black and blue. The injury slowed us down. I move like Tim Conway in a Carol Burnett sketch. Because of that, we were 40 minutes late to see Josh & Rebecca Jaklich in Hayden, ID. They patiently waited for us and it was so encouraging to see them and catch up. After we left them we grabbed a quick bite to eat.

 

As we finally pulled out of Hayden, my comment to Paula, over our comms was, "Well, we are only getting away 2 hours later than I thought we would." My injury was making things tight. I don't like riding as late as we were going to have to ride. We couldn't mess around.

 

We were both in sweatshirts until we suited up for the rain south of Sandpoint, ID on the shored of Lake Pend Orielle, because of an isolated shower that caught us off guard. We found a pullout and put on rain pants and coats in the rain, but we didn't pull on our boot covers. She asked if we should and I said no thinking that Paula's cute, rugged, Harley boots were waterproof. I was wrong, and her boots leaked water through the laces even after that short downpour. Sorry, Babe.

 

The ride up Hwy 95, through Idaho's panhandle, was peaceful except for my inner state. The panhandle is full of racists, and my stomach turned when I had to follow a Jeep in need of a new muffler who had plastered a Stars & Bars, KKK Battle rag sticker to her back window. Racists notwithstanding, it was an alright ride. The last section of road north of Bonners Ferry is a fun sweeping drive up to the Eastport Border crossing. 

 

Neither Paula or I had crossed into Canada on motorcycles before. Before crossing, we read that:

1. We didn't need to take off our helmets to talk to the border agent but did need to remove our sunglasses and turn off our bikes when we pulled up.
2. We needed to approach the agent one bike at a time. If the officer waves the partner up, that is fine, but we needed to roll up one bike at a time.

Paula likes me to be in front, and so I went first. After I had turned the bike off, the agent informed me he hadn't gotten my license plate. This meant that I needed to walk the bike forward so he could read my plate. Paula had to do the same. This may vary from point of entry to point of entry, but I found it odd that they weren't taking pictures of our plates when we crossed into Canada.

My goal is always to leave people I meet happier than they were before they met me. It is part of how I try to bless my world. How that happens varies, but at border crossings and with customs agents, the general rule of thumb is that if I am friendly, honest, and engaging I leave them with a smile on their face.

The ride from the border to Cranbrook, BC was majestic. The road follows the Moyie river north past Moyie Lake. It has beautiful bends and wonderful scenery. We rode under glorious sunshine and that only added to or joy.

Soon after Cranbrook CA-95 merges with CA-93. They stay together until Radium Hot Springs. (We didn't know any of this as our phone navigation doesn't work in Canada. We could have stopped to get new SIM cards in Cranbrook  but decided not to waste the time. Instead, we relied on the wisdom of people we met in rest stops and gas stations to get us to our destination.

CA-93/95 proved to be a "nice ride" rather than a stunning one. This might be because we knew we were heading into a storm (we could see it just ahead of us. We chose to ride into the darkness.)

That choice changed my anxiety level and affected my enjoyment of this stretch of highway. (I feel as if I have to at least pretend that I know what I am doing so that Paula doesn't worry. And, though I don't really know what I am doing and may make different choices at different times, if I were making the trip alone, this kind of trip does not feel unusual or worrisome to me.)  

My impressions if this stretch of roadway were also colored by the fact that there is major construction that held us up and then slowed us down: We were stopped for a good ten minutes by a flagger and then rode 45 mph on grooved pavement for a long 16 kilometers. Remember, Paula has only been riding a year and she hates grooved pavement. Please don't get me wrong, none of these 384 miles were boring. All of it was beautiful, and a lot of it spectacular. During this particular stretch, Paula's voice came over comms, "The Cliffs of Insanity!" Sure enough, at the north end of Columbia Lake, the headwaters of the mighty Columbia River, just south of Fairmont Hot Springs are some striking brown cliffs. We stopped to get gas and share a subway 12-inch just north of there.

From that point on, God directed the clouds to spit or pour on us. Dropping into Radium Hot Springs, I wanted to stop to get a picture of a stunning river curving below us. It was spectacular, but because of the rain, we pressed on.

The picture I didn't take as we came into Radium Hot Springs

Radium itself is a picturesque tourist mecca that borders the pass that crosses the Continental Divide. On a different kind of journey, we would have stopped, explored and enjoyed it more thoroughly. We didn't even pause on this ride.

At Radium Hot Springs CA95 / CA 93 split. We turned right to follow 93. Just as we did so, we saw a fleet of bikers coming down the pass, dressed in their rain gear and still pretty wet. 

Stock picture of a motorcyclist climbing out of Radium Hot Springs on Hwy 93

As we rode up the pass, I marveled at the road. It is most easily the steepest most incredibly engineered road I've ridden. It was a glorious ride in the rain. I can't imagine how glorious it would be in the sunshine! Parts of it seemed to be cut through the rocky mountain itself, and the stream that falls down the mountainside next to the road is a majestic shade of blue that is indescribably beautiful. Going up is always easier than going down. We rode down cautiously in the pouring rain. It's a very rough road. Once down the other side in the Mountain Valley, traveling along the Kootenay River, the rain stopped, and we increased our speed.

The Kootenay River Runs along Hwy 93

The rest of the way up to the Trans-Canadian Hwy was rough, but I continually shouted my wonder at the beauty through which we rode. There were, "Wow, look up to your right." and, "O my, wow!" escaping my lips along with songs of worship and an occasional verbal outburst from Paula at an unexpected bump in an unexpected place.

Once we reached Hwy 1, we sprinted to get to Canmore. The Trans-continental Hwy is a well-maintained and easy to ride. Canmore is 22 kilometers past Banf and so by the time we pulled in we were both massively sore. I could barely pull my bad leg across the bike to get off and hobble into our unit. We have covered parking that is close to the elevator to head up to our unit on the main floor. 

So far the clouds have us sopped in, and we can't see much, which is a crying shame because we get glimpses of breath-taking grandeur that we can't quite see. Hopefully, we'll be able to take some pictures over the next few days. 

This morning we rode through town to the grocery store, and Paula bought me a retractable cane so that I can hobble around. Our plan is to lay low today to try to give my foot the time it needs to heal a bit, then spend tomorrow exploring  So pics will come as we get them. Weatherwise, this is not the best time to be here, and it is still the best birthday gift I've ever been given. My wife loves me, and I am grateful. I've decided that her business cards need to read, "Paula Gamble-Grant, MA (Master of Arts), NBA (ninja badass). Maybe I can talk her into it when she orders more.

Chasing Beauty, Part 2: Day One Ride

The "Rever*" map of our first day's route

There is a downside to Coms -- Things you say out loud that normally no one else but God can hear, get heard by your spouse. And it may be hard to comprehend, but I can be impatient sometimes. When Paula heard me giving directions to a car that was slowing me down in angry tones with cursing, she responded, "Stop it! I am viewing this as a pilgrimage. I am not in control. I am not in a hurry. I walk in faith and hope. I greet everyone with peace. I bring back only what God gives me. I'm chasing beauty."

I don't think I swore the rest of the ride. We looked at multiple possible routes to get here to the South end of Coeur D' Alene. We had to stop for gas before leaving Portland. Riding sanely, my Goldwing gets approximately 39-40 miles to the gallon. Paula's NT700 is supposed to get 54 but got over 57 MPG. My tank is only 4.6 gallons, and so I can only safely go 175 miles on a tank of gas. Paula can go 260 or so. We weren't overloaded fo the trip, but we are loaded. 

Monday morning traffic through Portland was relatively light. We cruised out Interstate 84 taking note that the exit to Multnomah Falls was closed since the parking lot was full. They pull a gate across to stop even motorcycles from entering. Traffic in the Dalles was gnarly. At one point an RV pulling a trailer did change lanes causing Paula, who was riding behind me to gasp, me to lay on my air horn and hit the brakes quite hard. 

Paula occasionally would shout surprise when heavy wind gusts tried to push her over or out of her lane. That is when the coms were toughest on me. Her shouts made me nervous, but we both got better at handling the wind and the subsequent verbal responses to it.

Biggs Junction at milepost 104 was our first gas stop. We also shared a "two for four" deal and hit the road again. The pic above was taken at this stop. When riders get to Biggs, they have an option, continue on I-84, which nearly everyone encourages, or cross the Columbia and take WA 14 east. We chose the road less traveled. It was the right choice. 14 is enjoyable. It is well maintained, and it stays within a stone's throw of the river most of the way. Not two curvy, but not boring either, with ample opportunities to pass. I followed Paula, turned the music on and up, kicked my right foot up onto my crash bar, resting my right elbow on my knee and rode without a care in the world, chasing my wife -- who is beauty -- down the road.

Our next stop was Columbia Park in Kennewick Washington. This park is the host of the hydroplane races in the Tri-cities. It was a necessary oasis for us. We stretched and held Yoga poses to stretch some more. We snacked and then hit the road again. A few miles up the road we made a gas stop in Connell, WA. So far I was familiar with all the roads on our route. That was about to change. We turned East on WA 26 toward Pullman. We immediately noticed a difference. The road was bumpier and not as well maintained. It wasn't bad, simply rough. We were still able to travel around 70 MPH, and there was hardly any traffic going our way. After about twenty miles of straight, "Nebraska-esque" road, it began to find some curves through unique, liminal land that transitions between the Eastern Washington planes and the foothills of the mountains we were approaching. The shifts are subtle but also profound. When you are on a bike, you have the opportunity to take it in and observe the subtle changes in ways you never could, if in a cage, traveling the same roads.

The road becomes so curvy and hilly that it became virtually impossible to pass safely and, as is often the case, this was precisely the place that five cars in front of me, the two of us and a couple of cars behind us all lined up behind a slow moving rancher in his pick up. I remembered Paula's pilgrim prayer those last five miles dropping into Colfax, WA. At Colfax, we turned north on WA 195 toward Spokane. 195 bends up a hill as it leaves town to the north. It is a two-laned, pot-hole laced road. Halfway up the hill, Google maps beeped at me to turn off the major road onto Hume Rd. Hume passed to the east of Steptoe Butte, and though the posted speeds said 50 MPH, we traveled much faster as we climbed into OakeDale.

This last section of our ride was a hoot. It was twisty and windy with good surfaces to place our tires. We traveled through Oakedale, Tekoe, and Plummer, through beautiful farming valleys that are tucked away from the rest of the world. We transitioned from the high, arid planes to lush forest lands, through the fertile green farming country. We never did see a sign that we entered Idaho.

On the last section of road on the way to Pat's

And what can be said about Lake Coeur D Alene itself? It is truly a beautiful and wondrous lake, over 26 miles long with fingers that explore the hollers of Idaho's panhandle. We are staying with Pat Cooke, a long-time friend of the Gamble family and one of my favorite people. She has a beautiful lakeside home on the shores of Lake Coeur D'Alene's south side, across from Harrison, ID (the blue dot on the map). It reminds me of the lakeside home on Chelan where I used to vacation growing up. We are here until tomorrow when we head north, meet some friends for coffee, then ride further north, cross the border to Canada to Lake Louise, Canada. 

After a hard day's work the bikes get to take a break

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*Rever is a free app that tracks riders, letting them know their speed, maximum speed, time riding, and miles ridden. It then maps the route you ride. I'm liking what they are offering and they are continually making improvements.

Chasing Beauty: Introduction

On Monday morning Paula and I will start a motorcycle trip that will take us to Coeur D' alene, ID. On Wednesday we will leave Coeur D' alene and head north to Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. 

Amidst the insanity this country is creating right now, we've decided to search out beauty that neither of us has seen, so we can encounter it together, find refreshment, meet God together, and enjoy the hope that beauty creates.

For the next week or so this blog will become a travel blog of sorts. Some of the wonder of this trip is that the journey on the bikes together is as important as our destinations. We will be free to roam, saunter on our bikes and frolic along the way. We will get to spend time with longtime friends while lingering on the shores of a majestic Idaho Lake, hiking in the majesty of the Canadian Rockies, or traveling with the lazy Columbia River as it flows south through Washington. 

I hope as we post pictures you will get to enjoy our ride with us, as we celebrate life together, and revel in God's absolute delight with us, and you. I'll post again soon. Enjoy the ride. #livetoride #ridetolive #wiveswhoridearethebest #adventuretogether #saunterlingerfrolictogether #worshiptogether #transformedtogether 

Roadtrip

I've driven the United States 47 times, visiting all 48 contiguous states. I can't count how many times I've travelled north and south. I remember going to AAA to get their "Triptiks." Triptiks were fantastic. I'd go into an AAA office and tell them where I was going. I'd sit down with a representative, and we'd plan out the route I wanted to take and create alternate routes to consider. We'd physically hi-light the route on both a national map and regional or state maps. Then the rep would find individual pages of maps that they would turn into an itinerary. Each page would
have whatever highway I was travelling. The page would include rest areas, restaurants, gas stations, and motels and hotels, along with the mileage and the time that it should take to drive. My family's game was to see how much more quickly we could complete the route than the page said it should take. One year, my brother and I travelled from Portland Oregon to Pensacola, FL in 48 hours and 34 minutes. That particular year we stopped and watched a movie in Amarillo, TX because a hurricane was rolling through the panhandle of Florida and we wanted to take our time getting there. 

Perhaps because of this upbringing, but I get wanderlust regularly. I get restless, and I need to explore and roam. The last three years inoculated me a bit. Every week I'd drive or ride to Seattle. And then for our honeymoon, Paula and I took a road trip to Lake Tahoe. 

Today we are leaving on a business/pleasure road trip to British Columbia (One of my favorite places.) We are going to see friends along the way and talk about A.C.T. Intl., reFresh, and Gracefall. I am looking forward to it. A friend is coming to take care of our animals, and though we will miss them a great deal, we know that they are being cared for. 

If you are the praying sort, would you pray for us for safety, courage, wisdom, and connection over the course of this week? We are in a season where we are actively seeking ministry partners to help us build the section of wall in the Kingdom of God to which we have been assigned. It is a daunting, humbling, frightening, and holy task. This is one of our moments to be faithful. 

If you'd like to partner with us, simply click here.

Please note that a copy of this is also being emailed to Gracefall's email list.

The Beginning of an Open Letter to My Children -- "A Rebel for the Kingdom"

Hey guys,

I was pondering what it meant to be a Dad. Though you don't know, I have some ongoing health problems that for the time need to go unaddressed, and recently I laid my bike down in the middle of a crazy intersection. Every once and awhile I worry that my journey with you may be drawing to a close.

I am not going to be around this current world forever for you guys. Please know that you are the reason I get up every morning. There is no other good earthly reason to do so. You are the reason God keeps me here. If I have my druthers, I will live happily with you to see you married, with families and friends -- settled into your life here before crossing over to see  my Mom and Dad and my King -- The Crucified Risen One. That choice is not mine, however, and so I decided to prepare for an eventuality that I may not want but may be given -- an earlier than expected reunion with Gramgee and Papa.

I live pretty fearlessly because I know that the King of all things holds my life in His hands and I know that I can trust Him. You can too. Having said that, He doesn't always think that our timetable is what is best for us or for those we love and so He has a tendency to change things up.

With that in mind, I realized that there are some things I really want you to get a hold of and I don't expect you to do so right now. Some things won't matter to you until later. That is simply the way life is. On top of that, some parts of my story and thinking need to be a little more permanent than a passing conversation. (Though, if you guys are like me, you will remember a lot of those conversations for lots of years.)

I often wish that my Dad wrote down the wisdom he verbally imparted to me. He had a way of putting words together that simply made sense, and pointed to wisdom. Though I know, that not all that I say in these posts (And they will be identified for you) will matter to you right now (and that is totally OK), I pray that as time passes and you will want to read what your old man said and you blew off for the time being. For though I don't  know a lot anymore, that which I do know, I believe deeply because it has changed my life. 

When you see one of these posts you won't know whether you will be getting a bibliography for later in life, a song list, my understanding of the words we speak that have come to mean nothing, fragments of how I remember my story, or instructions for what I'd like at my memorial service, etc...

What you will know is that these posts are meant for you and are written carefully, with my whole heart because I love you and want you to live faithfully, lovingly, hopefully, submissively, gracefully, powerfully, joyfully, honestly, intimately, and courageously. I pray you will find friends like mine who have loved me through my unfaithfulness, walked with me through the valley of the shadow of death, never faltering in their love and truth-telling. I pray that you will find partners in life that will offer you as much grace and love as you offer them. So that you can walk together in faithful hope. If I repeat myself, telling you again, things that you have heard me say, please forgive me. I say them again because they are important. I'm trying to write to Maggie, because I know Thomas will understand if Maggie does, but that the reverse is not always true. 

So lets start:

When I went to be the interim pastor at Grass Valley a long time ago (Your Mom & I were still married at that time.) I purposely began a sermon series in the morning in Genesis (the first book in the Bible) and in the evenings began teaching through Revelation (the last book in the Bible, and perhaps the most widely misunderstood and misused book in the Bible)

There was a reason for that, Genesis helps us understand the world in which we live and Revelation points us toward the world we will live in -- the world we hope for. We need both. We have to understand our context (the world we were dropped into) and our destination (where we are going). If we know these things the journey we take is easier. 

So already I need to interupt myself... The idea of a journey is one way (there are a lot more) to look at this life we live. I often view it as a hike. Some of it is beautiful some of it is hard. Sometimes I walk with blisters in cold slush  and sleet. And sometimes I stop to play in a sunny pool; diving off the rocks into cool water underneath magnificent waterfalls in the heat of the day. 

A long time ago a mentor made a bunch of us write our epitaphs (what we want on our grave stones when we die) After a lot of thought, I ended up with: "A Rebel for the Kingdom". I pray that when all is said and done that is what you will honestly say about your Dad -- that I lived my life as a rebel for the Kingdom of God -- often living against the grain; calling people to live a life of love and grace that goes against all this world calls us to. So often I fail but still I press on.

This journey is fraught with a lot of negatives -- more than positives I fear. It is not an easy path. It is probably even a foolish path, but for me it is a path of redemption and grace. When I get done I will limp to the Gates of Heaven, look up and say, "Though I failed, You won because of me. Thanks for letting me fight for grace. Thanks for the grace that you gave me. Thanks for the new life, the hope and joy." Then I will rush to fall at my King's feet and worship side by side with Gramgee and Papa. I'll be home, a rebel no more, done with the fight ready for the peace so freely given.

I try to live with the end in view. If I know what my goals are, I live differently to achieve those goals. You will need to do the same.

Mags, to make it to UCSB you are willing to do things I never thought you'd do -- early morning practices, time off for healing, listening to your coach -- a lot of hard work, to achieve your goal. This is you living with the end in view. At times you will fail. But you keep working toward where you want to get. So I'm going to ask you now, "When it is time for your kids to write something on your grave stone, what will you want to say about you?" 

Don't completely answer that yet. You aren't ready. Simply begin thinking and praying about it. You are still in the time of life where you are discovering what you want. Enjoy it, have fun. Grow and learn. You will need to answer this question -- probably after college, and before you get married. Very few expect you to know the answer right now. You will know when you are supposed to know. You have time to think and pray about this. Please do so.

I've written more than I intended here, so I will hold off and save some for next time, when I will get back to the story... There is so much more to say. 

A Civil war Interruption

This week is Civil War week in Oregon. For many of us, Civil War week is bigger than the SuperBowl, for it is the game that determines bragging rights in the State. As one commentator put it, “If your team wins, you have a right to live here…” That is how big this game is.

The last two years the University of Oregon Ducks have beaten the Oregon State Beavers; last year robbing them of a Rose Bowl birth. This year, the Ducks are planning on going to the National Championship game. The only thing that stands in their way are the Beavs. If the Beavs win it would qualify them for a bowl game; they have had a mediocre season this year and a loss disqualifies them from going to any bowl. More than that though, it ruins Duck Fans’ season.

I have no reason to support the Beavers. My brother who doesn’t talk to me anymore went there and I visited him while he was a student. My ex-wife graduated from there, and so I really don’t have any reason to like them, other than I always have. They are “Lunchbox, blue collar, do-more-with-less” university. They have a smaller budget and are located in a smaller town. They are not “owned” by Phil Knight – Nike owner and Chairman. And more than that, they don’t have whiny, snivelly Duck Fan cheering for them.

The fun for me is not so much beating the Ducks, heck I even have one of their sweatshirts. No, the fun for me is tweaking “Duckfan’s” nose and ruining their football season. I support the Ducks 11 games a year. My dream Civil war is for both teams to be undefeated going into the Civil War game with everything on the line, but this is second best… the Ducks have everything to lose. The Beavs have only a game to gain (qualifying for a bowl game). I would much rather play to win a shot at going to a bowl than to play to “not lose” a championship.

I will not be heartbroken should my Beavs lose. I will cheer for the Ducks in whatever bowl game they play in. But I will be overjoyed should my Beavs beat the Ducks and knock them from their perch atop the College football world.

 

Rethinking a Wonderful Win

On Saturday night under the lights of Parkrose High school field, the Parkrose Colts, a fifth and sixth grade football team

knocked off the league power Alberta Park Panthers in overtime 12 -6.

It was, perhaps, the team's best game of the season and kept them a perfect 4-0. Robin Richmond ran roughshod over the Panthers proving to be an unstoppable force.

For hours after the game I forgot something I saw during the game that disturbed me, and then talking to another friend who was at the game, I became even more disturbed.

During Alberta Park's first possession of the game, their quarterback who has a magnificent arm through out to the left flat after sucking in the Colt defense. The cornerback for the Colts who was abandoned to one on one coverage missed the play and the Panthers advanced to the 2 yard line before scoring their only touchdown of the game. It is unremarkable except for the fact that the Colt coaches didn't play that cornerback the rest of the game. He was blamed for the play and he had to sit the rest of the game for his mistake.

These are 10 & 11 year olds learning about their own bodies and what they are capable of at the same time they are learning a violent sport with all its intricacies. Sure #80 made a mistake but he wasn't the only one and yet you single him out because you left him out there on an island to defend a player far faster then he? You don't let him play in the rest of the most important game of the season because he missed a play? What sort of message are you sending?

Later in the game the officials called a pass interference call when a Colt's defender stuck up his hand knocking the ball away with out turning his head. The head coach for the Colts threw his clipboard on the field and cursed the refs in front of his kids.

This game was not about the kids. It was about the coach. After the game he stood in front of his team and announced, "In five years I have not beaten that team, you are the first team that got me the win. Thank you. You played a hell of a game." remember these are 10 and 11 year olds.

We wonder what has gone wrong with sports. We need to start looking at who is coaching our youth and the messages they are sending. Wrong lessons are learned too early and what should have been a fantastic win left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

Travelogue of the Trip to Florida

I am breaking our experience kin Florida up into two sections: Naples & the Keys, since there were two distinct parts to our trip. We stayed in Naples 2 ½ days, and then got away to go to the Keys to recover before flying home.

Several things strike you when you land in Florida. The first is that you almost need a straw to breathe since the air is so humid. The second is that it is a flatter state than Kansas or Nebraska. I am sure that its highest point is a mole hill I saw being dug the other day. The third, is that the state bird is the mosquito.  It is a green state and it is a state that no one would live in were it not for the water that surrounds it.

Naples

We were late arriving to Ft Lauderdale because the plane they originally loaded us onto in Atlanta was broken and we had to get off and then find another one to fly. So we arrived 1 ½ hours late. We got our rental car and headed out to Naples, Florida where we dropped Sam off at his Dad’s rental house. We then made our way to a fantastic hotel, the Hawthorn Inn & Suites. We loved our room and the service we got there. It was cheap too. We purchased our tickets through www.lastminute.com. If you haven’t checked them out you might want to try them out. We found some killer deals. They also help you with reviews of places you are going to.

Naples reminds me in many ways of Pam Desert. It is a retirement community. It is a “moneyed” community and it is a conservative community. It does not believe in mass transit, is designed for cars rather than people; and has wide, straight boulevards and high speed limits. It has the sub tropic foliage to keep things beautiful and the beach as a bonus distraction.

Though it is a great place to visit and it has much to commend it– their schools are well funded and Sam has a school curriculum and facilities this year that would make his Oregon teachers’ drool, I would hate to live there. Naples is a mass of asphalt, heat, suburban sprawl and poor land use and urban planning.

On Labor Day, Michelle and I traveled south to Everglades City and took an airboat ride. What an adventure! We rode Speedy Johnson’s Airboat and would recommend them to anyone. We sped through the mangrove swamps through water trails that only the airboats could go, coming face to face with alligators, and then we hit the grasslands and the swamps at high speeds and did cookies while watching giant osprey dive from the sky to catch their fish dinners.

Later that evening back in Naples, we went to the Dock at Crayton Cove for dinner and sat next to the window and watched a flock of wild parrots land on the masts of the boats parked next to us, while enjoying a good meal. That flock of parrots was a gift to us. Later we went to the Naple’s Pier to watch the sunset but the clouds built up so there wasn’t much to see.

The Keys

After making sure that Sam was safely introduced to his new school we headed south to the Keys. I had never been there before. I pre-booked us into the Ramada Limited in Key Largo. It had rave reviews and a water view. The hotel overlooked the Key Largo canal rather than the ocean, and so Michelle quite rightly suggested we move on. We kept driving south to Islamorada. We walked into the Pelican Cove Resort and scored a room at an even cheaper rate than I had managed at the Ramada on line. The Resort is right on the water with a pool and bar a stone’s throw from the ocean, a swim area dug out in the ocean and a water sports shack on the property. Our room overlooked the Atlantic and though somewhat spartan was adequate for our needs. There was no free wi-fi there and so we didn’t connect, but one of the most relaxing things was to simply stand in the pool resting on the side reading, while sipping a drink from the bar, occasionally looking up to soak in the view.

That night we went to the Island Grille. It was perhaps the most enjoyable dining experience of my life. It was not necessarily the best food of my life, but the best experience…

…Billy Davidson was playing. You gotta check this guy out. He was going to quit soon after we arrived but we talked him into another set. (It probably didn’t hurt that a bunch of people arrived after us.) When you eat on the deck at the Island Grille you are sitting on a deck with your back to the water that laps not more than two feet underneath you. It is everything you expect the Keys to be.

The next day we rented jet skis from the rental shack at the Cove and played and then headed to Sundiver to snorkel. It was a great trip; much better than I hoped for actually. That night we had dinner at the Bayside Grille which had great views of the bay to the west looking out at the gulf. The food was good and the view incredible. After dinner we walked out onto the dock and saw a baby manta and fed the fish, watching the guy at the next dock land a small shark while fishing. The sunset was beautiful and we headed back to Ft Lauderdale for one last night before flying home.

Coaching

I'm coaching my son's U10 soccer team. The gift to me is watching kids get it, and succeed. For one the success is simply not allowing himself to be knocked over. For another it is not stopping after kicking the ball. Another has to get over a self image that tells him his whole family is made up of nerds. They are learning to play. We are 5 - 2 on the season. But that matters far less than the joy on a boys face after he makes a play he could never have made at the beginning of the season. It is all a gift...