Hailwood1965

Tom Rickers, Editor of the The American Interest Magazine , has written a column about his fascination with motorcycles and his experience in riding, which he says was sparked by watching MotoGP races. Excerpt: Milan Kundera used the motorcycle as the literary vehicle, so to speak, for relating modernity, speed and memory: “The man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight; he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future . . . .” In my case, I have never pondered why I ride a motorcycle; it'd be like pondering my hair or a scar on my arm, it's just always been there. One of my earliest memories as a young child is being in our house in Appleton Wisconsin, (this may have been as my father's funeral was happening, I recall being there with some strange woman), and watching some band on a TV program--still in black and white then--sing "Up, Up and Away". This would have been 1968. The band member...

We have lived in our present house for almost nine years. In the back yard sits the bane of my existence: a cluster of black walnut trees, one of which is on our property, three others sit on the neighbors' (2) land. As a former woodworker I can attest that black walnut wood when used to make furniture is beautiful. Wonderful grain, really nice texture. But I see no other use for Black Walnut trees, at all. I had lunch with a fellow at the local cafe last summer and he mentioned casually that he had just finished planting 1000 black walnut trees on some property he owns. I lambasted him fully for doing so. Soon after we moved in, it became quite apparent that the trees are problematic to have around. Our tree is huge and because of this shades too much of the lawn, and the walnut casings kill nearly every plant they come in contact with. After having two sessions with a commercial tree trimmer our tree is somewhat tolerable but it still would litter the back yard with hundreds of ...

When Guns and Roses first appeared on the scene, I despised them. I think the way that it actually worked was that I saw them for the first time on the MTV Music Awards first, where they played something close to live. It was the most terrible live performance I'd ever seen on TV, even somehow more horrible than Keith Richards and Bob Dylan "jamming" on the closing stages of Live Aid, a performance which made me wonder who played lead on all those Stones songs after all. I read later that Guns And Roses were mad drunk when they did the MTV gig and I guess that sort of made their crappy musicianship easier to understand. Somehow, in the intervening years, I became a G-N-R fan, and the opening riff on Welcome is almost my favorite rock opening riff, maybe even better than the opening riff on AC/DC's It's a Long Way To The Top. Unbeknown to me, after he was born, when we were bringing Jackie (TJA) home from the hospital, John (14) took his iPod headphones off, turned...

Interview: Kipp, age 9. Q. Are you a morning person? A. Well, you know, not really. I'd like to sleep until 10:00 AM every day. Q. Does your dad make the best breakfasts in the entire world? A. Yes. My dad makes great French toast. He also makes good bulls-eye (eggs and bread, fried). Q. How many girls are in your class at school? A. 13. None of them are cool. Q. You play both piano and the violin. Ever thought of playing the harmonica? A. No. I'd like to play guitar but the kid (kid brother) broke all the strings on my guitar. Q. Do you even know where your guitar is? A. In my closet. Q. What is the coolest thing that your mom can do? A. Help me with my homework and drive a car. Q. What is your dream vacation destination? A. California. Where Tony Hawk lives, wheresoever that is. Q. Who is cooler, Tony Hawk, Val Rossi or your dad? A. Rossi. Because he's rides a MotoGP bike. Q. Who is the most frustrating person in your life. A. Probably Toby because he smashes my leg...

Due to my son's involvement in school sports, I have done more traveling around MN in the last 10 years than I did in the previous 30. I think I have seen the inside of every half-filled basketball arena in SE MN now. And many, many small towns. While dropping off a bike at MotoPrimo yesterday, John and I traveled via what Garmin said was the quickest route, taking us on a busy county road I'd never been on before, one near Apple Valley. Around a bend I saw the oddest structures on the side of the road; old steeple-style chimneys, probably twenty stories tall. What was the place? After a (terrible) lunch we drove back on the same county and road where we stopped and looked around. We trundled off through the woods to reach the structures and were instantly met by an injured deer. It had been shot through the back and its back legs were paralyzed. There was a time when my deer compassion was flowing in good health, but after having deer eat my plants last summer this time I kept...

When you're 14, you're invincible. Accidents are what happen to other people and the threat of being injured is just sort of a vague reminder of what could happen if it all goes wrong, which it won't. John found out this morning that his invincibility is actually limited. He discovered this by brushing his hand against the blade in a table saw that he was using in shop class. Luckily nine stitches closed up the wounds on his fingers but his pride took a hit as well; he's repeated, on his own, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever done" several times.

My hasty run home to get some bulbs in the ground yesterday during lunch was not all for naught. We awoke to a half inch of slushy snow this morning. After my quick planting I felt relief that I had gotten them in the ground but spent some time after wondering why exactly they have to be in the ground in the fall anyway, as bulbs are pretty self-sufficient little orbs of life. Why could I not just keep them somewhere cold this winter and then plant them in the spring? That question may answer itself, as when I arrived home from the office another huge box of bulbs had arrived, procured from the supplier's 75% off sale. The ground is not yet frozen. More mulling will commence.