Choppers: MAGA on Two Wheels

 

I love motorcycles.  I love sleek, fast machines that can track a perfect line through a high-speed turn and have power-to-weight ratios that make Porsches perform like Plymouths by comparison.  Since I love all that is high-tech in two-wheeled transportation, I don’t love Harley-Davidson motorcycles.  They are the two-wheeled equivalent of NASCAR, freezing technology in the twentieth century to satisfy a market for nostalgia.

But at least a brand new Hog has modern tires and brakes and safety equipment, even if it is saddled with an engine design from 1909: that was the year Harley Davidson first produced the 45-degree V-twin.  The design gives the Harley a sound like no other motorcycle, the asymmetric fart of cylinders that fire unevenly.  

Take the already retro technology of a Harley and erase a century of performance and safety improvements and you have a Chopper:  MAGA on two wheels. 

 

Harley-Davidson motorcycles are heavier, slower and will not handle as well any bike on the road with a similar engine size.  And when compared to bikes made by Italian, British and Japanese manufacturers, Harleys have less than half the power for a given engine size—and cost twice as much.  

But nothing else sounds like a Harley, according to the gourmets of growl.  It’s an audible designer label: putt-putt sound over substance.  The difference in handling and performance between a Honda, Ducati or any other modern motorcycle and a full-size Harley is the difference between a Ferrari and an Escalade—the Escalade may have style and just as much horsepower, but on a twisty road or an autobahn, the Italian sports car is going to disappear up the road faster than a steak tossed in a kennel. 

Honda CBR 1000

Ducati Panigale

If Harleys can’t keep up with Ducatis as they are shipped from the factory, they are at least safe and as fast as computer-aided design can make a bike that uses a century-old drivetrain.  But turn that Harley into a chopper, and even the mediocre turning and braking of the original drops to new lows.  

The most radical choppers have front ends extended so far that the bike has the turning radius of a school bus.  And to complement their terrible turning, they use a hard-tail rear suspension.  As the name suggests, the hard-tail has neither springs nor shocks in the rear.  The tire is suspension.  It’s the same handling and braking you would get with an 800-pound bicycle. 

The most extreme choppers eliminate the front brakes for styling. As with a car, 80 percent of the stopping power is in the front brakes. With no front brake, these bikes take hundreds of feet to stop. And the back brake has to be used with care to avoid locking it up and sliding.  

Decades ago some motorcycles were built with hand shifters and foot clutches.  The clutches became known as suicide clutches. Other designs put the hand clutch on the shit lever.  Either way, the ride has to let go of the handlebars to shift.  It was a real safety improvement to allow the rider to shift with both hands on the handlebars.  But for several hundred dollars the Widowmaker Company (no kidding) makes a Jockey shifter for Harleys with a hand clutch. 

Widomaker Jockey Shifter

Use an engine design from 1909, reverse a century of improvements in shifting, braking and control and you have a chopper--the bike that is MAGA. 

Russian Escort Service: My volunteer job at the Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

I am an Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony volunteer. My job at the annual ceremony each year is to escort Russian Channel One (Первей Канал).

Here is the video of me explaining my job:

https://www.improbable.com/2020/09/02/reputation-for-not-following-rules-an-ig-nobel-prize-favorite-moment/

Bike Racing Embarrassment: “What a big one!”

 

 

At most bicycle races, we deal with pre-race nervousness by riding to a tree and facing away from the road or waiting in line at a Port-A-Potty.  At one of the most difficult races on the schedule in the late 90s, we had indoor plumbing. 

 

The Mount Nebo Road Race was a nine-mile lap with a more than a thousand feet of climbing per lap. Race distances were three laps for Cat 5 to nine laps for Cat 1&2 on this very hilly course in southern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

 

The race began and ended at the Marticville Elementary School.  As start times approached, racers clicked down the hallway on their cleats to a boy’s room with three old-fashioned, full-length urinals. 

 

Three urinals were bolted to the north wall. Morning light streamed in through the high windows on the east wall above the sinks. I stood in the line on the left side. There was a half-dozen men at each urinal. When my turn came, I looked down as I pulled at my bib shorts and saw a huge cockroach running around the drain. 

 

Surprised, I blurted out, “What a big one!” I had spent 11 years in the Army earlier in my life. In a millisecond I knew how dumb my remark was. I finished what I was doing and walked out. In the hallway, one of my earnest master’s racer friends said, “Neil, you shouldn’t say that.” As if that was news to me.

 

It was nearly the end of the season and I was overseas every month for work back then, so I got less kidding about my gaffe than I expected.  But I certainly know not to do running commentary on roaches in my urinal!

Vote Trump to Support Israel? Not This American Jew!

 

 

I know Jews in America and Israel who support re-electing the current President based in part on his support for Israel.  I can understand how an Israeli could have that opinion. Although I supported President Obama, I did not support his foreign policy in general and his relationship with Israel in particular.

While I understand Israeli support for Trump, I knew it was bad for America. Here is one of many Israeli rabbis who support Trump. 

 

Then I read an article by a Taiwanese American justifying his plan to vote for Trump.  He pointed out, correctly, that Trump has supported Taiwan more than any other recent President.  And stood up to China more than any other recent President.  He sounded very much like a Jew supporting Trump based on Israel.  The article by Eric Chang begins:

“If you asked me to put money down on whether or not Donald Trump could point Taiwan out on a map, I would say you are out of your mind. However, if you asked me whether or not the Trump presidency has been good for Taiwan, I would be lying if I said it has not. To be clear, I am not talking about what might be better for the United States; I am strictly talking in terms of Taiwan’s geopolitics and from my personal opinion.

Growing up in the U.S. when I was younger, I never really understood why my progressive parents would sometimes vote Republican. But now, after living in Taiwan for more than 19 years, I can see the method behind the madness. The GOP has traditionally been more vocal in their support of Taiwan. And of course, a lot of that has to do with the massive arms purchases, but it is tangible, effective support nonetheless.”

As I read, I realized that the short-term benefits to Taiwan and Israel of a Trump re-election were based on the America continuing to be the richest and strongest country in the world, and on Trump keeping his word.  It was a clear “Oh shit!” moment that was belied by everything that Trump has done in his life and particularly what he has done as President. 

Trump’s deep concern for Israel came from his Evangelical advisors telling him how much the flocks they fleece love Israel.  Trump needs Evangelical votes to be re-elected, but on November 4^th, he will have no further need the religious rubes he scorns in private. 

Taiwan will be useful to Trump until he trades away protection for the island nation in a deal with President Xi of China. He will sell out Taiwan and the island nation will follow Hong Kong into Chinese control and loss of independence. 

Part of Trump caving in to Xi will be the real ruin of the American economy that will follow Trump’s re-election.  Trump’s central failure of 2020 is his pathetic response to COVID-19.  The United States is the plague nation of the world with the most infection and death in the world in absolute numbers and even worse relative to population.  The debt and death we have accumulated in 2020 will leave China on top of the global economy as early as next year if we collapse suddenly. 

 

Reading Eric Chang has made it clearer to me how important it is for Americans to vote as Americans.

Chang’s essay is, in part a response to an article a week before that began:

“A strong United States is crucial for a more secure and democratic Taiwan. Contrary to popular perception among the first generation in the Taiwanese American community, the Trump administration has weakened the United States’ economic, diplomatic, and moral standing in the world. This is detrimental to Taiwan’s long-term security and democracy. The authoritarian government of China continues to threaten military intervention, claim sovereignty over democratic Taiwan, and expand China’s military and economic power throughout the Asia Pacific region.

The November 2020 election is the Taiwanese American community’s opportunity to vote Trump out of office and support the election of former Vice President Joseph Biden and Senator Kamala Harris. The Biden-Harris administration will take actions to strengthen the U.S.’s relationships with our allies rather than continue our unilateralism.”

Trump is a vile liar who wants to be a dictator and re-election will grant him and his family the ability to plunder America and ruin the 240-year experiment in democracy that America is. Supporting Trump in or out of America means trusting the man of 20,000 lies to keep his word.

Israel and Taiwan are vastly outnumbered by foes who would destroy them. A strong and stable United States is the best chance for both countries to be safe in a dangerous world.

But for Americans of whatever background there is no choice. Every American should be a one-issue voter and that issue is “Defeat Trump.” We are currently the leading plague state in the world because of his failures and four more years will be beyond dismal.  I plan to express my support for Israel and America and free people around the world by voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to replace the worst President in American history.

While advocates for Israel and Taiwan point to current reasons to support Trump, the long-term direction of a Trump presidency is to support dictators and betray democracies.  At the time Trump betrayed the Kurds after one phone call from Turkey, Israelis expressed concern Trump could do the same to them. I said, "Will not Could."  Whatever the weaknesses of Democratic foreign policy in the past, Biden and Harris are pro-democracy and believe America should support democracy around the world. That in itself is an infinite improvement over the dictator-wannabe we have now.

 

 

 

In My Next War I'm On The Other Side of Asymmetric Warfare

Between 1972 and 2016 our country was always at war. Even in the decade between 1991 and 2001 when The Cold War was over and the Gulf War was won, American soldiers patrolled the world. During the "peace" we bombed Belgrade, intervened in Kosovo, fought fierce battles in Somali and sat on our hands during the slaughter in Rwanda.   

From 1985 to 2007, I was a bearded, middle-aged civilian who could say "Been there, done that" to military service. Then in 2007, I re-enlisted, served in Iraq for a year with Army Aviation and then volunteered for service in Afghanistan.  

I volunteered for three asymmetric wars.  America lost two (the Vietnam War and the Iraq War) and is about to lose the third (the War in Afghanistan).

My favorite service was in a symmetric war, The Cold War. America and NATO won that one in the way that any team wins if the other team goes out of business. The Soviet Union ceased to exist. We won. 

In the asymmetric wars, I was on the side with the guns and the bombs and the drones and combat aircraft.  But in each case I was on the losing side.  

In each of these wars, America killed many times more of the people of the country we invaded than we lost ourselves. The lesson we should have learned but did not:

"Killing is the weapon of the strong. Dying is the weapon of the weak. It is not that the weak cannot kill; it is only that their greatest strength lies in their capacity to die in greater numbers than the strong." 

If Trump steals the election and then the nation, he will have the guns: he will have the military, the police and the militias who are most ready of all to kill other Americans.  

The protesters who stand up for America in the wake of Trump and the Republicans betraying America will have to be ready to die. 

The quote above is from the book "Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War" by Viet Thanh Nguyen.  He was born in 1971. He was four years old when the North Vietnamese won the war. He came to America as a refugee.  He wrote about the millions who died to win the war against American industrial war.  

I hope Joe Biden wins in a landslide, but if he loses by theft and treason, we have to be ready to fight back. My fifth war will be on the other side of asymmetric warfare. 

Sophie's Choice and Several Others by Meryl Streep

 

After we watched "Sophie's Choice" my wife and I decided to watch several Meryl Streep movies.

We next watched "The French Lieutenant's Woman" which, surprisingly had no French Lieutenant. It is two stories, one contemporary, one in the 19th Century with Streep and Jeremy Irons the lovers at the center of both stories. The movie has two endings. It's delightful. It was filmed in 1981, the year before "Sophie's Choice."

After that we watched "Iron Lady" in which Streep is Margaret Thatcher. The main thread of the story is Thatcher widowed and long out of power struggling with herself at the end of her live. The movie flashes back to Thatcher in power and to Thatcher before she was in power--always conservative, always ambitious.

For Sophie's Choice, Streep trained for months to learn Polish and German. The year before for "The French Lieutenant's Woman" she learned to speak with an the English accent of a woman from the Midlands. In "Iron Lady" the English accent was back.

Our next movie is "Out of Africa" in which she learned Dutch.

I am not sure how many of Streep's movies we will watch, but we will definitely end with "The Devil Wears Prada."

Military Service Always Risks Death

 

In 1971 Murrie Hubbard and I graduated from Stoneham High School.  Among the 371 graduates only Murrie and I served during the Vietnam War.  

Murrie went straight to the Marine Corps. After completely Basic and Infantry training he went to Vietnam, serving a year with a Marine Rifle Company.  In 1973, Murrie came home. He was uninjured.

At the end of January 1972, I went to US Air Force Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio.  After basic, I went to an eight-month missile electronics school at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver.  In October I went to Hill Air Force Base, Utah.  That was the closest I ever got to Vietnam during the war.  

For the next 13 months I worked as a live-fire missile technician. On November 9, 1973, after Murrie was home, I was blinded and had a couple of fingers hanging from my right hand after a missile test explosion.  I came home several weeks later. My hand was still bandaged, my fingers in a cast and my right eye patched.  

When we swear to support and defend the Constitution, we may come home unscathed, or injured or dead.  There is no partial oath.  

America's Future: Combat Medic in Training

 

Emily Burgett on Mount Monadnock just before enlisting 

Eleven years ago, I wrote a lot of articles with the general title "Who Fights Our Wars?" Now I am years away from serving and a friend who I met while volunteering at an ESL ministry is in training to be a Combat Medic. 

On Tuesday, March 17, four days after borders began closing all over the world, I got a flight back from Paris to Kennedy Airport. Emily and I had talked and messaged a few times while I was in Israel and Europe and she told me she decided to enlist. By the time I landed that day, Army Specialist Emily Ann Burgett was flying to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to begin what was to be the last Army Basic Training for a while.  

Emily thought about enlisting for a long time. She thought about becoming a pilot. She finally settled on Combat Medic.  Right now she is in medic training at Fort Sam Houston.  I occasionally get a text from her about medic training and Army life then don't hear from her for a week or two.  

At 28, Emily is a decade older than most basic trainees. She lived in both California and Massachusetts with her family, lived in Lancaster, Pa., as an undergraduate and after getting a masters degree. She earned that masters degree in history at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While there she studied Arabic and plans someday to work with refugees. She has traveled to China with her family. The family business is making pianos sold in America and Asia. She has been across Europe and in Central America. 

Emily is an avid rock climber and an adventure tourist so the Army travel will continue the adventure.  Last week, one of the messages I got from Emily was about the explosion in Beirut.  Her class had just learned a new life-saving procedure. She said it reminded her why she joined. 

She will complete medic training next month and join her unit in Massachusetts. 

Academy Class Ranking Does Not Predict Success, or Morality

John McCain, 894th of 899 class of 1958, US Naval Academy

Class ranking at the academies do not predict success in the military or in life.  This weekend I was thinking that morally class ranking can predict the reverse. The current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was first in his class at West Point and under his watch we have betrayed the Kurds and he betrayed his own staff during the impeachment hearings. Pompeo went on to Harvard Law School before entering politics.  He is a brilliant man with the morals of a maggot.

At the other end of that academic ladder are John McCain and George Armstrong Custer.  McCain was 894th of 899 in the class of 1958 at the US Naval Academy.  Custer was last in the class of 1861 at West Point.  

McCain became a Naval Aviator and a symbol of endurance and courage as a Prisoner of War during the Vietnam War.  He famously refused to leave his comrades and endured three more years of confinement and torture for a total of six years as a prisoner. He became a moral beacon when the reputation of the American military was the lowest it has ever been, before or since.

McCain died two years ago in August of 2018, unmourned by the draft-dodging coward in the White House.  

In April of 2018, Mike Pompeo was named Secretary of State.  On his path to the nomination, there was a controversy about his service.  He served in West Germany near the end of the Cold War from 1986 to 1991. He never served  in the Gulf War, though Try Gowdy and other Republican liars said that he did.  Pompeo left the Army a captain and went to law school. 

----------

Every soldier knows the best way to be promoted is to serve during a war--the military expands the number of leadership slots, and some of the slots become vacant in every battle.

The military is very focused on procedure in peace. In war balls and bravado rule the promotion list. No other officer who ever served in the US military has risen faster than George Armstrong Custer.  

George Armstrong Custer in 1861 at the US Army Academy at West Point

In 1861, Custer graduated last in his class at West Point Military Academy.  He was 22 years old.  Within two months he commanded a cavalry troop at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia. His bravery in battle impressed senior officers and Custer got promoted so fast he was a Brevet Brigadier General within two years, promoted just a week before the Battle of Gettysburg. He commanded a cavalry brigade at Gettysburg that kept southern cavalry from supporting Major General George Pickett's ill-fated charge, helping to ensure the defeat of Pickett and General Robert E. Lee's army at that great turning point of the war.  

 

A month later Custer was wounded at the Battle of Culpepper Courthouse. He recovered, returned to the fight and was promoted to Brevet Major General in 1864.

 

By the end of the Civil War in 1865, George Custer was one of the officers with General U.S. Grant accepting the surrender of Lee at Appomattox Court House. 

After the war, Custer became known for defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, making a huge tactical error that led to he and his command being wiped out. Hubris, said the ancient Greeks, will lead those who rise the highest to fall the farthest.  He was a Major General at age 26 and dead at 36. 

Satire: Good for Your War, Not Mine

Catch-22, whether the original book, the movie or the recent Hulu series, is a satire of Army Aviation in World War II.  The author, Joseph Heller, was a bombardier in B-25 Mitchell Bombers flying missions in southern Europe. 

When I defended the book in a facebook discussion, my friend Joe Steed mentioned that his father, Bernie Steed, flew B-25 Bombers and on a few missions had a bombardier named Joseph Heller.  The led to writing about Bernie Steed's service in the 488th Bombardment Squadron.  Joe told me that Bernie had no idea that Heller wrote a book. Bernie read a few chapters and decided the book was not for him.

Bernie Steed receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross

I just did the same with David Abrams book "Fobbit."  It turns out I can read and enjoy a satire of a war before I was born, but I did not like reading a satire of a war I was in.  I should have known. When I visited the Bastogne War Memorial there was an M4 Sherman Tank outside the museum painted by an anti-war group. I had also seen Soviet tanks painted with peace signs. 'That's okay,' I remember thinking, 'But I don't want to see an M60A1 Patton tank painted with that shit.'  It's okay to deface other tanks, not my tank.

My tank: Bad Bitch, Fort Carson CO, 1976

So Bernie and I agree after all. Satirize another war, not my war.  

"Father Soldier Son" a Documentary of the Long Aftermath of War

Isaac, Brian and Joey Eisch

This week my son Nigel and I watched a documentary titled “Father Soldier Son.” The movie follows Sergeant First Class Brian Eisch on a combat deployment to Afghanistan and the tragedy his life became over the decade that followed. When I watched the movie, I remembered reading about Eisch getting wounded.  I read about the deployment the First Battalion-87^th Infantry in the New York Times in 2010-11.

Jim Dao, then the war correspondent for the Times, spent several months in Afghanistan following the unit from the beginning of the deployment to end. He told harrowing stories of soldiers killed and wounded during the deployment and their lives at war.

Eisch loved being a soldier and being a Dad.  Eisch was the single Dad of two sons, Isaac and Joey, ages ten and six in 2010. Eisch went to Afghanistan thinking he would resume his life when he returned. That meant moving up in his Army career and resuming hunting, fishing, camping and all the things he and his sons did together. 

From the stories, I sort of remembered who was one of those wounded, he had been hit in both legs by machine gun fire. The movie continued the story I had read a decade ago. His left leg had severe damage, but Eisch tried to recover. After two years, he pain got so bad that he agreed to amputation below the knee. 

As Eisch fell further and further into depression over his leg, his career ended and his life stalled. He met and eventually married a woman who loved and cared for him, but for a long time after he lost his leg, Eisch spent most of his time playing video games and avoiding his family. He had to leave the Army and said his life no longer had direction.

Just when Eisch’s life began to get better, then the younger of his two sons, Joey, was killed while riding his bicycle near their home. 

In 2018 when Isaac turned 18 and graduated high school, he joined the Army and became a paratrooper. 

The movie is really well done and sad.  I usually avoid watching documentaries because I worked in media and I am suspicious of visual media that tries to inform or educate.  But this documentary is so well done, I got lost in the story. The smart-ass critic in my head was silent.

If you want to know some of the cost of our endless wars, this movie shows how difficult life can be for returning soldiers.  The original articles are also available on the New York Times web site.  Dao’s reporting goes into much more depth on the combat missions in Afghanistan. 

When Walking I Don't Get Angry: Cycling is Different

Slowly healing. 

Today I saw the surgeon who put my arm back together with plates and screws  and considerable skill.  Tomorrow I begin a more sadistic physical therapy with pulleys to get more range of motion from my shattered elbow.

Three times during the visit, the doc said I should ride. I have enough range of motion in my arm to ride.

But during my three-mile walk home from the visit I had another moment of the making the contrast between bicycling and walking as exercise.  More than half the time I ride, someone in a vehicle--most often a plus-sized redneck in a pickup truck--will swerve at me or just pass too close. Occasionally he will yell faggot (women never do these things, only men).  A few times I have been hit with bottles and cans or got a "rollin' coal" cloud of smoke from a diesel pickup.

And I get angry.

Only rarely can I do anything about it. Once more than 15 years ago I got the license plate of a guy who threw tacks in the road because he hated us so much much. 

I have walked in hundreds of miles since surgery and no one has swerved at me, thrown tacks in the road, spit, called me a faggot, or any of the other things that have happened to me only in America and mostly on rural roads. 

So now I am really thinking about how much I want to ride.  I live in a rural area with lots of pickup trucks.  Do I want to return to getting pissed off at the pathetic cowards who think bicyclists don't belong on "their" roads? 

It's a question I never asked before. I love cycling so much that I thought the anger was part of riding. But knowing that I can walk and challenge myself makes the world look different. What is inner peace worth?  I will be asking myself that.

Slow Walk Up My Fastest Descent

S-Curve at the top of Prospect Hill

This afternoon I walked up and down the hill on Prospect Road between Columbia Pike to Marietta Pike in western Lancaster County.  After riding thirty years in 37 countries and descending miles-long hills all over the world, it was on this short, steep descent south toward Columbia Pike that I went the fastest I have ever ridden: 59.5 mph.  

It is the right kind of hill to go fast. Although the hill is short, it is steepest and straight at the bottom.  Other times I have been over 55mph it is always on hills that have a 15% or more grade near the bottom of the hill. Prospect Road is 16% at the steepest point. But the other factor in going 59mph was the S-Curve at the top and the 1980s Bronco that passed me on the way into the turn. 

The big, old Ford SUV has the aerodynamic profile of a brick so when he went past, I pedaled like crazy to stay near him. He had to slow in the second turn so I could stay with him. As we exited the turn, he stomped the gas and pulled away. If he stayed anywhere near the legal speed, I would have to be on the brakes. But he went way over the 35mph speed limit so could get sucked along in his draft. I could hear the spokes sing, so I knew I was flying.

When I stopped, the max speed indicator in my computer said 59.5 mph.  At this point, it looks like a lifetime record.  I have descended miles-long hills in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rockies, the Berkshires, Israel, the Republic of Georgia, and in Macedonia. But length does not matter for max speed, only grade percentage and wind direction--and a good draft. 

Lancaster County, Corn, Corn, Corn

Looking up Prospect Hill

Looking up at the steepest section of the hill, near the bottom

Genocide and Torture: Two Sides of Silence

I am reading a book titled "Silence" by John Biguenet.  The book leads me through the pop culture, history and meaning of silence.  Until March of this year, many of us spent hours in the uninterrupted noise of airports. The only relief from the announcements and crowds is in the airport lounges for business class passengers.  They have silence at a considerable cost.

Some of us seek silence through meditation practice and by inhabiting quiet spaces.  Biguenet tells us the history of silent reading. Then he introduces us to the Unspeakable. 

The Holocaust survivor Theodor Adorno said in 1949 that after the Holocaust no one should write poetry. The Holocaust and other genocides silence millions.  The Armenian Genocide silenced more than million voice. The Holocaust silenced six million. The starvation of millions in Ukraine by Stalin, the Stalinist purges, and millions killed by Mao and Pol Pot followed by slaughter in Rwanda and Yugoslavia forced silence by death.

Biguenet then says torture is the opposite of genocide. A person tortured chooses to be silent. The torture is supposed to break that silence through agony.

Genocide survivors write and speak to give voice to the millions who were silenced. Those who are tortured choose silence at a great cost, possibly at the cost of their lives. 

Both genocide and torture are horrible, but for opposite reasons from the perspective of silence. 

Silence is part of a series of books called Object Lessons. Short books about specific things like Phone Booths, Drones, Silence, The Wheelchair, The High Heel, Traffic and fifty other titles.  My next book is about The Bookshelf.

"If It Ain't Rainin' We Ain't Trainin'" NYC Version

On the Queensborough Bridge Today, Yesterday was a Tropical Storm

Yesterday and today I walked from Manhattan to Queens and back on the Queensborough bridge. Today was beautiful weather. Yesterday was a tropical storm with sheets of rain blowing across the walkway from the north. 

As I walked through the rain wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I thought about First Sergeant Rich Francke, who was one of the people along with Jeremy Houck who helped me make the transition from civilian life back to the military in 2007.  One of Francke's mottos was, "If it ain't rainin' we ain't trainin'." 

As I walked up the ramp onto the span getting soaked at a rate that felt like it could be measured in gallons per minute, I straightened my shoulders and imagined myself marching with field gear in the woods in a driving rain and thought 'at least I won't be sleeping in this.'  

The walkway has both a bike lane and a pedestrian lane. There was no one else walking, but there was a steady flow of bicyclists. Most of them were on electric bikes wrapped in raincoats. They were food delivery riders looking very miserable.  After I turned back toward Manhattan,  saw one slow, wobbly bicyclist on a regular bike. She was pedaling slowly and crying heading for Queens. She clearly did not think riding in the rain was an adventure.

Today there were more walkers, but not a lot.  I passed maybe 30 pedestrians in each direction on the 7500-foot-long bridge.  

There were many more bicyclists. Easily hundreds passed me.  One was wearing an Ironman bike jersey. He saw my Ironman hat and we waved.  A third of the bicyclists today were delivery riders, but there were also serious riders and tourists.  

 Completed in 1909, The 59th Street Bridge (now the Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge) was the subject of a song by Simon and Garfunkel that most people know as "Feelin' Groovy." Billy Joel's video for the song "Your Only Human (Second Wind)" was filmed primarily on the bridge.  The bridge has been part of more than a dozen movies from 1932 to 2018, most recently in "Avengers: Infinity Wars."

Reading "The Death of Expertise" on a Train: And meeting an idiot

Yesterday I was on a train from Philadelphia to Lancaster. I was near the end of the last car with a half dozen other people in the car. I was reading the book "The Death of Expertise" for a discussion a week from Sunday.

Halfway through the 75-minute trip, a guy in his 50s who was from Lancaster walked toward the end of the car. As he walked past me he could see me wearing a mask. He was not wearing one. He stopped and said "The Amish lived here for hundreds of years without wearing masks....." I stood and told him to get the fuck away from me that I did not need his idiocy or his germs. He left.

I defended expertise. It was fun.

The book is about people with arrogance, untroubled by any actual learning, who believe themselves experts in anything. I know I am going to like this book.

Fewer Miles, More Challenge and Beauty on Walks

The Brooklyn Bridge, empty in the middle of a beautiful summer day

In the past week I walked fewer miles than the week before: this week was 67 miles, the previous week was 91 miles.  But I walked in some beautiful and challenging places.

Yesterday I walked the Brooklyn Bridge. Completed in 1883, it was the longest bridge in the world until 1903--nearly 6,000 feet or 1,825 meters from Manhattan to Brooklyn crossing the East River.  

I loved this bridge from the first time I walked across it in the 90s.  When I returned from a year in Iraq in 2010, I went to New York City and one of the first things I did was walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  After so much ugly I wanted to be in civilization in a beautiful place. Here is the blog post from that day in January 2010.

Earlier this week I walked across the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, another beautiful bridge. The span across the Delaware River from Philadelphia to Camden was completed in 1926. At 9,500 feet or 2,900 meters it is almost a half mile longer than the Brooklyn Bridge and rises 150 feet above the Delaware at the center of the span.  

On Sunday last week I walked up Indianhead Road in Lancaster County. This rural road that runs parallel to a busy road has an average grade of 11% but near the top the grade is 20%.  So it's a good workout even walking.  

In the coming weeks I am planning to cross more big bridges.  One of them is the Tappan Zee Bridge--3.1 miles or 5km across the river--a six miles round trip.  There are many bridges to cross in New York City including the 1.5-mile Queensborough Bridge.  

I am also going to walk some of the 5-mile hills in Western Pa. and Upstate New York. I will be off the bike for a while, but I can still get a workout.

Wives and Mothers Will Rip Trump a New Asshole

Trump has dodged many bullets in his deplorable term as President, but he won't get out of this line of fire.  Military wives and mothers and fathers are asking for answers about the Russians paying bounties for dead Americans.  Trump can tell another hundred of his 20,000 lies denying he knew, but he now has an enemy that will not give up.

In 2011 and again in 2013 I was on a roster to be deployed to Afghanistan. In both cases I did some pre-deployment training. The first time I was cut from the roster when the deployment was reduced in size, the second time the entire deployment was cancelled.

If I had deployed, I planned to blog every day if possible.  And if I did, I knew that my main audience would be the wives and mothers and other family members of the soldiers in my unit.

When I deployed the first time and blogged every day, I thought my audience would my friends and family and maybe those who were curious about military service. They were my audience also, but most of the comments I got were from wives and mothers who heard little or nothing from their soldier.  They really wanted to know what we ate, where we slept, what we did night and day. 

The most popular post I wrote the whole year was about the containers we slept in. 

The wives and parents wanted to know about everything and they worried over every news report. If a base was attacked 200 miles away, someone would ask me what happened. I would answer that the attack was 200 miles away. The response would be some variation of, "No one tells me anything."

With more and more reports coming out confirming that both Pentagon and intelligence leaders knew the plot to be true, military wives and parents will demand answers until they get them.

No amount of bullying or whining will make this crisis go away. A grieving parent who feels betrayed is an implacable enemy.

          

                                        

Eight Differences Between Walking and Riding; and One Similarity

Walking is so different than riding

I made an abrupt switch from riding every day to walking every day. A smashed elbow and surgery took me off the bike.  Just as when I broke my neck, daily walks became the only workout option possible.

Here are the differences:

1. Speed:  The speed of the bike and walking is so different.  Today, I turned onto Harrisburg Pike. A man 50 feet in front of me was carrying a backpack on one shoulder and a black trash bag on the other shoulder. As we neared Charlotte Street, he started dragging the trash bag.  He turned the corner and stopped in the shade.  I live a couple of blocks away. I walked home and got a big roller suitcase that we were going to get rid of.  I wheeled it back and offered it to the guy who was sitting in the shade eating. He said thanks and I continued my walk.

If I were riding, I would have passed him while riding on a busy road and kept going.  I would have gone by fast enough that I may not have noticed him and would not have thought what I could do to help.

At walking speed, I see people for minutes, not seconds, so I can think.

2. Talking:  I can also talk. I can call friends and family and make other calls because I am only going three miles per hour. I can't talk on a phone on a bicycle. I can also talk to someone I am walking with. It is possible to talk on a bike, but never much deeper than a cookie sheet. Riders always have to be alert for hazards and traffic.

3. Space-Time: In Pennsylvania the rolling hills usually allow a rider to see a half-mile to a mile ahead.  The thing that comes into view a mile away is three to four minutes away depending on how fast I am riding.  When I see a mile ahead to a hill crest or a bridge when I am walking, it will be 20 minutes until I pass that spot.  When I walk to a place three miles away I need an hour. The world looks much bigger walking.

4. Other Walkers vs. Other Riders:  Bike riders wave or nod their heads when they pass each other as a rule.  There is a fellowship of those who ride in traffic.  It was the same when I rode motorcycles.  Although in the 1970s, Harley riders did not wave at riders on Japanese-made bikes we riders of the reliable bikes waved at each other.  But walkers only acknowledge each other if they recognize each other or are close together, like passing on the same sidewalk.  No one nods or waves across a road.

5. In Lancaster Walking Stops at the City Line: I have walked outside of the city to the north and west. When I leave the city limits, I am the only walker. In six weeks I have not passed another person walking on a road.  I mostly walk on major roads, so there are surely people walking somewhere outside the city, but I don't see them.

6. I Understand Why Some People Hate Bicyclists:  I do not see walkers outside the city, but I see bicyclists everywhere.  I see people who seem to know how to ride who are riding on sidewalks. There is no reason for a bicycle to be on a sidewalk.

7. I Can Think When I Walk:  On a bicycle speed and traffic make thinking as shallow as talking. I sometimes have an idea come into my mind, but then it floats away.  Walking on a sidewalk or the shoulder of a road, I can actually think for a reasonable amount of time.  It's much better than swimming in that way. Swimming is also slow, but I had to make the turns at each end of the pool.

8. I Do Not Compete with Other Walkers: Sometimes when I see other riders ahead of me, especially on a hill (up or down) I will try to catch them and feel a rush as I catch up to them even if they are not trying to go fast.  I don't ever compete with other walkers. I am moving so slowly that competition does not occur to me.

And the similarity:
I Can Be Obsessed with Any Activity. In 2007, I walked three miles every day, sometimes a little more, but not much.  This time walking has become a very slow sport.  Since the day I walked home from the hospital six weeks ago, I have been walking more each week: 43 miles the first week, then 52, 64, 73, 81 and this week 91 miles.

Meeting an Old Friend from Iraq

Staff Sergeant Jeremy Houck

Today I walked home from Physical Therapy along the Fruitville Pike. As I crossed the big Belmont Square intersection, a broad-shouldered, bearded guy in a hard hat, reflective vest and military sunglasses strode toward me and said, "Neil!"

It was Jeremy Houck, my squad leader when we were in Oklahoma training to deploy to Iraq . Jeremy was amused at being in charge of a sergeant almost twice his age and helping me to re-acclimate to military life. Jeremy helped get me through urban combat training and with becoming a ground mechanic. Jeremy worked as an electrician and had an associates degree in electrical engineering.

He now owns a company that subcontracts installing communications cables. He was supervising his crew when we met up on the Fruitville Pike.

After we returned from Iraq ten years ago, Jeremy deployed to Afghanistan almost immediately. He eventually had five tours as a soldier and a contractor before leaving to run his own business. He now has a fleet of trucks working across the Pennsylvania and neighboring states.

Here's more of his story from a decade ago. He was dressed differently today, but the shades were the same       .

At the good-bye dinner in late January 2009, the night before 2-104th board the planes to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, my family and I sat with...

New Life Begins: Osteoporosis Confirmed

Yesterday I got the reading from the Dexascan bone study I had almost two weeks ago.  I have osteoporosis in both femurs and in my lower back.  I also have arthritic degeneration in my wrists and ankles and the knee that was not replaced.

So, as I wrote two weeks ago, a new life begins now. My family doctor is an avid cyclist and half my age.  He said, "Once you recover from the broken arm, maybe you could ride more--well--no more fast descents." If I thought I was good at moderation, I might consider riding, well, moderately.

But I am not.  I ride for the sensation of turns and descents. And my most recent crash was at less than 10 mph on a closed bike trail, a freak occurrence--a stick in my front spokes.

So I will do whatever the doctor says and if I can restore bone density, I may consider riding again, but for now, it's moot anyway.  My splintered elbow will not sustain any sort of shock for two months or more.

I am still hoping to visit Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2021. And in the coming years, I want to return to my favorite cities and walk them. 

Watching All of The Jason Bourne Movies

My son Nigel Gussman and I just finished watching all five of the Jason Bourne movies, in a week. In the first movie, the Bourne Identity, Matt Damon was 31. By the fifth film he was 46. And now Nigel and I watched the first hour of "Ford vs. Ferrari" in which Damon is 49.

Since I had never seen Matt Damon in a movie before I saw Ford vs. Ferrari last November, it was interesting to see him age in the Bourne role and then be firmly in middle age as Carroll Shelby.

The Bourne movies are a Cold War relic even though they are set in the 21sr Century. They trace a nearly perfect assassin through the awakening of his conscience, plus he uncovers the deepest of Deep State conspiracies!!

My friend Cliff is also watching the movies. He will watch the last one this weekend. We were Cold War soldiers so the conspiracy culture is home ground for us. Cliff was most disturbed by movie four, "The Bourne Legacy." Matt Damon is not in that movie. Bourne is a tough Army Captain recruited to his role as an assassin. In the Bourne Legacy, Jeremy Renner plays Aaron Cross, a recruit who could not meet the minimum aptitude requirement and is give pills to make him smarter while he also takes pills to make him a physical marvel.

We both disliked the Frankenstein aspect, the idea that people could be engineered not only to superhuman strength but to superhuman intelligence. And if you miss the pills, you become weak and dumb. And the whole idea that the Army takes men who can't meet the minimum standard, sneaks them in and turns them into supermen is a sad view of the military.

On a lighter side, if you like car chases, the Bourne movies destroy dozens of cars from around the world. The Moscow chase scene smashed a truly international array of autos. And in Vegas, a murderer in a stolen SWAT vehicle plows though traffic like a snowplow, upending dozens of cars in a minute on the Las Vegas strip.