I’ve been riding 54 years, it was the time of divorce, financial, legal assault, I moved from let’s say joy-riding to life-riding. A twenty something Diamond-Back was my savior. “A bicycle is either a child’s toy, a rich man’s obsession, or a poor man’s last resort.” In my case the latter although every time I’m on my bike I feel my cycling-soul-child, the child that sustains me, got me here, that child. After the system kicked me to the ground, I decided, needed, to change everything, realizing “If I can’t carry it on a bike, I don’t need it.” I gathered clothing, tools, Jet-Boil other life sustaining basics road to Walmart, purchased, tent, tarp, bungees, light-weight cord. Slept under a cluster of pines adjacent a stream, beautiful night, sky, stars, moon, stream, trees an me. Sunrise, Jet Boiled coffee and oatmeal then rolled out in search of a tent-site out of sight. Mile up an elk trail near a creek-drainage I set up home.
The shocking part of going penniless, the way your friends and family look at you in a different light. All the while no-one asking, “Hey man what do you need, how can I help you right now, do you need a place to crash for a while”? A few weeks into my camp-site I learned never camp on open-space land in Colorado, even if you paid taxes to support it, you will have your stuff stolen by a Ranger and can go to jail as I did; for camping In America on Public Lands. Freedom? The sheriff arresting me for camping asked me, “Why are you living here in a tent?” this made me question his capability to be armed.
After 25 years in network news and one corporate misadventure I needed a job asking myself what do you want to do? I cycled to a local restaurant and never looked back. Television production and the Culinary world are similar in that you spend the day gathering and assembling your elements, then do a show. Working with food felt like no work at all. Time would pass smoothly without thought just creating. I love this work, all of it, no bull-shit corporate mindlessness. I’ll take washing dishes over a pointless corporate meeting full of simpleton know-nothings, same with mopping floors or making Creme Brûlée, I love it all. It’s not a Bull-Shit-Job and on top of all this I get to ride my bike to and from work, every day.
I had one corporate job it was like being cast in “The Office” eventually I talked my way out of this dead-end leaving my first and last corporate experience. Now I ride my bike to work in a kitchen and can’t imagine decomposing in a corporate devolution again.
Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of riding a bike.
John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
A wonderful cycling-scene from a Cinema Classic.
