A GREAT WEEKEND AND IT'S NOT EVEN A HOLIDAY (Part 2)

Well, Coyote Joe's wasn't quite as mobbed on Saturday night as it was on Thursday, but it was still enough to be called a complete success. The absence of the Honda Hoot did definitely affect things, as they didn't have the out-of-town crowd that was evident last year, but once again, plenty of locals showed up. There wasn't any milling and dancing around the parking lot, as there was Thursday; around 10 P.M. most of the milling about and dancing was being done inside, when the main attraction band, Sellers & Wray, began their performance. You needed a shoehorn to pry the knots of people apart in order to get to the bathrooms. Standing room only in there and you practically had to make an appointment in order to rid your system of excess beer.

I elected to stay on the deck outside, while a friend I was sitting with went in to hear the headline act. It was cooler out there and much less crowded, not to mention the fact that the kick-ass blues/rock band from Thursday was back on the patio, performing again. I had grown steadily fonder and fonder of that group, as I love good blues music and this little trio was smoking hot once again. A simple setup of a solo guitar, bass and drums, but with an enormous sound. The band is called LA3, and though I never caught the name of their guitarist/vocalist, let me say that the guy was fantastic!!! Smoking hot, sometimes raunchy, sometimes smooth as silk blues chords and riffs poured off the strings of his Telecaster, through the amplifier and into the ears of those like myself, who can listen intently and appreciate enormous talent when it's so evident.

And vocally?? The guy can sing the blues as well as any white man I've ever heard. He's paid his dues in full, whoever he is. Another little-known singer/guitarist, who could upstage some of the biggest names in the world, probably, if he ever had the chance. I've witnessed that many, many times before in my life -- some of the best musicians around are people you've never even heard of before. I was completely mesmerized -- couldn't have left while they were playing, even if I'd wanted to.

Foodwise, it wasn't free this time around. Too much to expect that Bubba could afford to give away food all four days of the Blowout. But, for five bucks you could get a plate with burgers, BBQ (sliced pork), or barbecued chicken leg quarters that were absolutely perfect, with the meat "falling off the bone" tender. Baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw -- all the usual cookout trimmings -- rounded it all out. Top that off with a cold brew and you're in Hawg Heaven, or at least I was. I paid seven bucks and got a burger and a chicken leg quarter, as well as potato salad and beans. Yummy. Now I'm going back next week, to have some of Bubba's famous pork barbeque -- his own recipe, and it's very good. I know there'll be plenty left over. There always is. Eat well and eat cheap, for as long as it lasts!

When the LA3 finally finished their set and began packing up, I caught up with the guitarist, told him how I loved his playing, wished him the best, then went inside, briefly, to catch a little of Sellers & Wray's act. Very briefly, I must emphasize. By then they were packed in there like sardines. The band sounded good, as usual, but that was too much crowd for me, so I went back outside to "my" table and sat back down there again. No more bands would be performing on the patio. A local ordinance forbids loud performances outdoors past 10 P.M., so it was over out there for the night. Which is why, of course, that the headline act had set up inside, because they would be performing up into the wee hours.

Business slowed down out on the deck after the band stopped playing. Some of the crowd moved inside and others just departed. One of the newer servers Bubba hired, obviously tired, came over and began talking to me and I invited her to sit down for awhile, which she did. We talked for maybe thirty minutes and I began to get a positive feeling about her. She seemed to like older men, from what I could gather. Hmmmmmmmm. I asked her if she would be working Sunday and she wasn't sure. Told her I would be back and we'd talk some more then, the next time I saw her and she said "okay" with an certain eagerness. Double-hmmmmmmmm. Well, we'll just have to see what, if anything, comes of that. I won't reveal her name in these public pages, for privacy reasons, but that eagerness is worth exploring further, I do think!! [Wink-wink!]

Sorry I got no pictures, but I plain forgot to take my camera with me and even forgot my cellphone!! I had been out riding around Saturday and when I decided to head on over to Coyote Joe's, I didn't go back home first. Maybe next time I won't forget!!

BIG BIKER PARTY IS A "BLOWOUT" AGAIN. (Part 1)

The 9th Annual Big Twin Blowout at Coyote Joe's began last night and I was there for the beginning of this four-day party. I was almost a fixture there, in fact, as I went over there early and stayed much later than I had intended to originally. The thought of free burgers, hot dogs, and all the trimmings enticed me to stay well into the night. Yes, you heard that right. I said "free," as in free food, no charge for the meal, etc. Now how many places do you know that offer that, in this day and age?? So, I carefully controlled my beer intake (I was on Velvet, after all, not in my cage) and stayed for the grub-fest.

And everybody showed up!! I guess the free "lunch" that owner Richard "Bubba" Hilliard came up with worked like a charm, because it looked like a motorcycle convention around the place last night. A steady stream of bikes of every make (though Harleys dominated) slowly rolled into the lot, seeking an open parking slot. `They had to thread their way through a crowd that was busy partying in the lot and listening to a quite good blues/rock band, which was playing on the outdoor patio. Inside, there was the usual Thursday night karaoke contest, with the usual people performing their "hits," and there was pretty much standing room only in there, too. It had cooled off a little in there after nightfall, after being like an oven inside around 5 P.M. I had headed for the outdoor deck as soon as they opened the bar up out there and that's where I stayed the rest of the evening. It was at least ten degrees cooler out there.

The place was really jam-packed, for a weeknight, and I think everyone was a little surprised by the large turnout, on the very first night of the Blowout. If that was any indication of things to come, then Saturday night's going to be totally insane, and I plan to be there again. I'll have another entry on that excursion and probably some photos of the goings-on there, which I'll post later on. So far, it's looking like the absence of the annual Honda Hoot, which was always happening at the same time as the Blowout, isn't going to affect things that much this year. It's also looking like Honda made a gigantic blunder in calling off their annual rally in K-Town this year. I'll have more about that in the next entry, after I size up the crowd tomorrow night.

If it wasn't free food that enticed me to stay later than I meant to, it was the cash giveaway by the Harley dealer down the street. They've been doing that every Bike Night (Thursday) for the past three weeks and they'll be doing it all summer long. This time, I was there late enough, on the right night, and I signed up for a ticket. My number wasn't ever called, but they did give away $25 to one lucky gal. They give away a different amount, randomly, every week and they never reveal how much the prize is until right before the drawing. Prize amounts range from $25, to $50, to $75. Oh, well -- maybe next time . . .

I finally hit the road home around 10:30 P.M. I didn't want to be there as late as midnight, because that's when the local cops like to spring nasty little surprises on partiers -- like sobriety checkpoints a block or two down the street. I wasn't drunk when I left, but I wasn't exactly stone-sober, either, so I'll avoid those "witching hours," if at all possible. Setting up roadblocks a block from a bar, where they know people are drinking is entrapment, plain and simple, and is probably unconstitutional as well, but they put their "public safety" justification on their actions and turn that document on its ear. So, what can you do?? Avoid departing in the wee hours, when they like to set those things up. And so I did.

Velvet roared into life and the rumbling sound of her pipes, when I twisted the throttle, parted the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea in the Good Book. In gear, I cautiously "power-walked" her out of her parking space and around the crowd. Finally, I could put my feet on the pegs and ride past the barricade, to the street. Look twice, to be sure, then ease the clutch out and wheel her onto the road. One block, turn onto a side street, and I was headed home again. Got here a little before eleven, then went upstairs and turned in. So much for that first night.

But things will resume Saturday night. Stay tuned.

GETTING TO KNOW "HOME" ALL OVER AGAIN

You can't go home again.

When Thomas Wolfe penned those words, years ago, referring to his native Asheville, North Carolina, he must have been gone for many, many years. Longer than the eleven years I was absent from Knoxville, which has been my home for as long as I've been celebrating anniversaries of my birthday. In my case, I have come home again, so all I can figure is that you'd have to be away much longer than I was in order for those words to be true.

Knoxville's still my home and it still feels like home. That's probably because I spent most of my life here B.T. (Before Trucking) and my roots were buried so deeply that not even all my traveling could pull them out of the ground. And maybe also because I didn't leave at a young and tender age, being in my mid-to-late forties when I climbed in my first assigned tractor, picked up my first load, and started my recently-ended series of eighteen-wheeled adventures. Not a kid, for sure, but a mature adult, with a strong sense of his roots.

I was never one of the "gypsies" out there on the road -- the ones I always referred to as "Truckstop Drivers," because their homes were seemingly in whatever one of those vital establishments they choose to hang their hat in today. Not for me. When I passed through my town, on the way to somewhere else, I always thought of it as home and that I'd be back, whenever. And I was, through all those years. I had weekends here at the Dawg House (although not for very long, quite often) and I had vacation time every year except my first one.

But it's not the same. Nowhere nearly like living here day in and day out, as I am again now. For all those long years I became a virtual occasional visitor in my own home town, only hanging around long enough to get somewhat reacquainted on two occasions when I was on medical leave for two on-the-job injuries I suffered. During even those times, I still packed my clothes in my duffel bag and lived out of it, not bothering to put my things in the drawers because I knew I'd be moving on again as soon as I was healed up. Now I'm back to stay and my duffle bag is packed away. My clothes are back in the drawers, after some minor rearranging. And in the past month or so, since I got back, I've been all over town at one time or another, getting to know my native city once again.

There have been quite a few changes in those eleven years. Some of them I knew, or was told about, and other things that are brand-new. I've kept up with my own neighborhood and the part of town it's in pretty well, because this is where I live and do most of my shopping, etc. Like the new street, Hall Of Fame Drive, which now makes a direct link between Broadway, in my own area, and downtown, about five miles distant from my house. That street used to be the old North Fifth Avenue, as well as two other streets. Now they've been combined, revamped, widened and improved into a new thoroughfare that will whiz you right into the heart of the city. The old Fourth and Gill neighborhood, home to some beautifully restored Victorian-Era houses, doesn't even look the same now. Those houses are all still there, but the new street cutting through their midst gives everything a different look.

They just reopened the one-mile stretch of I-40 through the downtown area that had been closed for the past 14 months while they rebuilt the old, tired roadway through there and I had (or made) a chance to check it out on that same trip downtown. I made that trip to our City Court, next to the Cop Shop, to take care of a little traffic ticket I got back in March and had forgotten all about. I've had -- uh -- other things on my mind the past month, mostly medical matters, as I've already talked about in past entries, so is it any wonder that fell through the cracks?? Cerebral Data Overflow again. How 'bout that for a fancy way of saying "brain fart?"

Well, I had one, but got the ticket fixed and then kissed and made up with the State Department of Safety. The end result? Now my license ain't in jeopardy anymore and everyone's happy. The City of Knoxville didn't even fine me, saying it was "understandable" how I could forget, what with all the other crap that's been going on in my life lately. Now I feel like I've been welcomed back home, officially.

Anyway, on the way back into town from the Driver's License Station I went through town to scope out the new section of freeway that us local taxpayers spent millions on the past two years. Now the last piece of the old and infamous "Malfuction Junction" is gone for good, replaced by a modern freeway link, complete with a Jersey barrier in the middle. And it gives the downtown area a new look, because it's cut a little differently than the old, elevated stretch it replaced. Three lanes in each direction, all the way through now. No bottlenecking three lanes down into two and backing up traffic at peak hours like a cheap toilet with government-regulated water levels in it. No clusterf*** here anymore!!! It's about time!!!

And, as usual, I hardly even recognized the west end when I went that way yesterday. But that's to be expected in that area and was getting like that even before I began my trucking career. West Knoxville contains the heaviest population in the city (and has all the traffic headaches that go along with that distinction.) It might be a nice place to live and work out there, if they ever get through building it! West Knoxville is kind of like our weather here in East Tennessee -- if you don't like the way things look in the west end, just wait ten minutes -- it'll change! Even the Bearden area, where I used to cruise around back in the 70's and 80's, looks different now. Bearden Hill has grown into a mile-long office complex, seemingly. The old service station where I worked for four years is completely gone now, as in "vacant lot" gone. But by next month, something will probably build on that lot, the way it's going around there. And I've never seen so many banks in one place! Across-the-street competition. I guess they want to keep their friends close and their enemies closer, as the Godfather was fond of saying.

Of course, in just over a month off the road, I haven't had the opportunity to go everywhere in town as yet, but I will, in time, and I'll doubtless discover more changes. Eleven years is a long time to be away and it will take awhile to catch up with everything around here. There may be future reports like this if I spot something interesting.

FIRST NIGHT IN MY NEW "FACTORY"

I slept in a bedroom above a busy factory last night. At least that's how it sounded to me, as I lay down and waited for sleep to come my way. The respiratory supply company which provided my CPAP machine and all its supplies delivered my oxygen equipment that my doctor and now the Sleep Disorders Center at a local hospital had ordered. I wore a oxygen monitor awhile back, all night long, and the results from that showed that my oxy saturation level was approaching a critically low state while I slept -- something that's not uncommon at all, I was told. That low saturation level was, in fact, what triggered that vicious attack of the gasps that sent me to an ER in West Virginia a month or so ago and ultimately led to my current state of unemployment, they now believe. Low oxygen in the blood, coupled with sleep apnea, is not a good thing at all. Trust me on that one.

So, I signed for some equipment I can't possibly pay for, with my healthcare insurance on the verge of lapsing forever. The insurance company had to pre-authorize it before they delivered it, so I'm covered for now. But when it does lapse (and it will,) I have nothing to pay for COBRA with until the check for the partial distribution of my 401K money arrives and/or I find some kind of employment that I can do without losing my breath and passing out. As is typical in these cases, the more you need that money the longer it will take to get it. Never fails!!! I'm already collecting 'past due' notices all over the place. Should I frame them?? Maybe submit this to Guinness? I may be setting some kind of record here.

A tech delivered my new gear and explained its usage to me in a long session yesterday afternoon. The equipment consists of a little green oxygen cylinder on a wheeled cart that is still sitting in a corner of my living room, where it will remain until and unless I need it. That's just for emergency use -- in case the power conks out. Only good for about three hours. The main machine is another wheeled device that looks like one of the portable A/C recharging stations that you see in car repair shops. It's called an Oxygen Concentrator and it takes up a whole corner of my bedroom.

[Now I can see carrying that thing out with me on a truck every week, can't you?? Yeah. Right. Where would I sleep? It would consume half my sleeper space. So, yet another reason why my departure from my former occupation was well-justified, even though my doctor still stubbornly clings to her belief that I can still drive a truck. Well, yeah, I could drive one, true enough. But to put up with all the other crap that the treatment of my ailment entails??!!! I think not, doc. I strongly disagree. Maybe I can physically drive, but it's the other baggage that now goes with it that screws the pooch.]

Anyway, my oxgen constipator -- uh, I mean, oxygen concentrator sucks. Literally. It sucks in air on one side, separates the oxygen from it, dumps the other stuff back into the atmosphere, then pipes the oxy through a plastic hose out the other side and into the output fitting on my CPAP. What this all means is that the air my CPAP compresses and pumps out into my mask now has pure oxygen mixed in with it. This keeps my oxygen level up during the night when I'm asleep (and unable to take a nebulizer treatment) and allows me to sleep much better, as well as preventing another attack of the gaspies. And it works quite well, if the first night was any indication, because I awoke feeling much more refreshed this morning and breathing quite easily. I went about my early morning business casually, not rushing headlong into the kitchen and grabbing for my nebulizer cup, as had been my habit since I got that machine, two weeks ago. A large improvement.

So what I now have in my bedroom amounts to a neat little oxygen factory. Ain't technology amazing?? It's also expensive -- and noisy. It puts out a steady throbbing beat that's punctuated at regular intervals by sighing noises, not unlike a low-volume version of the air 'dump valve' opening on a truck that's idling in traffic. It also makes a sort of groaning noise from time to time. In short, it's a little "symphony" on wheels, located about four feet from my bed. I chuckled to myself last night, amused by the thought that my bedroom was somewhere on an upper floor, with an operational manufacturing plant of some kind below me. I could swear I heard a metallic 'clang' down there, at one point, mixed in with the other sounds. Midnight at the foundry, and I'm the night watchman, trying to steal a little shut-eye on the job!!

But I went out like a light and slept well. I'll get used to it quickly. Heck, if I can get so used to a diesel truck engine idling all night long that I never notice it, this will be a piece of cake!! It's worth it for a good night's sleep, for the first time in nearly two months, ever since my latest personal journey began. A welcome relief.

ICE CREAM MEMORIES

I spent a quiet holiday evening at Coyote Joe's -- my favorite hangout and the only Adult Daycare Center in existence that I know of. I had a good meal, but kept my visit short, after watching the NASCAR race end early, due to (what else?) rain, of course. They had run a little more than half the race at that point, so they declared the leading car at the time to be the winner and everyone went back to the house, to get ready for the next race, next Sunday. After that, I had a little conversation, on and off, with a few friends, and then headed out, back to the Dawg House, to get ready for the busy day I'll have today. On the way home, I stopped to get some sodas and an ice cream cone and got to the place at the same time that Mom Nature decided to act bitchy again and dump a thunderstorm on our heads. 

I sat in my pick-em-up truck for maybe ten minutes, before it let up enough so that I just had to wade to make it to the door and not swim for dear life. You cannot move far, very fast, with the lung disorder I have; ten yards at top speed and you'll be gasping for breath. You quickly learn to pace yourself, so that you're not totally winded by the time you get into the place. So, it's pretty slow going and, naturally, you can get pretty wet in the process. Let's just say I got well-dampened before I made the front door of the gas station/C-store where I stopped. I got what I wanted quickly, then back outside and made my way as quickly as I could to the front door of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream store that's next door to that particular Pilot. Another day, another Pilot -- that corporation is headquartered in K-Town and they pretty much dominate the motor fuel business around here. And they have some state-of-the-art C-Stores, to boot. But enough about that -- Baskin-Robbins was calling me. 

Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream -- ah, yes. One small tidbit of my youth that I've never quite outgrown. They say everyone has an inner child that we need to indulge from time-to-time and B-R allows me to indulge mine, now and again. Simple pleasures and still the best danged ice cream money can buy, as far as I'm concerned! I waited patiently in line and treated myself to a double cone of my favorite flavor -- Nutty Coconut. Still raining outside, lightning flashing in the distance, so I sat down at a table and devoured my frozen holiday treat. One cold, creamy bite, two, three, and -- ahhhhhhhh! My taste buds were overjoyed, savoring every nibble. Crunch! went the many nuts, buried in the ice cream, as I chewed and licked my way through the two massive scoops on my cone. For the next few minutes, I was in a Heaven on earth

Ice cream melts fast, especially in summer weather, thus forcing you to focus on your treat and eat it quickly. Nothing sucks more than watching one of the scoops you paid for and savor so much melt and fall off in the floor when you lick it. So, you do what you have to do, to avoid having that aggravating experience. Anybody remember what ice cream does to you when you eat it too fast and it freezes the sinuses in your face?? Ouch!!! Hurts, don't it?? But it's kind of like getting sore when you make love for the first time ever -- it hurts good!!! 

I had that experience, still fondly remembered from childhood, all over again last night. My face ached, but I finished that double dip off, smiling with my memories of an earlier and much simpler life, and didn't feed any of my treat to the floor.  I gulped it all down and even peeled off the paper wrapper and ate the entire sugar cone. That's the best part, I've always said. What's the point of having a sugar cone, if you don't eat it too?? When I was done, the rain had slacked off to a drizzle and I smiled all the way home. I need to visit that Baskin-Robbins store more often -- I think ice cream can be very therapeutic!!! 

ANOTHER SOAKING AND THE POKER RUN THAT WASN'T

Went over to Coyote Joe's -- my favorite biker and all-around hangout -- Thursday night, for a few cold ones and some supper. I was into enjoying my "vacation" week, after quitting my job for health reasons; generally blowing money I shouldn't be blowing. But life's too short to worry about minor things like debts all the time. So, screw it -- let's ride, as we Harley-Davidson enthusiasts are so fond of saying. Maybe it's just as well that I've had no little rugrats in my life, because if I had any kids, all they would inherit would be my bills, when I finally take off down that highway into eternity. I'm kind of like Willie Nelson when it comes to that. "I raised your little ass(es), so now you can pay me back by paying off all my debts!! Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work you go!!" I call it my TANSTAAFL Principle:  There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Enough said. 

Where was I?? Oh, yeah, Coyote Joe's. Well, Thursday is Bike Night over there and there's always something interesting taking place on that particular night every week. One week they had a biker lawyer giving a talk about your legal rights when some moron in a cage runs your butt over on the street. You think bikers are intimidating?? Imagine a few of us with law degrees!!! Short of wearing one of those brilliant orange sleeveless shirts that they sell at some biker shops -- the ones that say "CAN YOU SEE ME NOW, ASSHOLE?" on the back -- a good biker attorney is your only defense against all those seemingly blind car drivers who can see everything except a person on a motorcycle. This is 2009, not 1979. Today you don't kick dents in the door of their car when they invade your space; today you swerve out of the way and if you fall off on your butt you sue them until they are blind!! Be sure to bring a fully-loaded wallet to court with you. Not seeing me is gonna cost your ass BIG! 

That was a good one, but last week was better, because they had karaoke night again. Amateur entertainer night, where anyone who wants to can groan, croak, or stammer his or her way through a popular song that they think they can sing. Lotta good laughs, watching drunks make fools out of themselves, and unlike the American Idol outtakes, this is live. To be fair, though, some of the guys and gals who participated actually have some talent and a few sounded pretty danged good! One gal in particular -- a chubby but cute blonde -- really belted her way through a rendition of Gretchen Wilson's Redneck Woman. She was great and got a well-deserved round of applause. 

The host, Clowny Boy, tried to get me to audition, but I was having none of it. Nope, not me and I won't ever get that drunk -- I'd pass out first. You don't want to hear me attempt to sing -- not at all. I sound like a corroded, cranky two-stroker with a terminal rod knock and a major manifold air leak. Like a cross between a rusty buzz saw and a bull moose with a bellyache. I might belch one out, but I can belt nothing except my pants, and I prefer my suspenders. One fractured note from my COPD-infected lungs and everyone would go running for the closest exit. 

So, of course, I had to try it out, being the nice guy that I am, 89.7 percent of the time. And his offer to buy me another Bud Light if I did it helped, too. I asked him if he had Kenny Rogers' Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town in his machine and he came up with it. I used to be able to do a passable imitation of ol' Kenny on that country classic, but that was before I had these gasping attacks. Plus the fact that I've never done it on a stage, in front of people!!! OhmyGod, I gotta be NUTS to do this!!! Talk about panic attacks!! "Well, I guess you're all wondering why I called you here . . ." I whispered into the microphone. A few laughs and then Clowny started the music. 

First, I got totally behind the beat from the beginning -- twice. On the third attempt, I started on cue, finally. Somehow, I got through it and to my surprise, got scattered applause, instead of the boos and fake gags that I was expecting. Clowny told me that if I practiced it more, I would be good on it, as it was right in my key. At least two people told me they enjoyed it, even if I was as rusty as an old Ford on a junk car lot. I thanked them and sat back down, my three minutes of "fame" having expired. And now I'm finding myself ripping the tracks off of my two Kenny Rogers CDs onto my computer, converting them to MP3 format. Well, it's show biz, baby --what can I say?? Where's my rhinestone jumpsuit and Elvis sunglasses?? Hey, be careful how you treat me, girls, I'm a celebrity now, y'know?? Yeah. Right. Sure. 

But all good things must end, and it did. I figured I'd run through enough cash for one night and I paid up, put a tip in the girls' jar and headed for the door. Only to find that it was raining outside, and not just rain by itself. I heard the rumble of thunder and saw lighting flashes in the sky every few minutes. Distant, but still a thunderstorm. Well, poo-poo,  I said (to sanitize my language a bit!!) That sucked. So, I sat back down at a patio table and waited for the rain to let up. 

Forty-five minutes later I came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to let up, at least in my lifetime, or so it seemed. We who are about to drown salute you; I gathered my courage up to face the inevitable and headed for Miss Velvet. I'd parked her under the awning, so the seat was dry at least and I wouldn't get my butt wet -- much. I cranked Velvet to life, buckled my helmet and rode out of there. It wasn't until I made my turn onto a deserted side street that I noticed my gloves, still lying on the gas tank, where I'd laid them after taking them off a few hours before. I stopped in a closed bank's parking lot and put them on before they fell or got blown off and lost. The light cooperated anyway, and I made my way down Merchant Drive, toward the Dawg House. I didn't even make the first intersection before I noticed that my boots were already soaked and my feet were all squishy inside. Amazing how water can penetrate boot leather when you're running 30 mph. 

By the time I got home I think my underwear shorts were even soaked. My face, hands, arms, legs and feet were dripping. I got my girl into the garage without crashing her on the slick, finished concrete floor and wheeled her around to my parking position without incident. My leather vest had kept the rain off my back and backside pretty well, but I looked like I'd dived into a swimming pool in my clothes elsewhere and I sloshed when I walked across the garage. I took one boot off and tilted it up, but no water poured out, so I guess it wasn't that bad. A few more miles in that, though . . . 

I wiped Velvet down a little and PUT MY DAMNED WINDSHIELD BACK ON!! I'd taken it off to clean part of the bike and decided that since it was hot, I'd just leave it off. Big mistake. So, I quickly corrected that one!! The danged wind noise had nearly driven me nuts without the windshield, too, so I had yet another reason for re-installing it. Without the windshield, it's either muffle the noise and boil your brain in a 3/4 open-face helmet, or wear the half-helmet I usually do and be driven nutty as a fruitcake by the constant whoosh of the wind. I chose the skid lid helmet behind the windshield as a happy solution. 

I had pre-registered for a poker run on Sunday, but I passed on it, as it turned out. For one thing, I was all fuzzy-tongued from Saturday night at Joes, where I tried (unsuccessfully) to drink them out of Bud Light and really tied one on, listening to a kick-ass local band that I'd heard about several times. My ears were also still ringing from being parked for two hours about three feet away from one of the amplifiers. Yeah, I got pretty inebriated, but what the hell? It's the first time I've even been drunk in about twelve years! I earned it and nobody was going to deprive me of it!! So, I got wasted and had a blast!! 

Another reason for not going on the run was that I found out that they wouldn't be telling us specifically where the checkpoints were. We'd get a map and we had to follow it and find them ourselves. For the uninitiated, let me explain:  A motorcycle poker run is like a game of poker on two wheels. You follow a pre-determined route and have five stops on it. At each stop, or checkpoint, you draw, or are issued at random a standard playing card. When you get all five cards, you have your poker hand complete and then you go to the meeting place where there'll be food and drinks available. Once you're there, for an extra donation to the charity that's sponsoring the run, you can draw up to three new cards and discard your duds, trying to improve your hand. Then they draw for the best hand, the next-best, third best, and the worst hand and give away prizes. It works just like a standard poker game. If you aren't familiar with poker and the value of the hands, look it up in Wikipedia. I'm not making this entry 500 pages long explaining all that to you! 

Anyway, on some runs they tell you where the card-drawing checkpoints are specifically located and on others, they don't. This was one of the "don't" ones and I wasn't feeling like taking the chance of missing a checkpoint and getting lost. This is easier to do than you would think. MOST of the time, there'll be other bikes ahead of you and you just watch where they go and stop and that'll most likely be the checkpoint you want. BUT it all depends on how many bikes are entered in the run. The more, the merrier, but the iffy weather made a lot of the potential riders back out of this one and with fewer riders you'll often get separated, sometimes by miles, especially if you make a pit stop for a bathroom break, or to grab a quick soda. My doctor recently changed my blood pressure meds and the new diuretic she prescribed for me is peeing me to death! I don't for the life of me know why peeing is so good for your blood pressure, but they give you shit that's more powerful than coffee and beer combined. I would have to stop, maybe two or three times, and when I rolled into the checkpoint areas I was risking seeing no other bikes around at all and missing it.

Actually, I had that experience once and rode around in a circle for a half-hour before I found the danged place. A friend of mine was riding in a poker run with a pal of his once and they couldn't find one of them. It was hot, so they stopped at a local saloon and had a cold one. When they finished, they went back out and saw a group of bikers heading down the road. They followed them out to the Middle Of Nowhere before they learned that the group they were following wasn't even in the poker run at all. They had followed them home!! So, yeah, it's easier than you think to get lost in an area you aren't familiar with at all. Not me, not this time. I was still too hammered from the night before to deal with that. 

I took a rain check Sunday, but maybe next time . . . ??

THE END OF THE ROAD: A TRUCKER'S FAREWELL

There are countless miles of roads in our nation and in the past eleven years, I have seen my share of them, day-in and day-out. But roads are not without an end. They have to start somewhere and they have to end up somewhere else, ultimately. You run down a road long enough and eventually it will merge with another road, or it will reach a dead-end; a point at which you can travel no further. 

My personal road, as a commercial truck driver, reached its end on Saturday, May 9, 2009. As I write this, I am at home to stay and am no longer employed in my former occupation. I delivered my final load on Friday, then returned to my terminal, where I gathered my belongings up for the trip back home. 

The reason my career has ended is medical. I have been diagnosed with COPD, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which can take the forms of asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, as well as a couple of other nasty varieties. The symptoms are similar and often interchangeable because all of those forms amount to the same blanket disease. In my case, it is early emphysema, and although it is not yet severe enough for me to lug an oxygen bottle around, I may end up doing so in future years. COPD is described as "progressive" and "irreversible," in doctor language. Once you have it, it doesn't stop, but keeps going. It can be slowed down, but not halted completely. There is no known cure. 

One of the symptoms is coughing, sometimes in fits, and expellling excess mucus from the lungs. Another symptom is shortness of breath, sometimes quite severe, taking the form of an asthma-like attack, where you can't fill your lungs with sufficient air to give your body the oxygen it needs. It's like someone has placed a fifty-pound dead weight on your chest and your lungs can't expand enough to suck in the air you require. Quite alarming. It's downright scary, in fact, and the panic reaction sets in automatically, as your body goes into survival mode. The panic reaction makes everything much worse and you begin to wheeze loudly and gasp for air. That's what happened to me early last Monday, on the fourth, when I ended up in an ER in Parkersburg, West Virginia, for several hours, undergoing outpatient treatment. The pure oxygen I was breathing and the inhalation therapy got me unstopped and breathing normally again, but at that point, the writing was on the wall for me. I had already had a couple of very bad attacks prior to that. But this latest one was the worst one so far and they certainly weren't going to be getting any better. 

So, it came as no surprise to me when the ER doctor at the hospital advised me to seek a different occupation. The two EMTs who had treated me at the rest area where I was parked, and transported me to the hospital had already advised me thusly, but the doc was the clincher. What if? What if I had a coughing fit while driving, lost my breath and passed out from lack of oxygen while at the wheel of my truck?? Are you okay with the idea of an 80,000 pound truck roaring down the highway, out of control, with an unconscious driver at the wheel? Of course not! Who would be, in their right mind? Too much to risk. Way too much. I didn't feel safe and when a driver doesn't feel safe, there's only one thing that can be said -- GAME OVER. 

So be it. Exit, stage left. I'm outta here for good. 

Eleven years of my life. A ton of memories, some good and some not so good. A few just plain bad ones. I will always be grateful for the opportunity I had to go places and see things that I otherwise would never have seen at all. I've seen the sun come up over the skyscrapers of New York and I've seen it set over Tampa Bay. I've seen the majestic purple mountains in the early light and I've seen them frosted with snow in the winter. I've watched the wind ripple in the wheatfields of Kansas, and the vast cornfields of Illinois and Iowa. I've watched shooting stars over Lake Erie and seen a rainbow over the St. Louis Arch. I've weathered a tropical storm in Fort Pierce, Florida, outran one hurricane and drove through the aftermath of Katrina. I've been close enough to one tornado to feel those powerful winds. 

I've been lost and found and then lost again. Driven roads so narrow that I was only an inch or two from trading mirrors with the passing trucks. I've been stuck in sand, stuck in mud, stuck in gravel, and stuck on ice and in snow. Sometimes I got my own ass out, sometimes I needed a little help. I've blown every tire there is at least once and one time blew out four all at once. I've broken down, torn up, dropped valves, torn up one clutch and watched helplessly once as a busted turbocharger sucked all the oil out of my pan and burned it in the engine. I've torn off more than one trailer door. Even ran the hell over one of them. I never claimed to be perfect, even once. But I learned from my mistakes. Failure is the Mother Of All Teachers. 

It's all called "experience" and there has been plenty of that in my time at the wheel. I wouldn't trade it for anything else I've ever done in my entire life. Take the good along with the bad and it all adds up to one incredible eleven year ride and it's been an unforgettable one. 

This blog isn't going anywhere, my readers. I'll still be right here, maybe a little more frequently now. It's still a Dawg's Life, after all. That life has just changed now, that's all. One chapter has closed and another has opened up. Not an end at all, but a new beginning.