Jacquie Phelan's Weblog

I just met, or rather re-met a woman whose last name is Hersey.

“As in John?” I asked. It’s my reflex to help me memorize names.

“Well, yes and no. My ex’s name’s John, too, but no relation…”

We were seated at a convivial table at Sorella, the reputed center of the universe according to some. It’s become the center of my week, Saturday night over pasta and fat sausage. Live music makes it extra memorable (if difficult to hear conversation).

I told her that I’d remember her name better if we talked about a Meaningful topic. I chose the topic: why I’m not going to even try to watch any more “The Fall” (scary British crime serial, starring a horny woman detective and a very sick psycho-killer).

I realzied that even though I survived “Homeland” intact (psychically), it would be harder with the other show, recommended by a different friend.

To  watch repeated murder and rape washes the brain (at least MY brain) in frightening images and actions that are probably indistiguishable with actual events. In other words, my tired old brain would treat those things as if they’d happened to me, and this has no redeeming social value (remember that term?).

And the idea that tens of thousands are glued to such content is a little unsettling, too. It’s probably like porn, and you become inured.
ANYWAY THIS ISN”T WHAT I WANTED TO WRITE ABOUT!

I wanted to share what I read as soon as I tipsily pedaled home last night:

The story that ran in the New Yorker in 1946 by the other John Hersey. That epic piece filled the magazine. The editors kept its identity under wraps: only 3 peple at the magazien knew what they were going to print that summery week. The cover featured a bird’s eye view of a park full of people enjoying a fine day.

I have had time to reflect on something I gave nearly no thought to: why I decided to learn Japanese.
It wasn’t for the manga, the culture, the style. As they say in Japan, “ううん” (huh-uh, as in NO).

It was… to honor the people themselves, despite the near-impossibility of communication with them someday.

I’d truly planned on getting over there, and ‘converting’ a few dozen women to wombatinesss.

To the freedom, silliness, healthiness of pure joy riding, away from cars. I still believe personal transpo via automobile is an incalculable harm to the planet and its inhabitants. This blog was and is my “Phelantine” to two wheel self propulsion.

But I thought I’d tack on some Social Redemption as well.

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Listening to Liege and Lief, a favorite Fairport Convention LP, and remembering about Tam Lin, a folktale about a woman whose mate has been cursed, and she must hold on to him regardless of what shape he takes, to defeat the spell.
(http://www.metrolyrics.com/tam-lin-lyrics-fairport-convention.html)
It brought to mind the two months Charlie spent in hospital, the first in Marin General Intensive Care, reachable easily on a bike, then a couple weeks in Kaiser ICU, then the last month farrrrr away, and people often gave me a ride to Vallejo across the bay-ho.
The road is narrow, two-lane, and guaranteed gridlock much of the time. No public transit connects Vallejo to Marin.
I’d overnight, and crawl into the hydraulic bed with him, activating the hissing of self-inflating pressure bags which spare the nurses much work, flipping patients every couple of hours.
While encircling his frail form with food tube through the nose and sometimes even wrist restraints on, I’d try to envision some form of existence in the future. It was not as bad as it might seem at this telling. I just poured out Hope vibes, and kept up my monthly spirituality subscription, cancellable at any time….
and now…he walks, he talks, we get alone time (right now he’s on a walk between rain storms), he has fun hearing me read about the difference between the oil of the Right whale (burns dirty) and the Sperm whale (clear, bright burning). We’re plowing through Moby Dick, since he loves being read do, and I love finally reading a book I know I ‘ought’ to read. I’m convinced that the elaborate, fine language is better nourishment for his language brain than the nauseatingly profane dialogue in Homeland (TV show, very vile, but seemingly addictive).
We hope that nevermore will whales have to fuel lamps.
Then I went into the internet to tell him about ambergris…
Hope your 2018 is fragrant, natural, and less worried.

If you’ve wondered where I’ve been, I’ve been typing up a storm at Charlie’s Gofundme site. I have about 150 postings, following his slow crawl back into functionality. Not interesting to folks looking for top-notch writing. Just spur-of-the-moment jive.

Wish me luck on MeMoir, eh?

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`Our beloved friend Charlie Kelly, impresario and general fat tire friend recently back from globetrotting to England, invited us (or was it responded to my unsubtle hint?) to join him and Mary his wife…Last Friday we got together and it was clear Mary’d spent the week carefully planning a meal around my Charlie’s gluten intolerance…We had short ribs from CK’s productive backyard ‘cue, Greek Salad and cornbread, and piping hot roasted corn on the cob.
Faces covered with grease, we caught up on each other’s news, eventually tapering into a sort of stupor, which signalled Mary to run to the stove and pull out a massive peach crumble. Maybe 4 lbs of fruit in it–it bubbled merrily over in the oven, portending a clean-up hangover , heaven bless these two.

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Today, under smoky skies, in 90-degree heat, I rode (alone) counter-clockwise around the Nicasio reservoir. Eighteen years ago today (Saturday of Labor Day weekend) a habitually drunken driver killed Cece Krone. And I won’t forget how the judge dealt with it all (very low bail). The ‘murderist’ (whose ten year old boy was with her) was sloppily overtaking the weekly hammer ride, and in so doing rode up the stone embankment, crushing Cece and her bike. She’d been standing by her bike inside the white line, waiting for the group.

I stopped riding with that bunch long before this tragic event. Each time I went out with them I’d experience their Peloton-groupthink: if a car was overtaking,  someone, sometimes more than one person,  would yell “CAR BACK!”  and…. nothing would change. No swift re-alignment into echelon (two by two, or even single file). Just…a big blob of spandex clad roadies, owning the whole road.

If we were in Italy, the motorists would indulge. After all, it’s their national pastime, along with futbol.  Here,  most hills are about 3 minute climbs.  Not a long time to wait until the sight line is safe.

Usually I rode on the periphery of the cluster; in the gravel and weeds on the right of the white, or clinging to the yellow double line on the left. I’d call out, “MOVE!” or conversationally suggest we try to ‘skinny up’. This was back when I could talk and climb at a good clip. My suggestions fell on wind-deafened ears. Besides, everyone loves a coach, right? The one of two women in a group of ten or twenty? Right. If I didn’t enjoy riding with them, I was welcome to stop coming, and I did.

Now and then my thoughts turn to statistics. After Cece was killed, a different cyclist lost his life (old, nearly blind motorist plowed into him at the shore of the reservoir), and I began leaving notes on the kitchen table. I’d never been the kind of person to leave notes or be predictable, findable, and expected back, but this felt really bad. A third, life-wrecking crash followed in 2007 when a motorist hit Blake Herod head-on as he rode his Triumph motorcycle on a clockwise tour of the reservoir.
I had to call his widow, Barbara, to verify that yes, there was a peloton…but she adamantly insisted that a) the bikers saved her husband’s life and b)the motorist was solely to blame. “Someone gave me the name of a bigshot lawyer in San Francisco, who advised me to sue the cyclists….because they were the ones with the money! Of course we did nothing of the sort.”

Blake, like Charlie, was a maker, and the total loss of his right arm set him back, but he took up painting and drawing with his left arm. I have not gotten Charlie to feel like doing any artwork, though his impressive drawing of a cluster of oak leaves on the branch gave me so much hope 3 months after the brain bleed.

He doesn’t care to draw, though, and his Stubbornness Chakra was unaffected by the TBI.

Back to the sadniversary… a perusal of today’s Marin paper, the Independent Urinal  shows a slew of crashes, several DUIs, which, along with the hit-and-run of a UC Berkeley lawyer who was standing off the road, checking his phone as he was out on a ride. If you’re like me, you catastrophize.  Never mind that you’ve never actually been in a car wreck (true!) or had a car hit you (my two accidents were cars turning right as I traveled–too fast, because I was late–on a road, and I assume they just ‘didn’t see me’. But the result was, I hit them in the passenger door, so I call that me hitting a car. Lame, but I am so gripped about having a ‘real’ car crash–the kind where you kiss the head-high grill of a Dodge Ram as it slaloms along through traffic. I have a bit of an anti-Dodge ram bias. I doubt many bikers survive when one of them connects with you.

Oh!! OTHER GRIPE!!! Police reports that use Strange Language!  “The car contacted the cyclist in the intersection”….Charlie and I used to re-write news about violent incidents a la  police blotter speak:   “the sheriff’s bullet contacted the victim in the back”, etc..

Despite my cynicism, I have to at least pretend to believe that despite those sad news stories about the rider who was just out on a grocery run, etc etc…. Death By Inattentive Murderist isn’t how I’ll end up. Still, you’ll see on my helmet: “Future Kaiser patient # 146444325”

I need a beer. Or two. A  couple days ago Cece’s ex-boyfriend Larry blew past me coming down White’s hill, and I clung to his wheel. He was going to Gestalt, and I uh…cadged a beer from him, having no gelt on me at the time (which is most of the time).

Going to go to his house RIGHT NOW with a couple of Sierra Nevada pale ales, and a note apologizing for putting him on the spot at that noisy, delightful bastion of bikers hard and soft…I must repent my  Old Jacquie ways.  I must always travel with a tenner in my pocket.

I am quite sure every one of the bikers that were involved in that painful, indelible incident are thinking of her. Every September. Like clockwork.
It does get easier to bear, and riding, unsurprisingly, makes that possible.

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I guess I wasn’t listening to Steve Miller’s band in 1969 when I was fourteen…otherwise I would have heard of the above-mentioned song! The lyrics are juicy & strange :

The last wombat in Mecca. Take 1.

There’s some things I can’t find
Some are better left alone
There are few things I won’t find
Some are better left alone
Like that bulldog in the bathroom
Like that wombat on the phone

As I float in my leer jet
Without a sling shot or a shield
As I hang in my leer jet
Without a shotgun or a shield
Hey, a flying saucer wobbled past
With a bulldog at the wheel
Yeah

Can you give us a description
Said the air force on the phone
Can you certify you’ve seen this
Said the air force on the phone
No, but here’s his passport
And his teeth mark’s on the phone

If I take a long vacation
And nail my bulldog to a wall
If I leave this smoggy nation
And nail my bulldog to a wall
If my bulldog keeps his mouth shut
Will you remember me at all

I learned about this song when I met a gent at the Marin Museum of Bicycling & Mountain Bike Hall of Fame this afternoon.  When I visit the museum, I like to introduce myself with a card (usually Craig Coss’s fine “queen” card–available for $2 and a SASE, send it to the museum). The permanent exhibit has both Charlie’s first bike and my racing machine, Otto, which features a bunch of Wombat-phernalia under my bike’s red tires.  When I pointed out the acronym for Women’s Mtn Bike & Tea Society, he shot back “Like the Last Wombat in Mecca?”

Whoah!!! Never heard of it.

“Steve Miller Band” he said helpfully.

He recounted how he had founded a tofu-empire called Wildwood. With my velcro memory for unpleasantness, I flashed on the acrimonious split-up, leaving impoverishment and simmering resentment. Having lived thru a similar situation torn from the pages of Capitalism’s Playbook (i.e. the canny business person will take every advantage and leave others with nothing)  with Charlie, I couldn’t resist asking “are you all still friends?” And surprisingly he answered.

“Well…no, X thinks we’re friends but we’re not, and Y…. (no comment) and Z  “is no longer with us”…
“Which of you made out the best?” I asked devilishly.

“I did”.

Need more be said?

Oh yes!
He brandished his card. It showed the logo of the very successful vegan ‘cheese’ company that adjoins the museum.
“Oh! You’re with Miyoko’s! I LOVE YOUR DUMPSTER.”

He dropped his head, leaned on his cane and growled, “that stuff is in there for a reason.”

“Well, I sure appreciated the ten pounds of organic cashews I gleaned two months ago. Still roasting and spicing them up…and the coconut oil is top-notch.”

He went out to his Tesla and got me a copy of his hit record, “Just Invoke the 33rd”.  Gonna listen to it real soon.

WH

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