The Last of the Snowbirds

Sad & lonely ... I went for a late afternoon walk thinking this is one Friday I really don't want to stay home and I really don't want to meet the girls at one of the bar-bars.

Walked into the condo dripping with sweat to see a message on my phone - Good Randy. I thought he had left for White Lake, already.

I met Good Randy when I first moved here two years ago. His house up north is within an hour of everywhere I've lived in Michigan; it's on one of the most beautiful lakes in the area.

Hanging out with him and his friends is like being home without having to go there. They drink too much, they're car freaks, they're outrageous, they're rabble rousers ... they are a hell of a good time.

Most important, Randy is a long-time smoker who has just gone through months of radiation for throat cancer. I've been worried about him.

I called him back and he croaked "can you come out and play tonight?" Relieved that I would have a chance to say good-bye before he goes home, I said "give me time to shower!!"

He was there at the Lighthouse Tiki Bar with his younger brother and a slight departure from the usual suspects. They'd met some women at Matanzas and Randy was sharing smokes with a surgical nurse from Sarasota.

Yeah, I know. Two people who really SHOULD know better.

Apparently I had just missed a fight - this one was particularly interesting. Lighthouse is a colorful bar/restaurant surrounded by a smallish 3-story hotel. I am told a man and woman were passing the sandy path to the bar when the woman insisted they have a drink.

"The guy grabbed the woman's arm so hard it was like he was going to tear it off." He dragged her away from the bar, upstairs to their room.

Someone heard the man say he had a gun, so employees called the cops. It sounds like a guy cop and lady cop answered the call at the room ... and the woman was wild with booze. The lady cop tried to calm her down and the woman responded "you keep your effin' hands off me you *&%$" - at which point things got physical and the drunk woman hauled off and nailed the guy cop, cutting him near his mouth with her nails.

Holy crap, that is not a good thing to do anywhere, but especially not here. You do not fuck with these cops. They make wise guys seem like girl scouts.

They dragged her away. I told the employee who was telling the tale "well, she gets a free room tonight." And he said "yup - three hots and a cot!" (I never heard that one before.)

So the rest of the evening was pretty much local gossip, extreme flattery and circle-talking on the part of Good Randy who'd had too much to drink, some good conversation with his brother and a lot of attention from a beautiful little gray and white cat with bright eyes and a large bushy tail.

Randy asked me to dance and I went reluctantly. For good reason. He held me close and said "those are real!" Like he'd discovered Penicillin or something.

I went back to the table and warned the other ladies that Randy was a grinder and a groper and they'd better be careful. Which was a lie, of course, but a boost to his ego.

I excused myself to go to the john and was confronted by two hot NY cops who waved a badge in my face declaring they were the boob police. Without skipping a beat I said I was just checked on the dance floor and they bent double with laughter.

Good Randy wants to take the boat out a few times before he and his brother head back mid-week. Maybe tomorrow, it all depends on the weather. They want me to come up and stay a while, they especially want me to come up for the Woodward Dream Cruise, which is on my birthday.

We'll see. I'm definitely going up, I just don't know when.

Between a potential kayaking date and this upcoming boat ride, there is some hope for a fun weekend after all:-)

Unconditional Love

My Gram was a classic dumb blonde ... a glamour girl, more style than substance, with beautiful clothes and airhead ways.

She would hate that I used this photo ... her hair just out of curlers and I can almost smell the cold cream.

Gram's oldest daughter came home pregnant with me at 15. In 1950, that was scandalous.

My biological father ... a second-generation German named Karl Smith - never wanted to set eyes on me. Never did.

I think an attorney squeezed a thousand dollars out of his family to pay for my mom's c-section; Grandpa drank it. (I don't trust my memory on details - they could never be discussed without extreme emotion - even now. )

Around the time I was born my grandfather - a charming story-teller, capable carpenter and talented artist - was sliding the slippery slope into manic depression. My appearance around this time should have been the straw that broke my grandmother's back. That's what I think of when I look at this photo. With all that was going on in her life, she found a place in her heart for the little bastard.

Mom married a jazz musician when I was 2. He adopted me, gave me his name and we three moved to Philadelphia. Apparently I was a mess without my Grandmother, so she came for a visit. When it came time to leave, she woke up early in an attempt to sneak out while I was asleep. To her delight I woke and raised such a fuss she had to "take me home."

When my mother's marriage failed, we moved into Grandma's little white house permanently. By then Gram had a job at the phone company. Life was good - she taught me to shop, taught me to dress, taught me Finnish women are STRONG, taught me sex is eeeee-vil, got her first face lift, cried like a baby when we finally parted ways at my first wedding ... ignored my second wedding and bought me dog grooming mits for the third.

I saw her every week whenever I could - which was almost always.

When she retired she told me "when I get my retirement checks, I buy clothes. If there's any money left over, I buy food."

She liked lunch at Hudson's Eastland, where the rolls were crisp and warm. Once in a while we went for Chinese. That's where we were when I realized her gears were slipping.

Her pupils got very small. She looked up from her soft, sweet white roll and said "when you were born we were thinking about ..." She was getting alphabetical by then. I started at the front of the alphabet ... "Adoption?" I knew they'd talked about it.

To my surprise, she said "no, it was something else... ABORTION, that's it!"

Those words from her lips cut into my heart like a knife. Not only to think it, but to speak that word to me. Something told me if she was right she wouldn't say a thing like that, so I pulled myself together and said "well, it's a good thing you didn't."

Her eyes were still mean little pinpoints.

"Why?"

I smiled.

"Because you'd be paying for your own lunch."

Her pupils went back to normal size and she managed a nervous giggle.

The dementia took a long time to fully manifest. One of her last favorite memories was of the time in Philadelphia when I wouldn't let her leave. By then she was "leaving" as I watched. Seeing her mind die as her body perservered was heartbreaking.

On good days at the nursing home I could still see little glimmers of recognition and hear tiny reminders of our shared past. It didn't matter that sometimes she didn't know who I was or why I was there; the visits did me good. I could still wrap my arms around her fragile sholders or plant a kiss on her furrowed brow.

I can remember the last time I saw her outside at the home. My cousin Tom and I were her favorites. It was a beautiful spring day and we were seeking comfort at the knee of the one who had always been so ready to give it.

She went to the other side two years ago yesterday - just before her birthday. She would have been 98.

I thought I could get through the anniversary of her passing ok, but I can't. I am still a mess without my Grandmother.

I knew when she passed, she would come back in spirit. Which she has - with a bit of a vengeance at times, in dreams and in shaking of things. Most of it's very playful, but some of the dreams seem to say she won't be happy until she sees me again.

Unconditional love. How often do you find that in life?

How much do you miss it when it's gone?

Name That Tourist

I thought everyone went home already, but I was completely wrong. There was a traffic jam before and on the bridge to Fort Myers Beach yesterday afternoon.

I wanted to watch the Red Wings game from the comfort and craziness of the Lighthouse Tiki Bar.

Watching the Red Wings makes me feel more connected with family and friends in Michigan and being at the Lighthouse keeps me connected to friends here.

I posted the last-minute event to my meetup singles group ... sort of hoping nobody would show. Sometimes spectating alone from a distance is more fun than joining in.

If you sit at the back of the bar, you can see it all ... something like seven TVs and the entire crowd; well, everything but the band. Yesterday it was the Dianne Russell Band and they were in rare form.

Within a few hours everyone was.

Haven't seen ... I'll call him "Jim" ... in a while. He saw I'd actually posted an event and rushed out with bells on. Like me, he works at home. Like me, he has to work hard at not becoming a total hermit.

Into spirituality, yoga, health and wealth, he's an interesting guy to talk to. This to the total annoyance of my friend Donna who ALSO talks nonstop and appreciates a captive audience.

If I'd had one of these on each side, my ears would have fallen off or my brain would have exploded.

Donna finally wandered off to find someone who would give her their full attention.

Normally brilliant and funny, Jim was on fire yesterday. He pointed discreetly to a couple standing 3' away and gave me a knowing look. "Canada."

I looked to see a large couple in heavyweight carpenter's shorts to their knees and really ugly shirts - but nothing else that might give them away. I said "he's prettier than she is ... but how can you tell?"

"Mullet."

How did I miss that? Not only was it a mullet, it was a PROUD mullet, finely layered with care. He paid money for that.

The table across from us was next - a lovely young blonde, obviously scandinavian, with a perfect ski nose; with a drunken asshole. The blonde's mother sat getting increasingly annoyed with her daughter's boyfriend.

"Michigan" Jim says.

I could see how he'd think that. But later he found they're from Buffalo.

I find people from Buffalo very close to Michiganders when it comes to personality and humor, but usually not in looks. Buffalo has more Italians and swarthy types.

Several scantily clad ladies, late twenties to early thirties in cheap fringey tourist-wear coverups from the local grocery store were present, annoying everyone within earshot with their screeching and carrying on.

Jim said "they're homely at home, but here on the beach they think they're cute because they know they can get laid."

A biker Donna and I know walked in with a super hot new girlfriend. He was hoping to find his recent ex-girlfriend who had taken up with a super hot ex-con boyfriend who has "White" tatooed on the back of his bulgey left arm and "Pride" tatooed on the back of his bulgey right arm.

Despite the utter creepiness of the tatoos, he ... I shall call him Parole Dude ... Parole Dude seems sheepish, like a nice guy; ready with a genuine smile and a handshake.

I choose to assume he was pressured into the wildly inappropriate tattoos.

Jim is tall and thin and looks like Peter Coyote. He couldn't understand why the hot bleachy blonde was with the biker guy.

Donna went off on how sexy he is ...

Jim went off on "he has a belly!" ...

Donna went off with "yeah, but he ... (the leather, the Harley, the facial hair, the muscles, blah, blah, blah)

Jim wanted to know what super hot women see in guys like the biker and Parole Dude.

I said "it's the bad boy thing."

He said "where do I get that?"

I said "you grow bonsais ... it's never gonna happen soy boy."

Donna argued that the new girlfriend was NOT hot, not even attractive. Donna is delusional, the woman turns heads; she had bleached white hair and some plastic surgery, but her body was perfect and she was beautiful.

The biker's ex girlfriend is also beautiful, but a different type. More natural, no surgery, with beautiful glowy skin and incredible cheekbones. She showed up later with Parole Dude, long after her ex had left.

Had couple number one run into couple number two, yes - another altercation would have ensued. Rumor has it, there was one the week before. I think the biker was thrown out.

This time my money would have been on Parole Dude pulverizing the ex. Had it been a chick fight, my money would have been on the biker's ex.

The only altercation that occurred yesterday was sissy cocktail throwing that almost turned into full assault. A lot of it landed on Donna. None of that matters, in Florida at this time of the year you're wet from sweat, rain or the misters a lot of the outdoor venues have.

She was drying off when I walked up to her and another biker friend who has a little crush on me. The band had stopped playing music. They were going off on we need a president who will allow torture. Not in those words, of course, but that was the crux of it.

I turned to biker friend and said "they're being haters."

Biker friend said "I was in Nam, I'm all for torture."

I said "I guess we need to take this outside." (Kidding - plus we were already outside.)

He said "In Nam - if I had gooks up in the helicopter with me, I knew how to get them to talk. I'd throw the first one out and the rest of 'em would spill whatever they knew."

Then we changed the subject.

A manly waitress Donna knows from a nearby waterfront bar stopped and hung with us for a bit. She was utterly free range, without shame in words and actions.

The first thing residents ask is if you live here. If you don't, some grant you little worth or credibility. If you do live here, you usually gain instant acceptance.

Manly waitress asked if I live here and I said yeah. Then she asked WHERE I live and I told her near Tanger Outlet and Sanibel. She sneered in my face (not exaggerating) and told me she can see the back of Matanzas from her place.

I notice that once again I am getting nothing but flack from other females. I thought I had reached an age where I am no longer considered competition, but I am suddenly getting SHIT from women of all ages. I got slammed by someone I considered a friend on Friday and there I was getting slammed by a complete stranger.

It is time to go back to the safety and comfort of guy friends.

The music was awesome, the temps were high outside, the breezes refreshing inside and it was an a.d.d. world where there was something to see at every angle, from sports to flesh to humor to drama.

Jim asked "is it always like this on Sundays?"

And I said yeah.

He gets it. Now he knows why I go. He's hooked.

The place is social salvation for hermits.

How flawed are YOU?

Went to another networking event at the Edison last night. The first had minimum attendance - this second event was well attended.

Of course we were lured by that first free drink, along with meatballs, pasta, spinach dip, etc.

Meatballs are not easy to eat with plastic forks.

Free food and the first drink is free. I don't know how they're making any money on this. Maybe - as announced - they really ARE giving back to the community.

Speaking as a resident of the advertising - marketing community, I am understandably skeptical. I'm thinking they're doing ok with alcohol sales. Since there was no true structure to the event, it took a fair amount of alcohol to fortify the self-promotion machine.

The Edison could count on the fact that many of us would stay to listen and dance to music by David C. Johnson of The Neville Brothers (a personal favorite of mine - he gives great motown!).

During the networking event I hung with the chicks at a big table at the far end of the room. (I imagine the correct term for single women over 50 would be BROADS - "politically correct" ain't for me pal.) One particular southern gentleman sat with us, but he did so at his own risk. He didn't mind that he was with a table full of women; he minded that they were all from New York. (?!) Suddenly "Michigan" wasn't so "Yankee" after all.

He drawled "can't you hear the accents?" I said "I don't even notice any more."

It was all very tedious - as expected. Well, I have the attention span of a gnat.

The others drank several drinks, I didn't dare. I was wearing a long skirt. I've seen women who've had a few too many tuck their hems into their panties before leaving the restroom. I guess that's ok if you have a perfect ass ...

Which leads me to our discussion of self-loathing. That was fascinating. I think it started with somebody commenting on my skin, which I turned into "well, it's one thing I don't hate about myself". Then someone said "I can think of two things I don't like about me." I was like "Oh hell, I can easily think of five."

Those of us who could think of five or more were in the minority. I thought that was really interesting.

Like I told my best friend the other day, Buddhism isn't about being optimistic or pessimistic ... it's about being REALISTIC. It's about loving yourself and others for who you all REALLY are.

We met a few interesting people. Our unofficial social director glommed onto a hunky massage therapist and his eyes lit up like little stars when she brought him back to us. I got a strange vibe. So appropriate - later we were introduced to his associate who specializes in sex toys.

I dunno, the combination diminished his credibility.

I will end this blog (appropriately) with the fact that one of my favorite crazy girlfriends was hit on by her PROCTOLOGIST last week. She's scheduled for her colonoscopy this coming week.

Euuuuw. Maybe he's buying her dinner first ...

A world where women are in charge.

At Lugu Lake in China, Mosuo women call the shots, own the property, freely choose (and discard) sexual partners and keep the faith, which is a blend of Buddhism and Animism.

As in the Jewish tradition, the lineage passes through the mother. Unlike most cultures, in this one from the tender age of 13 the young woman (girl) is able to choose her partner and begin her sequence of "walking marriages". I saw this on National Geographic last night and was so fascinated I can't get it out of my head.

If you have time for a preview of what National Geographic has covered, take a look at this quick video. When you have more time, track down the full program on cable.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/culture-places-news/china-mosuo-apvin.html

I'm BORROWING from some websites I found. I'll post links at the bottom.

The isolation of the Mosuo people, who have lived in the remote lower reaches of the Tibetan plateau for more than 1,500 years, have enabled them to preserve a way of life once common in Tibet. Most of the rest of China believes that "it is better to have a dog than a daughter" and women are treated, at best, as second class citizens.

The Mosuo women, however, are free from such attitudes. Indeed, male and female roles are almost reversed: women run the households, hold the purse strings and - to the fascination of their Chinese neighbours - choose their nightly sexual partners.

Relationships among the Mosuo can last for a night, a decade or a lifetime. From the age of 18 women court the local men. After a coming-of-age ceremony, the woman moves from sleeping near the hearth at the front of the house to her own room at the back where she may receive her lovers.

After a time the women settle down, sleeping regularly with the same man, although they do not necessarily stick with him forever.

Each Mosuo household is headed by a woman who lives with her brothers, sons, daughters and grandchildren. In the evening the adult men leave to visit their partners and the fathers of the children of the house come calling. Such arrangements are known as "walking marriages".

In the Mosuo language there are no words for father, illegitimacy, single mother, widow, jealousy, virgin, or monogamy. The explanation is simple: these concepts do not exist.

Men, who have accepted their passive role, hang around waiting to be picked as a mate or to be told to haul fish from the deep, clear waters of Lake Lugu. It is an arrangement that suits one of the fishermen, Ai Le Shan Ma, 38, very well. Sitting by a smoky fire with his "brother-in-law", Shan Ma claimed that walking marriages take the stress out of a relationship.
He said: "Our 'marriage' is better because it is for love only. I come over at night because I want to. If we didn't get on, if we fought all the time, we would split and find other partners."

Though Mosuo men live with their mother, and are not responsible for rearing their own children, they have the duty to help bring up the children of their sisters. In a Mosuo family, uncles are the decision makers on external affairs. They have an adage, "The biggest flying thing in the sky is eagle, the biggest walking thing on the earth is uncle." When they get old, their nieces and nephews attend upon them until their death.

The dominant role of women in Mosuo society is a unique remnant of a life that was once common in this part of China. As ancient wars took away the men, women assumed control.

The tradition has survived only on the shores of Lake Lugu. Perched at an altitude of 9,000ft, the area first came to Western attention in the 1920s through the writings of Joseph Rock, National Geographic's reporter in China, whose work inspired James Hilton's classic novel Lost Horizon.

This chunk is from a great blog I found from a writer who moved from China to Boston:
http://www.insideoutchina.com/2009/01/mosuo-walking-marriage-on-lugu-lake-2.html
All relationships are based on love. A big matriarchal family with tens of members is filled with joy and peace. Children are loved by multiple mothers. Elders calmly enjoy their final years with a loving family. In another thousand years, will we Han evolve to such an ideal state? But the vanguard Mosuo people already began the heavenly life 1500 years ago.

One morning I was photographing a sunrise at the lakeside, and ran into a bunch of tourists waiting for a bus to return to Lijiang. A fifty-ish northern woman was talking volubly. She said, "Yesterday I asked the young man rowing the boat, 'You sing and laugh all day, do you ever have an unhappy moment?' But he asked me back, 'What is "unhappy"?'

I wasn't convinced and again asked a girl who was washing her hands in the lake, 'Are there times that you feel unhappy?' She replied, 'Unhappy? Why unhappy?'"At this point the northern woman got very excited and raised her voice, "Look! They don't even know what unhappy means! They are always happy!"

Her companion replied that nobody can always be happy. The woman argued, "They don't suffer extramarital affairs or property disputes like in our Han families, why shouldn't they be always happy?"Her friend teased, "Sounds like heaven, then why don't you stay here?"

The woman said seriously, "I really wish I were a Mosuo woman!"

That was the moment I understood why my friend has lived here contentedly for ten years.

Links to sources I "borrowed" from:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1327927/Chinese-men-threaten-lake-of-free-love-where-women-rule.html

http://www.insideoutchina.com/2009/01/mosuo-walking-marriage-on-lugu-lake-2.html

Proceed with caution.

I am SO glad I'm not a guy, a bi or a lesbian. How can people live with women?

Two of my best friends ...

the one was upset last week because the guy she was going to blow off (because he's bad in the sack) blew her off after she got into her cocktails and started drunk texting.

Seems like Wednesday is "drunk texting day". We should either confiscate her Blackberry or bust her thumbs.

The other one is on again, off again, hot, cold, full of rules and contradictions. "He didn't call, he should have called." He should do this, he should do that. I actually called her on it - I said no guy in his right mind will stand for getting mommed to death.

Come to think of it, I haven't heard from her since. Aw crap, may have to find a new beach buddy.

She was driving an interested party insane the other night. First she wanted to dance, then she didn't want to dance. First she wanted to talk to him, then she wanted to talk to someone else - actually had her back turned to him so the poor guy was half outside, getting half-wet in the first summer rains.

He wanted to know why she was treating him so bad. He asked "did I drunk call you the other night? I looked at my phone, I don't see where I called you!" And she said no, she's been having problems with her phone.

When she took off to dance with another guy I told him "don't take it personal - she's just flighty." At which point he confessed he'd had ME in his sights before her but then I disappeared.

Chronologically, that had to be somewhere between him swearing on a stack of bibles that he had a great girlfriend and the time he found her screwing a biker in the john at his marina. (It's not easy wrapping my head around stalking a john to see what your girlfriend is doing. Then there was something about breaking the door down and kicking some ass, blah, blah, blah.)

Or maybe it was around the time he was "dating" the Rosie O'Donnell lookalike we thought was a dyke.

So in front of my friend, the object of his desire du jour, he turns to me and says "I don't even HAVE your phone number." After talking about drunk calling. No, I don't THINK so. Despite the fact that all people from Ohio are pretty damned nice at the core, NO!

It's insane. It's stupid. It's junior high.

It's entertaining:-)

(About the photo in this blog - I have no doubt whatsoever that this is EXACTLY what my mother thinks Florida is like; all snakes, alligators and realtors.)

Yeah, I've got some 'splaining to do.

Where have I been for the past two months? Well, in this order ... entertaining my son, DIL and granddaughters, acquiring freelance clients, doing yoga, going into anaphylactic shock from bug bites(twice, including a very embarrassing incident at the local Taco Bell) and totally letting someone into my life for the first time in a very long time.

We kayaked by daylight among the manatee and dolphins on Tarpon Bay, we kayaked on the night of the full moon and watched it rise red and gorgeous over the inky blackness of San Carlos Bay.

There were two disastrous dismounts on my part, one on Bunche Beach in the afternoon - I managed to get myself tangled in my paddle in 2' of water to the delight of some crotchety cacklers on the beach - and shown here, me the retard the night of the full moon. I guess if I had tripped at another angle, there could have been two full moons ...

The water is bath temperature right now.

"We" were getting more wonderful in every way with each passing day. Then he went home on Thursday. It's not easy going back to my old life, the usual suspects in the usual places. It used to be fun. Now it's just painful.

Today an interested party asked "Where ya bin?" And I said "dating a snowbird." What a crass way to sum up incredible intensity.

And he looked at me like "Wow, I had no clue you were that stupid." But what he did say out loud was "well, you have no one to blame but yourself for the pain you're in." Amen. Amen. I've been pouring heart and soul into that guy for months knowing I might never see him again.

"Dance like nobody's watching ... love like you've never been hurt."

Last night - my third night without him - was worse because I had a big interview scheduled at the Iron Rhino in the morning. The Iron Rhino is a biker bar south of Naples. The client didn't even bother to show up - he trusted me to do it right.

I'm used to the agency mentality wherein you bend to another's creative will. At first the thought of not having anyone to answer to was frightening, then I realized this is my chance to do what I have always wanted to do. Let real people tell real stories in their own words.

Dan, the videographer, was ready to bend to my will but I can't work that way. These things have to be an interplay of who does what best.

My client is a prominent local attorney devoted to the safety and well-being of bikers. I met this particular biker at Mash Bash a few weeks back. He's 315 lbs. of muscle, big as Grisly Adams with hands that are more like paws. His eyes reveal the physical pain he's in, but his words are SO soft.

He is the typical biker as I have come to know them - no bullshit, heart of gold. A husband, a father, a really good guy.

His name is Wiley. On March 19 he was stopped at a light on his way to work when he was rear-ended by a 300M at 40mph+. The driver was changing radio stations; instead, he changed Wiley's life.

Wiley hurtled forward 80' before smashing into a minivan. He held onto the bike with such ferocity that the handlebars were bent back to his knees and he had to be peeled off the bike.

He doesn't remember a thing; but his wife remembers everything that happened after that.

By the time she made it to the scene all there was was a bloody bike. She had no idea what to expect, whether he would live or die. The cops had declared it vehicular homicide because they did not expect Wiley to live.

I meant to interview Wiley alone when it occurred the story would be more powerful if they told it together. I could picture the giant protector of a man helpless in bed with his tiny wife trying to hold their lives together.

At one point during taping he reached out to hold her hand, they bowed their heads and lost it. We'd been having a problem with background noise in the bar, but at that point you could hear a pin drop.

You could feel their pain. You look in his eyes and you know the physical pain has not gone away since the accident.

You understood that nobody can just walk away from something like that. They both have a long way to go.

Lives really do change in a heartbeat. That theme would play itself out twice in one day.

I got word that another biker had called and asked us to stay til he got there. By the time Russ walked in Dan and I were getting tired. Russ looked tired too. He sat down and started babbling ... then he confessed it might not be a good day for an interview because his 94-year-old mother died the previous night.

I told him my 96-year-old grandmother died two years ago this month.

He opened up and told me at least his mother had been cleared of the battery charges. ???

I thought he was joking ... but no. He said she was in a senior community up in Minnesota and somehow decided - in the middle of the night - that she needed groceries. When she got to the front door with her quad cane - http://www.aboutcanes.com/grqula.html - the night watchman told her "nobody out after 10."

Then he made the mistake of standing in her way.

I can't even picture this - in one swift ninjalike motion, Russ's mom broke the guard's jaw with her quad cane. Then she stepped over the body and walked through the front doors. There were two cops waiting when she came back with her groceries.

I asked Russ if she had her right mind and he said "oh, absolutely."

Then I confessed that I'd told someone at work about my Grandma dying at 96. My young coworker said "Oh, that's horrible. How did it happen?" I said "Knife fight in a biker bar" and it took her brain one full minute to process that information as a joke.

Russ and I had a little laugh. Except that maybe if that had been Russ's mom, that wouldn't be so far fetched.

I told Russ we needed to do his interview some other time, he needed to give himself a break.

He came back within ten minutes and said "you're not going to believe this." A husband/wife couple was riding within a few miles of the Iron Rhino when the husband's bike was clipped by a Jeep Cherokee (?) and both bikes flew. Other riders who happened upon the scene said the husband died on impact and the wife was unconscious with serious injuries to her skull and foot.

There at the Iron Rhino, grown men had tears in their eyes.

It was a tough, emotional day. I left it thinking about the skull symbolisms among the bikers. It's almost Buddhist in that Buddhism tells us to lose our fear of death by accepting and facing it. Bikers are nearly fearless.

If you'll notice, though - these accidents weren't the fault of the bikers, they were the fault of drivers who were not paying attention.

PAY ATTENTION.

And please say a few prayers for Wiley and Susan and the poor woman who will wake up to learn her husband is gone.