A First Impression For 20 Years and More

I watched her walk into the house and sit down on the edge of the couch closest to the door. The almost-autumn, evening sun shone through a large window across her. Her short curly hair ended about level with her smile. She smiled when she talked and her eyes pinched shut as her cheeks rose with each grin. Talk was mostly about school starting again and the perils of sitting next to freaky people on the bus during her commute to the University. She griped like the others about conflicting work and school schedules. She worked at a bank. I listened intently as I was considering staying in Portland but to do what, I was unsure. I looked away or listened-in to other peoples conversation when she seemed aware of me. She wore a black and white striped T-shirt dress that was beatnik cool.

My friend Art introduced me as having just flown in from Belgium. That was mostly true as I had stayed in California for two weeks before deciding to take a trip north to visit family and see what Portland had to offer.

Summer was still in the air and the evening was warm. People mingled and ate bbq'd burgers and chips and drank soda. I sat comfortably listening and watching the girl with the curly dark hair regale story after story with a conviction and sense of telling that I had not ever before heard. Others talked about football or soccer practices. Discussions of the coming ski season, still nearly 3 months away.

 I didn't want to talk about sports. I didn't want to explain bike racing or my dilemma of deciding how interested I still was in wanting to be a bike racer. My internal debate after twelve-years of what it was worth to continue.  Could I bring myself to go another year in  Belgium like the one I had just been through? I needed to leave it alone. I needed to escape from myself. My conflict seemed black and white. There was no middle ground. I was tired. I was sick. I would find out just how tired and sick in the coming weeks.

But that evening, the girl in the black and white striped dress with the eyes that squinted shut as she beamed her infectious smile across the room, made the most mundane stories exciting. That was what I needed. She was vibrant and colorful. In spite of her contrasting dress. She was the embodiment of life's journey. I was a derailed train not making it's destination.

Then, without hesitation as others began to leave, she stood up, walked across the room toward me and put her hand out to shake mine. She spoke loudly as if I was deaf.

I'm Adrienne, do you speak English?

I thought for a moment.  I planned to stay for two-weeks. I knew enough Flemish to fake through two-weeks. I can't do that, I told myself. She's a nice girl.

Yeah, I speak English, I laughed. I grew up in California, that's where I knew Art.

She pulled her hand back. Her face turned pale. She turned and walked away. She wouldn't speak to me again for 5-months.

 

All In

G started 1st grade a week ago. He's no stranger to school as he went through the pre-K farm league before a year in the minors of full day Kindergarten. As you can see by the look on his face, he's all in.

I've waited all summer for this! He said, trying to keep from exploding.

His buddies are all back too so the whole line-up will share in faster, longer, stronger hijinks. They're a tight crew of boys that I hope can play hard and challenge each other all through school. Sometimes they let the girls play their hybrid Parcour-Power Ranger-Ninja games too.

I'm really pleased with his excitement for school. I know it will ebb and flow but a strong start is a good beginning. Even if his favorite part of the day is a tie between recess and lunch.

Fifteen years ago, barely two years after getting married, A and I concluded the one class a term, 16-year college plan wasn't going to work. She had graduated a few months before our wedding, but I had put off college and even had some high-school to finish. I had every intention of going to college, I just all of a sudden was 29.

I was reminded that there were perfectly good skilled labor careers that didn't require a degree. To be honest, I felt like I needed to conquer college if only to prove to myself that my high school experience was a fluke.  I was one of those kids who was too smart to be left alone, but had too much energy for anyone else to keep up. I simply fell through the cracks of the bureaucracy of education.

 A and I brained stormed and mapped out career possibilities that could come from being a Warehouse Shipping/Receiving Lead. It was a pretty short list. Finally, as the decision came to either commit full heartedly to my education, or take a job as a LTL delivery driver, we decided to swing for the fences. We went all in and I quit my job at the end of August.

Like many newly minted college graduates, when we got married, A had chosen the high road, the career where money or benefits were slim but the chance to change the world was the pitch she swung at. In truth it was a crappy job that leaned more towards long hours and abuse than any chance to hit a home run.

In the spring of 1999 she found a slightly better job as an Administrative Assistant. Barely 3 months before I quit my job of 4 years.  By October I landed a part time job at a coffee shop  in the evenings and started riding my bike again for the 30 mile round trip commute to school and work each day. I treated school like a job. I scheduled myself to stay on campus, splitting my time between classes and studying in the library for 7 hours each day.

There were days or weeks of course when school wasn't my favorite. Much was at stake besides just getting good grades. I had to assure my new in-laws that I wasn't just avoiding work or using their daughter as an ATM machine. A recognized how serious I was taking school. She in turn took her job seriously. We had plenty of heated discussions, but we made up every time and resolved to win the game we were playing one pitch, one inning at a time.

Our friends and family supported us as best they could, trying to motivate us to keep on sticking it out and reminding us that once we made it through our college experience our lives would get better.

How could it not? We were slumming in the minor leagues while many of our peers were working their way into middle management, I often thought.

In the end, it took six years. An entire years worth of credits in failed math classes alone. But that is worth a story all its own. A switched jobs a third time, taking with her a growing confidence of her abilities and stepped up to the bigs. She was a major league sugga' momma by the time I was in my cap and gown.

My point is, for those six years, I carried the same motivation and the same energy for accomplishing an educational goal that I see on G's face in that picture. The difference is that I had some life experience, some successes, failures, lean and lonely times and a strong, loving wife to lean on.  He doesn't even know what's coming. Our job now is to help him keep his energy, keep his imagination, but help him confront his challenges head on and succeed.  Before he turns 30. If only so we can finally get this school thing behind us and head south to watch spring training and enjoy a retirement!

30 years ago: Fixed Gear Day Care

 

 

 

The Hellyer Park Velodrome was a dream come true for my mom. Who would have thought a concrete circle with a chain link fence around it would keep her 13 year old son busy for hours at a time?

A year after realizing I could ride my bike way too far from home for my juvenile navigational skills, and a few too many collect calls at dusk from well outside of town, my mom drove me just a few miles away to the only velodrome in Northern California to meet an old man named Ed Steffani.

Ed was retired and the grounds keeper of the track. According to on-line sources today, he was an architect and the designer of the track as well. I'm not sure I knew that way back then. Regardless, 30 years ago, what Ed talked about almost endlessly was the glory days of competing in the 6-Day races on tracks all around the country, especially at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

I would circle around the track on my Univega Gran Tourismo touring bike that was far too big for me, watching him move sprinklers around the in-field grass. I'd practice diving down the banking into the sprinters lane and pretend to accelerate my slow, heavy bike. He'd call me down to take a break and tell me a story then send me back up onto the track to continue to ride around. Throughout the summer I brought friends for competition and Ed would make up races for us to do. Like any good, old-timer, he'd usually include an "unknown distance race" that took the better part of an hour. Most of my friends thought the track was boring and the old man too kookie. But a few of us stuck it out for the summer and for even longer.

I confiscated my older brothers' 10-speed, again too big for me, stripped it down and made it into a single fixed gear bike until I had enough paper-route money to buy an old track bike that Ed dug up for me. I still have it today. It has pencil thin seat and chain stays and ornate lugs. There's even a brass oil cap on the bottom bracket, something I've seen on few other bikes. It was navy blue and faded to a really nice patina. I went ahead and rattle canned it black a few years later. Someday I'll strip it down and have it repainted.

By the middle of that 1984 summer, the all afternoon sessions weren't enough. I was able to race the Monday night training race series. With the women. Not a lot of 13-year olds were showing up to race it turned out and the ladies didn't give much thought to the developing male ego they were crushing. Somewhere I have video a family friend took of me leading one lap and getting lapped 3 laps later. By girls. The summer passed and by August, fully emasculated, I moved up to racing with the category 4 beginner men. My results were the same but I chalked up getting lapped by men as a personal victory.

Regardless of the beatings I'd taken during the Monday evening races, I continued to show up during the week to ride endless laps while Ed drug the hose around the infield, swept the Eucalyptus leaves from turns 3 and 4 or painted the bleachers.  And he always had a story to tell me when I stopped for a drink of water.