What do you find on the floor of a chicken coop?

 

Ready to go....

Genuine Badass

Sometimes I need a harsh reminder of what hardship and struggle may really feel like. Lets face it - I'm soft. No match for what the world is capable of throwing at me anymore. These guys (above), they knew death and destruction on a scale unimaginable. These guys are a tender 19-years old in the picture. It was taken as they were loading up for a raid on Kiel, Germany - early 1945. Top left is Hugh J.(Mac) Maguire (radio and waste-window gunner), Ivy Murphy (ground crew chief), top right Ray Weistling (tail gunner), bottom left my dad (general badass - not a rank) bottom right Ed Thomas (top gunner and flight engineer). When this picture was snapped, none of them had any idea if they would live to see the actual image. It has been nearly 80-years, but I feel a certain sense of responsibility and pride when I look at those big mitt of hands that I would later know as my dad's. He knew how to fight and never backed down. He stood his ground even if it meant taking the short end of the stick. Shortly after V-E day (victory over Europe, May 8, 1944), he called out his left-seater (command and control) in front of other officers - calling him "chicken-shit". That was a term well known in the military during those days, as chicken droppings are the lowest and smallest thing on the farm. It cost him his rank, but what did he care - he was still alive. He sat right in the front of that bird in the background. Those were the guns he fired. As a matter of fact, he was the ship's armorer - responsible for all the guns in flight, as well as the payload (bombs) and dropping them over the target. I know for a fact they were all scared beyond anything I can ever image. These guys are all long gone at this point, but the lessons still burn deep into my soul. Don't be the smallest thing in the farm yard.

Soul Searching and Second Thoughts

2024 CVC Course Map

A couple months ago, I signed up for the Cache Valley Century. It's one I try to use as a gauge toward my position and readiness for LOTOJA. Last Monday morning I woke up very sick. It lingered on all week, but I thought to go and give it a try anyway - after all, I'd paid for the dang thing. An early start meant I had to leave home about 04:30 regardless of how well I didn't feel. I did head up there and jumped out with some pretty fast and incredibly strong riders. Conditions were absolutely harsh. Punishing headwinds made for a brutal ride - for everyone. If I had felt like crap before the ride, afterward I felt as though I had been run over by the gut-truck and sprayed by a farmers shit-spreader at the same time. I can't say it was pretty, but I needed the experience in all it's glory. In the end, I have reconsidered my sorry ass excuse for a life, along with my whining and whimpering. I'm still feeling the effects of being sick - like way sick - but I can work through my misery. If I'm going down, "go down swinging  - for hell sakes!" And if you couldn't hear it, that was my dad laying it out for me. To give up now is simply chicken-shit!

Pulling for Reed

Sometime toward the end of this past week, I received my jersey from Huntsman. From the very beginning, I have always written names of those for whom I would dedicate my sorry excuse for an effort. I will admit, it seems almost cheap in a way, while being a heavy load to carry. From that first year when I spontaneously wrote my cousins name on my sleave just prior to the race, I've felt the gravity of what it means to honor someone else - as cheap as it may otherwise seem. As I looked at that unopened package, I realized how I was being shallow and a quitter all at the same time. Talk about the ultimate chicken-shit, there I was. I know my effort will not end another's suffering, but ....I committed to pull for our brother. I have a few days to get it together. I need to get healthy, but I've had to ride LOTOJA while sick before - albeit a lot younger and more fit. It's never been about me, but here I am making it about me anyway - whatever "IT" is anyway. There is no forgiveness in giving up when someone else wouldn't have the same opportunity to walk away from their personal fight. After all - what does "Ride HARD!" really mean? Do it when it's easy? Time to put it to work and get over my own sorry excuses. I'm doing this thing - and I hope hurts bad enough I learn an indelible lesson.

Mile Post 44

If you've followed this post from previous years, you know what MP44 means. I need to feel that hurt and the satisfaction of making that post for the year. You simply can't cheat that one. I have to earn it all if I want to post about it. And here were are again - talking about "IT". Load your gear. Lets face this one head-on and take it wherever "IT" goes!

This one is playing in my headphones as I finish writing this post.........

Click here for "Cool Change" Little River Band

Pulling for Reed! Ride HARD! (make it hurt  - A LOT!)