Totally Irrelevant | Steve Tilford

Yesterday I didn’t get out of California until nearly 6 pm. So it was going to be a late night already, but it got worse. There were a bunch of thunderstorms mulling around Eastern Kansas all night, so the last 30 minutes of the flight were pretty choppy. Coming in to land, it got much worse. Bad enough that I got motion sick during the landing. I didn’t like it at all. It takes a lot to get me motion sick on a plane. Guess that was the case. On top of it all, the flight was late, so by the time I got my bike and took the shuttle to the car it was nearly 1:45am.

It was raining like crazy for the 80 mile drive home. I decided to stop at a Waffle House to eat a waffle and get some hot tea, thinking it might calm my stomach. Plus, sitting out the storm for a little bit wasn’t a bad idea either. There were two guys and a girl that worked there, standing outside under a awning, smoking, watching the storm. No one was inside. I said hi as I walked in and they all followed. I told the all I needed was a waffle and hot tea.

One of the guys asks me about the my van and if it came diesel standard. I told him yes. We talked about the van for a little bit and then he went back and made the waffle. The three of them were talking about just lots of different stuff. They started about their hours and how none of them planned to work the next night, but all of them thought they might have to. Then it was about brothers and sisters. They had talked a little bit when the guy that was making the waffle says he has 6 brothers and 5 sisters. The other two didn’t really say anything about his comment. I was thinking, “Wow, how could you pass up a comment on that?”

Anyway, when I left, I asked the guy if he really had 11 siblings. He said yes. That is why he was so interested in the van. He said they all drove around in one, but a bigger one with 4 rows of long seats. I wished the 3 of them a good night and then thought most of the way back upon my 15 minutes at Waffle House. Those guys were working all night for 7 something an hour. The one guy grew up in a family of 14. I felt a lot better after eating. But I think I felt better because I got a stark reality check on what it is like to have a hard day/life. Their situation made my life seem enchanted. Even with the shitty landing.

I ate lunch at the Torrey Pines Glider Port yesterday.

Here's Sue at the Glider Port.

I finally made it to my favorite bakery, Thyme in the Ranch, at Rancho Santa Fe.

I got a cinimmon roll, which was great.

I love Waffle House waffles. Especially at 2:30 am in a thunderstorm.

On a sadder note, the artist Leroy Neiman died yesterday. He was most famous as the artist of the Olympic Games, even though he did much work for Playboy magazine. He was 91, so he lived a long, productive life.

Halloween was last night, as if you didn’t notice. I don’t know how it is where you live, but in my part of the city of Topeka, Halloween is slowly dying and becoming a non-event. There is an area of Topeka called Potwin, and I’ve ridden over there on Halloween night and they estimate that most of the houses get around 1500 trick-or-treaters. That is almost as extreme as the meager 20 or so we got last night.

The first couple kids walking by our house came by right after I got back from riding to Lawrence. It was around 6:30 and just getting dark. They looked like they were going to walk on by, but I told them to go on up, there was pretty good candy inside. Anyway, I was putting my bike into the Isuzu to take it to the car wash to spray it off (it was super dusty today riding). Anyway, I sat there for a minute and realized that there was a car, with a woman in it, smoking a cigarette, following the kids, a house back. Man, what is going on now. These kids weren’t that young, maybe 11-13 I guess. And, if the parent is so worried, why not just follow on foot. What kind of example does this send our children? And how much fun could it be for them going out, knowing that their mom was watching ever move? I kind of understand why there weren’t that many kids, if this is the norm.
I was riding through town earlier and couldn’t believe, once again, how many people have put of plastic trash bags full of leaves for the trashmen. I was thinking how it got to be that each house has these lawns that we have to mow and upkeep.

I think it must of been back over 100 years ago when only the very rich could afford lawns. Then, when the regular guy could afford a house, and the invention of a push mower, some people decided that they would like to be perceived as wealthy and planted a yard. Pretty soon, the combustion engine was mounted on a wheeled mechanism and there was a power mower, which made lawn care that much easier. Now, many Americans pay other people to cut their grass. We have matured and became wealthy enough that we hire others to tend to our grass. It seems so silly and valueless in many respects. It seems to me that if you want to take pride in your yard, you should be putting some personal effort and sweat equity into it. That only seems right.

But, we seem to be migrating away from things like these above. No real Halloween. No kids mowing lawns. Lots of the things that I cherish from childhood have become nearly extinct in just over a generation. I guess that is progression and aging. I’ll have to mull it over for a while to try to figure it out some more.