Sooner Is Better Than Later
Sooner is better than later
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
ALL THROUGH THE COLD AND WINDY spring I’d secretly been priding myself that I hadn’t come down with the flu, while all those around me had caved in. “Must be my iron constitution," says I, “or perhaps good clean living...."
Last Monday, of course, it hit me like a runaway freight train. My knees buckled, chills broke out and I crawled off to bed. I remember hardly anything of the next three days, except having a vague longing for comic books, and dreaming that I was watching Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons with Vicks Vap-O-Rub all over my chest. Essentially, out of it.
On Friday, I awoke with a fond memory of wearing real clothes— with shoes and everything—and walking upright. After pondering that Nirvanic ideal for a few hours, I hove myself out of bed and decided I’d try it. Join the human race again; live a little. So I got up, dressed, shuffled downstairs and made coffee.
Then I stepped outside, onto the porch, and was hit with something even more powerful than the flu: warm air.
It was eerie. The air outside was actually warmer than it was in the house, for the first time since . . . since when? September? The thermometer outside the kitchen door read 72 degrees. An almost tropical south wind was raking through the brown winter grass and the barely budding trees. The last of the glacier on the north side of our garage was melting audibly and trickling into the soft sod. The air smelled of damp leaves and dead mice the cats had caught all winter; a rich aroma of thawing barnyards was carried on the breeze from nearby farms; music to the nose. It was that rarest of things, a Gift Day in early spring, a summerwarm day that comes as an accident from the forceful advance of a warm front out of New Orleans up the Mississippi River Valley, where it temporarily outflanks the usual Canadian cold air off the plains of Saskatchewan, like one of Jeb Stuart’s Confederate cavalry raids, probing the North behind the lines.
And like the cavalry raid, you know it can’t last. The warm air will soon have to skedaddle back to where it belongs for another few weeks, content to have adventured so far north and lived.
When you get a day like this, free and unsolicited, it’s time to ride. Malingering with the flu is no excuse. Patriotic men and women report to their motorcycles at once.
So, I put on some boots and a sweater, dug my leather jacket out of the closet, dusted off my helmet and made for the garage. There, I peeled away the foam insulation strip that sealed the bottom of the big doors and swung them open for the first time since early December. Warm, moist air rushed in and immediately formed a damp haze on chrome and cold metal.
I would just take one quick ride, I decided, a ceremonial spin out of sheer duty, and then back to bed. The Triumph 650 Trophy, with its nonbattery ignition, beckoned because I knew it would be easy to start. And it was. Third kick on stale gas and it was idling. I looked in the oil reservoir to ascertain that oil was pumping, eyeballed both tires for sidewall deflection (accurate within 30 psi), and then motored out the open doors into the false summer day.
Oh, Lordy, riding again. I did a 14mile loop on my favorite county roads, then stopped at the Cooksville general store for gas. It was so warm you could ride with your jacket unzipped. It really was like summer. No
sting to the air. Naturally, when 1 got back to my garage, I didn’t stop there. I started charging batteries, checking oil levels and tire pressures on the rest of my minor museum of weird bikes and, one-by-one, rode them into town for gas. Two of the bikes I bump-started, an effort which left me a little weak in the knees, but I ended the afternoon with a glorious long ride on the Duck, during which I nearly threw it away in a fast corner with a winter's accumulation of sand and gravel, but never mind that. I rode along revelling in the warm sun and the cadence of the big Twin, alternately having chills and breaking out in sweats.
“I’ll pay for this later,’’ I thought. “But I don’t care.’’
The next day, of course, I was sick as a dog. I felt dizzy and beaten up, as though I’d been thrown downstairs maybe 20 or 30 times during the night by a gang of Chinese opium dealers from Shanghai after I’d failed to pay my expensive bar tab. I did manage to get dressed, however, and come downstairs to sleep on the sofa.
At noon I woke up enough to realize the sky was black as night and there was a terrific thunderstorm in progress. Wind buffeted the house, but it finally calmed down and I went back to sleep.
Later that afternoon. Barb came home from work and said several tornado funnels had touched down within a few miles of our house. Four farms were destroyed just over the hill behind our place, and one man was killed. Another man survived in his basement by holding onto a drain pipe as his whole house was lifted away into the sky.
Today the weather is cold, dark and windy, 30 degrees with snow flurries. The fields are still scattered with uprooted trees and small pieces of houses and barns. And garages.
Ancient people used to look for signs and messages in the weather, making much of these strange and restless days of spring. And in my own primitive way, I too have found a message in the events of this week.
When you feel like playing hooky, play it. When the sun is shining, go for a ride. If you need a motorcycle, just buy it. Sooner is better than later. &
