Toadstools, or What to do with Fungi

Extreme and excitement were the key words when we were looking for something to do around our homestead. A few of us had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), including Mom, so we got bored easily.

Now, our property ran along the Wisconsin River approximately a quarter of a mile or so. Most of the property had a high hill you had to descend before reaching the river. It made for some fantastic views - especially in the winter when all the leaves were off the trees.

The property consisted of a large open field surrounded by wooded areas which met up with the road running along the property to the West and South. There were pockets of pine trees where nothing would grow on the ground but mushrooms. We had an especially fun grove of pine trees that lined the driveway leading up to the house. On the South side of the driveway it was almost like walking into another world blanketed by tree canopies. We spent a lot of time playing in and amongst those trees. On hot summer days, it was always so much cooler in there that we tried to linger and play as long as possible.

In our quest for something fun and exciting to do, one day Kory, Angé, and I (I don't remember if anyone else was involved) decided it would be a great time to gather up some of the rather large mushrooms that grew in and amongst the pine trees. The idea, then, was to ride our bikes around and throw them at each other to see who could last the longest. Far be it for us to ever check to see if the mushrooms were edible. We were pretty much certain they weren't. We didn't like eating mushrooms anyway.

We gathered our ammo and were soon riding willy-nilly around the property attempting to land a good one on each other. Well, as it usually goes with children, things got a bit heated. Then suddenly, Kory landed one big mushroom right in Angé's face and mouth! She likely would have died! I mean, it plastered her from one side of the face to the other, and a big chunk of it was in her mouth. It was a sight to behold.

I'm not sure if her biggest fear was that she thought she was poisoned, because of getting that non-edible mushroom in the mouth, or that her ego was just damaged for getting hit (and in the face) in the first place. We were a bit scared for her, although I believe Kory and I had a pretty good laugh over it. Nevertheless, it calmed us down, and Mom didn't have to worry about us rough-housing for the rest of that day. Funny how a good scare would do that to a person.

I haven't checked with any of my brothers and sisters lately, so I don't know if Angé ever lived that one down. It made for a great memory, though.

To Air or Not to Air

The great outdoors was a great place to grow up. We loved being on the river, and all the property on which we had to roam. One would have thought we would have become avid fishermen and hunters, but in reality we didn't get into much of those activities. I think it was partly because getting the right gear was quite expensive, and we were not ones to be able to afford a lot. I mean, since we were right next to a power dam, the low side of the dam made for great fishing. Many people would fish there in the summer. We would go out and cut down a birch or cherry sapling, and that was our pole. Then, when we saved up enough money, we would buy some line, hooks, sinkers, and a few bobbers. We would go down to the river and fish right alongside those fishermen with the expensive equipment. Usually we would come away with more fish than they did. Of course, all we caught were panfish, bullheads, and succerfish. Those guys were after walleye. Nonetheless, that was how we were usually outfitted.

It was a happy day when we started to get BB guns. We loved shooting everything we could find - and we had lots of room to do it, too. Kevin and Kory got the Daisy air rifles, while Kurt and I got Marksman Repeater (model 1010) air pistols. Our pistols didn't have much power, so we were always envious of the rifles. We just loved playing with guns, anyway - real or not. We even made guns from cutting out boards in the correct shape, and going around playing army, cowboys and indians, or just pretending to hunt on our own. When we got a toy air rifle, it was still pretend, but the thing looked more like a real gun.

One fine summer day I was out with the air rifle playing on the bridge that crossed the power dam. I was enjoying myself (alone - as I usually was, even in a big family) pretending to shoot "enemies" all over the place - especially down in the water. Lo and behold, along comes Kory and decides it's his turn to play with the air rifle. I was maybe 10 or 12, and Kory is about 3 1/2 years older than me.

So, here we are standing on this bridge with just a horizontal rail about 2 1/2 feet off the ground to keep people from falling into the river. Kory grabbed the rifle and wanted to take it from me. We began to wrestle with it pretty hard. Our struggle continued for a bit when suddenly we're leaning over the rail and the rifle just flies out of both our hands. Kersploosh! Into the rushing current it went - never to be seen again. I think I just stood there for awhile in amazement, and sorting out what had just happened. I was disappointed in losing that air rifle. I don't remember if it was a general property item, or if it belonged to Kory. No matter, it was lost, and with it I lost my power of imagination for that day.

I don't know if we ever did get another air rifle, but I have always reflected on how quickly we lost something (precious to me at that time) by selfish desires and not being courteous amongst each other. That experience has always stuck with me over the years, and maybe it's just now that I realized the lesson to be learned from it.

I love all my brothers and sisters, and Kory was one of my heroes. We did a lot of extreme sports together. He was my hero. Even in his 50's he's still doing many extreme sports. Maybe one day we'll get together and reminisce about the air rifle episode, and compare what lesson we have learned from it (if he even remembers it).

In the meantime, to borrow a couple of phrases from Red Green, "Keep your stick on the ice" and "if the women don't find you handsome, at least they'll find you handy."

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Of Motorcycles and Men II

(Update 2/27/14: Part I used to be on my Myspace blog.  I'll repost here soon.)

I've loved motorcycles since I was very young. I mean, when I was around 9 or 10, we began pretending we were riding dirt bikes around our property, or our vacation property at Hodag Lake near Rhinelander, WI. We would grab a stick about the size of a set of handlebars and run helter skelter all over the place pretending we were jumping, skidding, and even wiping out on our dirt bikes. We even had the sounds down with shifting and everything. As we got more bold, we began using our bicycles as dirt bikes - riding on dirt trails, jumping (I mean really getting a fast run and jumping over high road embankments). We're talking well before BMX bikes existed. We would strip down our Hiawatha's, taking the fenders and all other unnecessary items off so they were as light as possible. The only thing better would have been that they were motorized (we just didn't have the resources or know-how to do that).

My father was the real impetus behind me loving motorcycles, though. He used to tell us about a Harley 74 he had back in the '40's or '50's. A Harley 74 had a 74 cubic inch motor (around 1200 cc) - quite large for the day. It would have had a suicide shift (hand shifter along side the gas tank) instead of a foot shifter. He said he had it up to about 90 mph on a dirt road once, and it scared him to death. I don't know how long he had it after that, but he didn't ride motorcycles again until the early '70's.

In 1971 Dad got the bug enough to get a new bike. I guess by that time all my siblings and I were here on the earth, and they must have determined they weren't going to have any more children (must have figured 10 was enough). He went to the nearest Honda shop and brought home a brand new Honda CB350. That bike was much smaller than a Harley 74 (about 1/3 the size engine wise), but I guess he figured that after so much time of not riding a bike, he was better to start off small and work up. I thought it was the coolest thing (albeit it is quite a small bike to me now). I mean, I had never really been up close to a motorcycle let alone ride on one. I remember he paid something like $841 for it, which seemed to me like a million dollars back then.

Well, Dad and my older brothers all cut their motorcycle teeth on that (now) piece of history. He even taught my mother how to ride it - that was a nerve-racking proposition (and thing to watch). Us smaller children loved to go for rides on the back. The only mishap with it was when Kory laid it down in the gravel along a county road somewhere. I don't remember why he ditched it, but I remember Dad was pretty upset with him over it. Kory has always been quite adventuresome, and he always pushed things to the limit. I took after him in that department somewhat.

Well, the next summer Dad decided he was ready to move up to the big boy's toys, and he came home one day with a brand new Suzuki 750GT. It was the hottest bike going at the time. It was affectionately known as the "Water Buffalo", because it was a water-cooled motorcycle. No one had built a water-cooled production bike before, and this one just screamed. I remember it was purple and white in color, and it looked fast just standing still. It had a 2-cycle engine (at the time 2 cycle engines had much more power and speed than the 4 cycle engines had). All fast Japanese (called rice-burners) bikes were 2-cycle at the time. (For those people who don't know engines, the difference between a 2-cycle and a 4-cycle engine - commonly referred to as 2-stroke and 4-stroke - is that a 2-cycle engine has only 2 strokes of the piston for it to complete a "cycle". In other words, the piston goes up once for the air/gas mixture to be compressed for igniting by the spark plug on one side of the cylinder as it pushes the exhaust from the previous igniting out the exhaust port on the other side of the cylinder. The plug fires when the pistion gets to the top of the cylinder, which pushes the piston back down for the power stroke, and to take more air/gas mixture into the cylinder for the next cycle. A 4-cycle engine takes four up and down movements to complete the same thing. The 2-cycle engines do not have oil in their crankcase. The oil has to be mixed with the gas in order to lubricate the engine. 2-cycle engines have a distinct sound to them as well - a sort of extended wauh sound. Smaller 2-cycle engines have more of a wing-a-ding-a-ding sound to them.)

Well, this screaming purple people eater would easily top 100 mph. In fact, Kory (of course) and I were riding on it one day (I think just for a joy ride), when he asked if he should punch it. I told him to, "Go for it!" We were doing 103 mph in no time flat! Now, we're talking well before the days of the crotch-rockets most youngsters have nowadays. This bike would have been coveted by most of them by today's standards.

Dad had one major mishap on the Water Buffalo. One night, he was travelling home from a church meeting some 22 miles away from home. Remember, we lived in the woods, so all his driving was through wooded countryside. He was just 2 miles from home, and turning onto the road that goes by our house. He was coming in the back way, and the road was more of a "Y" than a real turn, so he did not have to slow down much - just lean left and he would be on the road. Just as he was about to bring the bike back upright, he saw a dark flash in front of him, and "POW" he was down and all over the road! Fortunately for him he had installed highway crash bars to help protect his legs, and he was wearing a motorcycle jacket (even though it was vinyl, it still protected him pretty well). All riders were required to wear helmets back then, so he was wearing his headgear. He had hit a coyote. Had the bike been more upright, he might have survived not having to go down on the pavement. No one really knows what might have happened. I think it cost something like $350 to put the bike back together again, and it was as good as new. I wish I could have said the same thing about his motorcycle jacket. However, Mom put some vinyl patches over the worn through holes, and he was good to go again. He eventually got a new leather jacket and handed that patched one down to me.

Over the next couple of years Dad ended up selling the Suzuki (maybe he thought it was just too dangerous - I don't know). He bought a 1972 BMW 750, which was much better suited for travelling - which is what he started to do with Mom. In 1974, he traded off the Honda 350 and bought a new Honda 500. That was one of the best bikes I ever drove back then, but I ended up totalling that one out (not my fault), but that's a story for another day.

To this day I still love getting out and riding a motorcycle. Part of the reason is that all during my teenage driving years, during the summers at least, a motorcycle was my main mode of transportation. In 1976, I wanted to buy a car of my own. I was planning on college in the fall, and wanted a car to use out there. I had picked out a 1968 Mercury that a friend wanted to sell. It had just 80,000 miles on it (a lot for cars of those days), and he only wanted $250 for it - something I could actually afford. Dad didn't really want me to own my own car (I've never really figured out why.). He began to elaborate on expenses - insurance, maintenance, etc. He encouraged me to consider a motorcycle instead. I was greatly disappointed that he didn't support me in getting a car, but I reluctantly looked around for a motorcycle. It wasn't reluctance because I didn't want a motorcycle, we already had two or three in the family, and I could have access to one just about any time I wanted, but it was because I really wanted a car. I found and settled on a little Yamaha RD200 that had been owned by an elderly man who didn't drive it like a 2-cycle motorcycle should be ridden. In those days, Yamaha made some of the fastest street bikes around. Since they had 2-cycle engines, they had to be taken out on the road and really wound up periodically to keep from having carbon buildup in the engine and exhaust. To make a long story short, the bike ended up being a lemon for me, and I was finally able to sell it a year later. I've owned a few other bikes in my time, and lamented not having one during the years when I didn't have one. Spring was especially the hardest time, because the warm weather would bring out the bikes and I would get "spring fever".

I have a newer bike now (2001 Kawasaki Vulcan 750), so I am at least content to be able to get out and ride on the open road. It's not my ultimate ride, but it's great for commuting back and forth to work, and for short trips on nice weather days.

Update: I sold my Vulcan 750 in April 2010, and bought a 2003 Kawasaki Vulcan VN1600.  Lots more leg room, much bigger bike for long trips, and electronic fuel injected.  I've already put more than 13,000 miles on it, and am riding it on good days in the winter.



Additional update: In April 2017, I was finally in a position to purchase a new motorcycle.  I wanted to get the best.  Since Polaris Industries purchased the Indian name and rights, they have been producing some great motorcycles.  I looked at the Harley CVO Road Glide Ultra Classic, but it felt much more top heavy than the Indian.  So, after a couple of test rides of the Indian Roadmaster I pulled the trigger and bought one.  My oldest son made a deal with me to trade for my Vulcan.  So, he now has another bike, and I have my dream bike.