Chopper

Progress on my veggie patch is often slow. Part of the “problem” is that I so enjoy hanging out with Sarah and TJ. They generally rev their days up slowly and it’s hard not chew the fat with them while they mill around. By the time they head out it can be pretty toasty outside and less pleasant to garden and there goes the day. I lie down and get up with lofty visions of productivity and then let myself get wooed.

I was set to make serious inroads on one of my planting beds the other morning when TJ made this proposal, “Hey Man, you wanna take a ride and check out this job with me…I’m taking the bike”. The job was the removal of a sizeable Blue Spruce…the bike is a throaty, leather and chrome Harley. Digging another planting bed could wait.

In New York I’d roll my eyes every time an idiot would gun the throttle on his “chopper”, rattling windows and setting off car alarms. TJ’s bike has some rumble to it but not obnoxiously so. He assured me that he doesn’t drive fast. As he put it, “It’s a marathon Man, not a sprint.” And there, in a nutshell, is the Dutton philosophy on life. We helmeted ourselves, I hopped on the back and we headed out. Once we turned off the gravel road onto tarmac he turned on the radio. I’ve always thought it was crazy driving a bike that growls and playing a radio loud enough to compete with it. But cruising along behind TJ, the air was so nice, the 360° view was so nice, the feel of going over hills and taking turns was so nice and Van Morisson pulled it all together so well. I got it.

At an intersection where soy beans meet soy beans, we passed another guy on a bike. TJ gave him the international bikers’ salute. "Not everyone believes in the brotherhood," he explained, "but I do".