The Pumpkin Man Rides His Bike

[the mingo]

Working with an old man and his nephew on the banks of an upland river. The old man professes a belief in our Lord of the Daily Bread one minute and calls a broken tool "this motherfucker" the very next minute. One of the hallmarks of belief is its colorful manifestation in action. His nephew (53) & me (64) are doing the actual siding on the old man's house while the old man goes up on the hill where he operates the portable sawmill he has set up in a grove of white pine trees all around with a cooling breeze coming down off the top of the hill. His nephew & I are down at the house in the hot sun handling each board the old man has cut about a dozen times, cutting and sizing & sometimes resizing to get that raw wood processed for placement on the house. I go up on the hill to get some boards, look at the set-up the old man has got going up there & say to him, "Ya big pussy! Ya got the easy money life up here while me & M____ are busting our balls down there in the hot sun!" - " Aw, he says, quit your complainin', you're well fed, besides I'm an old man, I deserve the perks" - then he laughs - I love logic, no matter how twisted, that you just can't argue with - the old man laughs a lot - Mr. No Worries I call him. He has had two bypass operations, diabetes, a former active alcoholic who has put three wives in the ground, watched two more run off and he gets around better than I do. Fought in Korea where the Chinese & North Koreans failed miserably to put him down. "It was the Good Lord kept them motherfuckers off of me" he says & laughs. "ya know those folks wanna force the confederate flag off that building in South Carolina is the same kinda motherfuckin' commie worthless cocksuckers I fought in Korea - no difference whatsoever! what do ya think about that?" - now, do you suppose I said something? No way is right.

All I know is when he gets laid in the ground one of the real national treasures of my country gets covered with the same dirt that will bury him. Some of the young men he gits to work with him laugh at him behind his back because the old man got so much going on in that head of his that he sometimes gets it mixed up. So the young men laugh - I see that & think, "Boys, whatever you think you know ain't no more than the stink off of shit."

I say, "Hey, old man, how about some time off so I can ride my bike, life is short, ya know, besides I'm officially retired", he laughs, says, "Git this job finished that'll be the time to ride that bike" and he laughs again, "time for everything, no worries"

What can I say? The old man has been officially retired too, for 18 more years than me.

the woodcutter considers
selects
imagines the fall
raises his axe

[WIREMAN]

Great story telling

[the mingo]

Thx, Mark - it's my landlord that's the real inspiration for this. More I work with him the more amazed I get. Another thing, when I'm around him for some reason I fail to fathom, Snoopy's Theme gets going in my head. * I don't get it *

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPgewHpf-q4

[the mingo]

Still working on the landlord's house. Yesterday this big flatbed truck pulls up, the two guys in the cab want to talk to ol' J_____ about what they got on the back. Piece of history they were hauling around - bona fide - a road grader from 1927 - completely cast iron, wheels, frame, everything - and everything on it still works - I'm standing there looking at it in awe - the guys hauling it had stopped to ask the landlord what he thought it was worth, good choice since the grader is only six years older than my landlord - there gonna put that piece of history on craigslist ...

Somebody will offer them $2000 dollars less than their asking price and, as long as it is above the current price of scrap, they will go SOLD! & there will be happy campers all around.

History is a very surreal thing. As the boys with the grader pulled away here comes an Amish guy in his buggy, his horse's shod hooves sounding their gait on the asphalt. The driver waved to us as he passed by. We waved back.

I thought about all this much later as I coasted down a mile long incline @ half past midnight on the Ghost of the Susquehanna (two years old ) with a three quarters moon in attendance.
Temp. 79
Humidity 58%
Barometer - 29.94 - steady
No wind

backcountry bridge at midnight
it's only audience
me

[the mingo]

early morning ride - blue asters & Queen Anne's lace along the roadsides say August! Yellow flowers too that I don't know the name of with certainty - I've heard them called "butter & eggs".

June wildflowers gone - July wildflowers have had their day - hard to touch anything these days, everything moving swift as spooked deer
- lots of deer in myth, especially from both western & eastern european regions - think of the label on a bottle of Jagermeister. Never noticed before that there is a verse also on the label of Jagermeister - loosely translated it goes

This is the hunter’s badge of glory,
That he protect and tend his quarry,
Hunt with honour, as is due,
And through the beast to God is true.

One of the things I noticed riding this morning was that August has it's own sounds - the same as any other season or month - just never was brought home to me like it was this morning - I could hear it all around me as I rolled easy down the road and if I were physically blind I would know from my ears alone that it is August not June.

blue beer can brought
to diamond glitter by the sun
recent throwaway

[the mingo]

Lost it on a dirt road yesterday - wipeout ! Someone put a shitload of sand across the track. I was going downhill. Now, I've hit sand patches before and managed to ride it out but not this time. I thought I had it under control but then the bike went violently sideways - I didn't hit the dirt but had to thrust both legs out to the side - came down hard on the seat but ... my balls had swung up between my ass & the seat when I rose up on pedals so when I came down hard on them there was this feeling of discomfort followed by this mass of pure pain - the bike went down, I took about three steps then doubled over then went down - I rolled 'bout a dozen feet down the hill - I was hoping to pass out but was denied at the door - I just rocked supine back & forth there on the earth - five back-to-back bourbon shots was called for but I didn't have any - after awhile I was able to get up, I looked down on the spot and saw I had landed on a dozen black-eyed susans - they were crushed beyond repair, never to rise again.

It was sand that did it - coupled with momentum - there's some kind of science in there I'm sure.

For weeks now I have been thinking of getting wider tires for the Ghost of the Susquehanna - given the backroads around here I think it's time to look to that.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p13yZAjhU0M

[WIREMAN]

O the pain
Hope ur surviving
Wipeout a classic
Mastered on my desk top
In 6th grade

[whoaisme]

after every crash
there's that voice
in yr head, asking
ya gonna get back up
and make a good run?
and there's that
other voice
that says
of course!

[the mingo]

[the mingo]

reading this morning 'bout the development of Japanese literary crit - yeah, enough of that - place for everything but I'd rather roll - ain't had much time to be out - constraints of time -

woke up
this morning
and decided
to squeak with
my mind

[WIREMAN]

Sqwak on the rind
Ride with the tide
Freedom flow
Indianapolis where they go
Ride pumpkin man, ride!

[the mingo]

Yeah the guys out Indianapolis way laying down the fast & hard roll - got balls the size of oranges God bless 'em - don't know if I could ride with that crew - love goin' with them on their vid though & I'm not into stoner rock but that music they use in that vid just goes so well - gets me going too - I just roll, make use of gravity whenever I can - ain't done as much riding this season compared to the last 2 years - landlord keeping me busy during the week - getting out in the middle of the night mostly - lotsa moon & star time, or no moon & just the stars ...

Bought a new rearview mirror for the Ghost yesterday to replace the one that fell apart on me - it's another plastic one but it's fastenings are allen bolts - see how far they get - can't turn my head around as easily these days and I really missed that first mirror when it fell apart -

working today - hope it stays overcast like it is now -

ain't been too successful with the 'ku hunts - tired body, tired mind - I know I have probably missed about 1200 'ku the past couple of weeks - the fields are August dry now & the river is low, in some places as shallow as any creek ...

red leaf
on grey wood
everything just so

[the mingo]

wheels turn
coffee's on
day begins

Still working for the landlord - he's always got his mind into something to do. His 82 yrs shame & humble me sometimes. Those yrs of his awe me too. Yesterday I helped him get up on his roof to add tiles to his chimney. He didn't want a ladder. He stretched his leg across from the scaffold to the roof then grabbed the stone of the chimney and hauled himself across the gap. Got down the same way.

He's as far from a wheelchair or nursing home or sickbed as a hawk is from the moon. I got a feeling when the Reaper shows up he may actually ask my landlord's permission as to if he is ready to go or not.

Moving down the road here to live on the banks of the river. I can look out my workspace window and the river's right there. Drop the kayaks on the water anytime I want. Still got all these backroads to bike on too. Got baby toads living on my lawn. Holy gringo's live up & down the river stuffed back into the trees, also to the side of me and the landlord's just across the road. To quote the old song - "what a long strange trip it's been" - to get here that is. 'Spect there maybe trout in the river too. Not that I fish, just that if I see Field Marshal Rommel in the trees along the banks of the river with the dust of Egypt on his uniform I don't think I'm going to be surprised.

toads on the lawn
birds in the trees
sky over all

Moving more things down to the river house today. Trip or two at a time. I think I'm getting half a garage for storage too. As the landlord would say, "Everything's fine, no worries, we're gone."

Mr. Kerouac couldn't have said it better himself.

[WIREMAN]

Fine as fine can be....sounds like u fell into a fine lifestyle

[the mingo]

It appears I have. By default pretty much. Tug Hill Plateau is about as close to the mountains as I could hope to get due to thin cash flow & circumstances but what the hell - there's haiku, gogyohka, & micropoetry all over the place up here - backroads for biking up the yin-yang - a river for the kayaks flows thru my side yard - and a cast of characters that are hard to describe -

Like you down there in Fredrock it seems I've found a place to be -