UK Soon!

Today I got my bicycle tires filled and took a ride on the bike path which is right at the end of our block. It is a dead end street, you can’t go straight, because the park is there in all it’s glorious splendour. In reading John O’Donohue’s books, he talks about landscapes being part of our soul and being, the invisible threshold and what is God. For 33 years I have lived here and had the gorgeous park and Black Hills right there in front of me to join my day.

The bike path winds along the creek. I rode to the Farmers Market. Fresh raspberries in a big cup for $3.50 was what caught my eye, also the pears and onions, flowers in glass jars from a soon to be gone garden are my favorite. I love those jars and jars and jars of flowers, more beautiful in their simple glass jars than in a fancy vase.

Good to stretch my legs and back on a big mountain bike, given to me as a gift from a boyfriend who I used to do Mountain Bike races with. It is oversized for my long legs and it always feels good to push down on those pedals and spin along.

When I saw the drop offs on some of these paths if you can even call them that, at these races, I realized there were easier ways to get a free T shirt than being 6 inches from the edge of a rocky cliff.  Sundance,Wyoming is a beautiful town and the races there were great. My last race was 10 miles at Dalton Lake. I didn’t care if I came in towards the end, I wanted to do it and enjoy it. I soon had a flat tire, the race coordinators came to assist me. I told them to screw it, I would walk, but they fixed it for me anyway, I wasn’t built for racing, but so I quit the boyfriend and the races and still have the bicycle.

I was just at the bookstore, looking at doll collectors books to put a doll on Ebay that I got from my Grandma Amy’s friends when I was a little girl in Elmhurst, Illinois. It was labeled as being 35 years old on the tag where it was exhibited at the Elmhurst Centennial celebration in 1936.

We can have that much more fun on the trip if I sell it. The Koch sisters, Lettie and Delia, had a brother Robert who discovered something or other and was in my microbiology book when I was in nursing school. They had heavy German accents, I have all their bird hunting books, grand big books from the 1940’s, and one more doll.

Time to call my Dad to see how his day was, and the call my Aunt Anita, to see what she remembers of the Koch sisters and her opinion on the dolls. My dad might know because he and my mom had a flea market booth at Kane County Fairgrounds for 30 years. The years I went with them I have a faith memory of my dad carrying in a huge antique cash register to sell.

That is why I didn’t make it to Woodstock, I told my mom I would go to Wisconsin with her that weekend for some treasure hunts. She had over 800 clocks, with pendulum.

The night before, I had gone to the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, I think I saw Joni Mitchell, but the opening act was an unknown Crosby Stills Nash and Young, their first gig. Nobody knew who they were, but after they played Suite Judy Blue Eyes, the hush was deafening and then we screamed for almost 5 minutes, such a song! If you listen to the Woodstock record after they play it, and the cheers go up, they say,”that’s only the second time we played that in front of people!” The night before was as close as I got to Woodstock, and that is better than missing it, at least I got a piece of it, or a peace of it, however you want to look at it.

I have told that story to everybody I ever met in my life, and also that I met Muhammed Ali when I was a young teenager, right before he changed his name from Cassius Clay. He was walking down Madison Avenue with a posse of men, about 7 men and him, I spied him and ran across the street and followed him into a restaurant. Looking back it was pretty amazing, I was gone so long my mother was still standing there asking where I was for so long. Everybody was familiar with his poetry and  I told him I liked his poetry and I asked him how his new baby girl was, “why, that girl talks more than her Daddy does!” was his response. How generous of 7 black men and Muhammed Ali to stand and talk to a 13 year old white girl and take the time to be so sweet. I feel like I know him when I see him on TV. When he lit the Olympic torch that year we didn’t know who was going to light it, I cried. Now we all love him too.

I got his autograph on my train schedule, but he signed it Muhammed Ali, I was disappointed wondering who would ever have heard of this name???? I never did find that again, think I let it get lost.

I need to live life fully like I used to, I need to and want to live it fully. Being in a small town in South Dakota is getting old.