April 13^th, 2005

muse@bikerenews.com

I'm sure the Parrotheads among you recognize the title as one of Mr. Buffett's finer songs. Like the song says, "I took off for a weekend last month just to try and recall the whole year." Most people reflect on the past year around the Christmas / New Year holidays. I thought it was more appropriate to reflect on this past year on the anniversary of my "rebirth" into the motorcycle experience.

As JB's song suggests, I tried to reflect on a year's worth of riding. The basic stats show that I have traveled:

• US 460 from Virginia Beach to Kentucky
• US 58 from Tennessee to Virginia Beach
• US 13 to Maryland and to North Carolina
• US 17 from Winchester, VA and to North Carolina
• US 360 to the Chesapeake Bay and to South Boston (via Richmond)
• I-64 out to Staunton, VA
• I-85 and I-95 up to Richmond
• A bunch of other roads in Virginia and some in North Carolina

All of this traveling has put 9,000 miles on the Sabre. It is interesting how my perspective changed with experience. When I bought the bike, I thought I would be doing good to travel 6,000 miles a year. But, prior to the rash of bad weather, I thought I was on track for 12,000.

Unlike Jimmy, I wasn't able to "read departure signs" to remember where I'd been. But, I was able to retrace my memories by looking on a Virginia map I highlight after every major trip and by looking over my articles for Biker eNews. While the map is starting to look like the veins on my old legs and provides for a great wall poster, it is the articles that helped me recall what I was thinking about as I traveled those brightly colored Virginia roads.

As for the articles, I realize they are my own clumsy motorcycle diaries. When I ride more, I write more. When the weather slows my riding, the inspiration for my writing suffers. However, in retrospect I saw something more important in my writing. I am starting to realize a significant fact. I think I'm turning into a VIRGINIAN (a state resident, not the cowboy from Virginia working on a ranch in Wyoming).

If you haven't been in the military, you may not understand this. Despite having lived in Virginia for the last 11 years and off and on for 8 years prior to this I had never considered myself a Virginian. I was born in Kentucky, raised in North Carolina and spend the better part of 24 years in the Navy. For me, the Navy was where I lived and whatever state I was stationed in was just a geographic location. After all, how else could I explain living in all those floating communes for six months at a time with several hundred of my closest cohorts.

Now I'm not claiming full VIRGINIAN status. This is a transitional experience. I certainly don't have the grasp of state history that Joe can speak too. I haven't worked myself into the community like Karen and Laurie. I don't know the back roads and associated hazards like Phil. And I definitely can't remember when the Pembroke Mall area was still a cornfield and the City of Virginia Beach was inside a county called Princess Anne (like one of our "Senior" Biker eNews writers - You know who you are).

So what has me thinking I'm turning into a Virginian? Well, I have traveled the Bay Bridge filling my lungs with fresh salt air. I have seen both sides of the bay up to the Maryland border. I know that the Outer Banks really extend up to Virginia Beach whether North Carolina wants to admit it or not. I've been to the Shenandoah Valley and found a forgotten road whose quiet quality is invisible to those speeding up and down that massive six-lane highway called I-81. I chased US 460 through Central Virginia to learn that Blackstone, Farmville, Appomattox, and Bedford are not just names on the map. I've run along Virginia's real southern broader (US-58) for 600 miles to learn how big a state we have.

And, Oh Mama!!! I've been to the Heart of Appalachia and found two-wheel heaven. It was there that I woke in August to feel the cool morning air heavy with a quieting fog turn into a journey of three interwoven actors, the road, my bike, and me. It is a journey that continues eight months after I turned the bike off. I would like to go back to find out if I was dreaming, but I'm afraid that doing it again would spoil the memory.

It isn't just the scenery that has me considering this Virginian thing. I met a biker out in the western part of the state who thanked me for having been in the Navy. An anonymous rider welcomed me to his group ride as I rode up behind them on US-5. While stopped along side the road to get my camera out of my bag, a biker stopped to ask if I needed help. And whether you believe it or not, a cage driver stopped his car to help a bruised and embarrassed Biker eNews writer (I know who I am) pick up his bike after a temporary loss of focus.

How much longer until I become a real Virginian? I haven't figured that out. Like Jimmy, "I didn't ponder the question too long." A couple of weekends ago, I ran into some Biker eNews chums, and substituting coffee for the rum, we talked of things big and small. We confirmed that Mr. B was right about one thing, "With all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

I don't know where this year is going to take me, but I understand Jimmy's philosophy, "Yesterday's over my shoulder so I can't look back for too long. There's too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know I just can't go wrong." See you at a Virginia Rest Area.

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