Live and let live

I recently celebrated (if celebrate is the right word) getting another year older. Woohoo! Another year older and wiser as the saying goes. Well, at least I got it half right.

No need to disclose the actual number but suffice it to say it was what they (will someone once and for all finally share with me exactly who ‘they’ are?) refer to as a milestone birthday. All I know is that I’ve been on this rock long enough to meet a whole lot of folks. Add in that I spent a fair portion of my career as a recruiter where you truly get to meet all kinds of people, and it adds up to a whole lot of interaction with my fellow Homo Sapiens. As a recruiter I didn’t hire most of those I met. I’d guess the ratio of interviewed to hired was maybe 10 to 1 if I was lucky. That said, I have liked most of the people I’ve met, professionally and otherwise, over the course of my lifetime. 

Haven’t agreed with a lot of them on certain issues. Some of the nicest people I know to this day are folks that I fundamentally don’t see eye to eye with on what I’d consider core issues. Sometimes It’s been a real struggle to even acknowledge that their views have any merit but I’ve forced myself to swallow deeply and fall back on the realization that they may in fact be right while I may be wrong. 

I got a business degree back in the day when one of the folks we studied was a gentleman by the name of Lee Iacocca  who among other things helped bring to market such famous icons as the Ford Mustang, the Ford Pinto, and who ultimately was credited with helping save a struggling Chrysler during the late 70’s and early 80’s. Someone once asked Mr. Iacocca to what he attributed his success as a business leader to which he replied “Being right 51% of the time”. Now, I’d credit Mr. Iacocca with having a better percentage of being right than I have so its not unusual for me to question my own beliefs when someone brings a new perspective to my admittedly small attention span. Looking back (I think we’re allowed that indulgence once a year when celebrating our date of birth) I realize I’ve ultimately changed my opinion in the face of new information more often than I’d like to admit which is always a little disconcerting given how much easier this journey called Life would be if WE were always right. 

Wisdom is a commodity as fleeting as the supply of baby formula. Certainly in this one-year-older noggin there’s not so much wisdom as I would wish for given the amount of trivial STUFF its accumulated in Lo These Many Years. Still, I try. My curiosity is still very much intact and as far as I’m concerned when that’s gone, well, I guess I’m done.

One of my friends of the last couple of years is uniquely equipped to spark said curiosity and challenge my beliefs. We agree on almost nothing of any substance. Yet at the end of the day we simply agree to disagree before moving on to topics of greater merit such as sports, women, and the weather. I follow this friend on Instagram and he follows me. I like some of his posts, he reciprocates by liking some of mine. Recently his posts have shone a spotlight on his difficulty with dealing with all things LGBTQ and with gender identity. I know a lot of folks still struggle with all the nuance in the alphabet soup of LGBTQ (I know I’m missing some additional letters but I cant honestly at this moment remember what they are). Of course that’s why we have Google so getting over my own laziness I guess the current mix is LGBTQIA2s+. Now, I don’t know what some of these really even mean, but after viewing some of my friend’s recent posts, which did make me reflect on my own perspective, I came to the same conclusion I had before - this place called Earth would be a better place if we could simply live and let live. I have a lot of respect for the institution of Motherhood -Mother Nature, Mother Earth, my own mother, anyone who can endure 12+ hours of labor, you get the idea. What ultimately settled it for me after listening to both side’s arguments (and there are a lot of arguments) was one mother’s statement when asked what she thought of her child’s choice. Her response was “It’s my child. I love them no matter what. I accept them.”

I’m not a mother, never have been, never will be so will never be able to speak as such but in an increasingly long life I have learned a tad bit about love and, albeit sometimes grudgingly, acceptance and if I know anything in what Wisdom I do have its that there’s too little of either. Perhaps its not license plate material like “Live Free or Die”, but for me live and let live carry a lot of weight. So for now, my dear friend, excuse me if I don’t ‘Like’ these particular posts and we’ll add this to the list of topics on which we disagree. Let’s be patient, I’m sure there’s something out there that will have us both nodding our heads in agreement. We should live so long. Happy Birthday.

ERock Final Edition

Sunday dawned dark but warm. Dark because it was only 4 a.m. which is when cyclists spring out of bed on event days. And Sunday was a special event for sure as it was the final edition of the Elephant Rock ride. 

We arrived at the Douglas County Fairgrounds as the sun peeked above the eastern horizon. Already the parking lots were filling up. Yawning cyclists with hands wrapped around their coffee slowly made their way with their trusty two-wheeled steeds towards the start line. The 100 mile route set off at 5:30 and by the time we got all of our stuff together there was a long stream of cyclists heading out on the Sunday-quiet streets of Castle Rock. My wife was set to do the 45 mile ride while I was doing the 'metric century' of 62 miles. This was our first organized bike event post-COVID and we were more than a little nervous as we clicked into our pedals and took the first couple of pedal revolutions. All three routes started with a nice climb up and out of Castle Rock which was a good way to get warmed up and to wish that we had done a tad more hill climbing during Spring training rides. 

The Elephant Rock ride started in 1987 and has sent cyclists hither and yon, up hill and down dale, for 35  years. The only gap was in 2020 due to the pandemic. Back in '87 Castle Rock was a quiet little town which is clearly not the case today which is why, sadly, the Elephant Rock will be no more due to safety concerns that come along with a small town now all grown up.

Out on the road the day was spectacular - warm, dry, not too windy, with a sky as clear and blue as could be. To the south Pikes Peak was majestic in its snowcapped splendor. The infamous Roller Coaster Road lived up to its name (yup, more hills) but the mood was light as we were all out here by choice. Traffic was light and for the most part tolerant of all these crazy cyclists. For a couple of hours bicycles outnumbered cars by a hundred to one. 

The rest area crews were as friendly as ever and seemed in especially good spirits probably because their nether regions were not sore like those of us who had been perched on a saddle for the last couple of hours. Bananas and oranges there were aplenty along with Gorp, Oreos, and peanut butter. And while the rest stops were a pleasant respite, woe to the cyclist who tarries too long. Muscles quickly tighten up making it hard to get going again so for most it was but a brief stop before heading back out on the road. One final climb (Tomah Road) reared up before the finish but soon enough the weary stream of cyclists descended the last winding hill and back into town to be greeted by friends and family anxiously awaiting us at the finish line. Some cyclists strive for personal bests but I'd hazard a guess that for most of us finishing was reward enough and smiles were in abundance as folks spun their pedals for the last time before dismounting into the arms of loved ones.

The Elephant Rock will be missed. The Front Range of Colorado is growing so exponentially that there are fewer and fewer nice (and safe) places to ride. Denver may have plans to subsidize EBikes for its citizens but the hard fact is that cyclists (yeah, and motorists too) take their life in their hands whenever they set out on the the roads we call home.

Still, on special days like Sunday the long hours of training bear fruit and for a couple of hours we remember why we love this sport after all. Here are some highlights of the final edition 2022 ERock. And Thank You Elephant Rock, It truly has been one heck of a ride.

Bookends

 They call it the Circle of Life for a reason. Life follows birth, which precedes death. A cycle going back to the dawn of life on this rock we call home. I’ve very intentionally not written about all the recent deaths intentionally brought about by some among us who have given up on the notion of Live and Let Live. School shootings continue to plague us, and it seems you can’t even head to the neighborhood grocery store without putting your life on the line. I’ve refrained from speaking (or at least writing) up because I simply have no answers, no solutions, and the grief in my heart pales by comparison as the parents in Uvalde bid farewell to their babes who had only just begun their Circle of Life. 

Columbine remains seared into my brain as it truly hit home. Not only because my wife is a Columbine graduate, or that the school is just 3 1/2 miles from my doorstep, or that it was seemingly the event that was so catastrophic, so beyond the pale of humanity, that it would allow us, once and for all, to solve this problem of humans hunting humans. The country seemed to rally together after Columbine, at least for a very short time. In today’s world there is not even that - our grief, our frustration, our anger is irreparably split along political lines. We can’t even agree on how to mourn.

We can’t even agree on how to mourn…

For most of us the Circle of Life has a shared sameness that is somehow reassuring in its simplicity. Most of us go about our lives much like others around us do, Simple lives can be very good lives. To aspire to getting through this short tenure on Earth without taking the life of my fellow man seems such a simple wish yet increasingly it seems a very difficult concept for some of those among us. Have you noticed lately that the buzzword of mental illness is increasingly tied to the cause of these shooting rampages? I’m not yet convinced that the 18 year old in Texas, or Mr. Klebold and Harris all those 23 years ago, are any more ill than bank robbers, rapists, or heads of government who start meaningless wars. People have been killing people with disturbing regularity since our species first planted foot on the plains of Africa and sadly the passage of thousands of years hasn’t quelled this seemingly natural propensity.

The COVID pandemic brought about nothing so much (other than a lot of death) as a yearning for normalcy. This weekend I’ll be out riding my bike as I do most days when the snow isn’t falling (and some when it is). This weekend will be slightly out of the norm as I’ll be participating, along with tens of thousands of other cyclists, in the Elephant Rock ride held for the last 35 years in the once-rural countryside surrounding Castle Rock. Sadly, but not surprisingly, this will be the Ride’s last year as the Castle Rock area has become too urbanized (too crowded) to safely continue the event. Cyclists are like canaries in the coal mine - when cyclists disappear from roads near you its a sign that you no longer live in an area that is nice enough to ride through. From that perspective, the fact that cyclists will no longer converge on Castle Rock for a peaceful Sunday morning ride before most folks have had their first cup of coffee doesn’t bode well for the increasing numbers of folks who call this area home.

I didn’t do the very first Elephant Ride in 1987, but it didn’t take long before I was hooked on what quickly became a local tradition among Colorado’s two-wheeled set. I’ve lost count on how many times since I’ve done the ride. I’m sure there will be at least some out there this Sunday who have done Every. Single. One. Kudos to them. Whether its one time or thirty five, the Ride brings back fond memories and it will be missed, gone into the history books. Bookends on the Circle of Life.