James Burleigh
Well-known member
When Fang observes me sitting at the computer for hours banging away furiously on the FJR Forum, laughing loudly at my own jokes and exclaiming to the screen how clever I am ha ha!--she will sometimes pull the glass of straight gin from her lips long enough to express her disgust at all the time I spend with my "invisible friends."
With Fang, always a little patience. Or she'll rip your throat out. She's as mean as a snake, the dear. But I love her. Most of the time. After all, she let me ride my FJR 4,000 miles across nine western states over 10 days to meet with a few of these invisible friends.
Upon my return I poured Fang a gin and bade her come sit by my side if she loved me and be amazed by a fantastical tale of adventure and companionship. She had heard about Creston and been amazed. That was nothing I told her, compared to the tale of NAFO.
In the form of Kierkegaardian philosophical fragments, or Pascalian pensées, I will summarize here the main points of my paean to NAFO as related to Fang last night (while she could stay awake). And so, in no order:
1. My invisible friend Silent was an able ride companion. Although two very different people of different backgrounds and temperaments, we somehow possess those myriad intangible qualities that recommend us to each other as compatible ride mates. Whether sharing a meal across a table, two beds and a bathroom in a motel, or a lane of steaming asphalt snaking for a hundred miles into the Arizona desert...put quite simply, we got along, riding together for 4,000 miles like pilot and wing man, tethered in staggered riding formation by radio headsets.
Distance, pace, lane position, breaks, photo ops, meal locations....we agreed. The magic of this kind of tenuous compatibility became all the more apparent when others joined us only to upset the delicate balance of the relationship. I have much more to say about this, and plan to publish an article on the subject, my dear Fang. Another gin, darling?
2. What is it about motorcycles anyway? What is it about this motorcycle that a community can rise around it? Around a machine?
Never in my life have I loved a machine. Any machine. Certainly not a car. But I love this bike.
Love. And therein lies the clue, I think, dear Fang. What more powerful emotion is there after all? And what better foundation to build a community upon? It starts with the thing, the machine, the FJR. But then it evolves into something more than just the machine. Because once we communicate and meet and become familiar to each other, all the depth and complexity of human friendships come into play. And those relationships become more tangible than the machine that brought us together. So no, my dear Fang. It is not the friends who are invisible finally. But rather, like the hidden foundation of a building, it is the bike that becomes invisible in relation to the community it supports.
3. Motel 6's are filthy.
4. Never trust Silent with a GPS. Ever. Period. Finito.
5. The stock seat ain't all that bad.
6. Iron butt guys are nuts. (This is not the first time I've asserted this, my darling wife. But I never tire of saying it, because it's true.)
7. I appreciate the spontaneous welcoming hugs I received at NAFO from TWN and fjrchik. Those weren't invisible, my honey bunch o' Os.
8. And what is it about a road trip? Ever since reading On the Road back in high school, which sent me across the border into Mexico to seek adventure drinking tequila, eating fresh pan, and setting off bottle rockets on the beach just south of Ensenada (and getting robbed in our sleep), I've always loved and valued a road trip. In later years there would be the bus trip from L.A. to Mexico city, the bus trip from L.A. to Boston when I was 23 and adopted the young mom and her little boy who were traveling alone, the trip with my best friend in his VW squareback one summer to Sequoia Ntl Park to apply for jobs maintaining hiking trails, and many more....
What is it about a road trip? Over a meal in Reno, shortly before Silent and I crossed the border back into California, I expressed to him the medieval concept of the sacra and the profana. The sacra (or the sacred) was everything inside the castle: the familiar, the safe. Outside the castle walls was the profana (or the the profane): the evil, the sinful, the dangerous--in a word, Las Vegas or Howard Stern. The medieval knights would don their armor, mount their mighty steeds, and venture outside the castle walls from the sacra to the profana.
After lunch Silent and I donned our kevlar armor, mounted our mighty FJRs, and crossed the border back into California. Over the radio Silent uttered, "We are back in the castle."
"Roger that," I said.
8. Radar detectors will save your bacon, honey. And yes, we should have bacon for breakfast more often.
9. And finally, my petite cornichon, how much time should one spend on the FJR Forum? The answer of course, is the amount that keeps your life in balance. We are made of mind, body, and creativity. Each needs exercise and rest. To live a full life is to achieve a balance of exercise and rest across each of these substances that compose us. The forum has a place in this balance. Just ask Ari. If my time on the forum allows me still to read a book and paint a painting, then it's probably all right.
And so I carried her upstairs and put her to bed with a kiss on the forehead, and returned to the forum.
Yours sincerely,
JBurleigh56
With Fang, always a little patience. Or she'll rip your throat out. She's as mean as a snake, the dear. But I love her. Most of the time. After all, she let me ride my FJR 4,000 miles across nine western states over 10 days to meet with a few of these invisible friends.
Upon my return I poured Fang a gin and bade her come sit by my side if she loved me and be amazed by a fantastical tale of adventure and companionship. She had heard about Creston and been amazed. That was nothing I told her, compared to the tale of NAFO.
In the form of Kierkegaardian philosophical fragments, or Pascalian pensées, I will summarize here the main points of my paean to NAFO as related to Fang last night (while she could stay awake). And so, in no order:
1. My invisible friend Silent was an able ride companion. Although two very different people of different backgrounds and temperaments, we somehow possess those myriad intangible qualities that recommend us to each other as compatible ride mates. Whether sharing a meal across a table, two beds and a bathroom in a motel, or a lane of steaming asphalt snaking for a hundred miles into the Arizona desert...put quite simply, we got along, riding together for 4,000 miles like pilot and wing man, tethered in staggered riding formation by radio headsets.
Distance, pace, lane position, breaks, photo ops, meal locations....we agreed. The magic of this kind of tenuous compatibility became all the more apparent when others joined us only to upset the delicate balance of the relationship. I have much more to say about this, and plan to publish an article on the subject, my dear Fang. Another gin, darling?
2. What is it about motorcycles anyway? What is it about this motorcycle that a community can rise around it? Around a machine?
Never in my life have I loved a machine. Any machine. Certainly not a car. But I love this bike.
Love. And therein lies the clue, I think, dear Fang. What more powerful emotion is there after all? And what better foundation to build a community upon? It starts with the thing, the machine, the FJR. But then it evolves into something more than just the machine. Because once we communicate and meet and become familiar to each other, all the depth and complexity of human friendships come into play. And those relationships become more tangible than the machine that brought us together. So no, my dear Fang. It is not the friends who are invisible finally. But rather, like the hidden foundation of a building, it is the bike that becomes invisible in relation to the community it supports.
3. Motel 6's are filthy.
4. Never trust Silent with a GPS. Ever. Period. Finito.
5. The stock seat ain't all that bad.
6. Iron butt guys are nuts. (This is not the first time I've asserted this, my darling wife. But I never tire of saying it, because it's true.)
7. I appreciate the spontaneous welcoming hugs I received at NAFO from TWN and fjrchik. Those weren't invisible, my honey bunch o' Os.
8. And what is it about a road trip? Ever since reading On the Road back in high school, which sent me across the border into Mexico to seek adventure drinking tequila, eating fresh pan, and setting off bottle rockets on the beach just south of Ensenada (and getting robbed in our sleep), I've always loved and valued a road trip. In later years there would be the bus trip from L.A. to Mexico city, the bus trip from L.A. to Boston when I was 23 and adopted the young mom and her little boy who were traveling alone, the trip with my best friend in his VW squareback one summer to Sequoia Ntl Park to apply for jobs maintaining hiking trails, and many more....
What is it about a road trip? Over a meal in Reno, shortly before Silent and I crossed the border back into California, I expressed to him the medieval concept of the sacra and the profana. The sacra (or the sacred) was everything inside the castle: the familiar, the safe. Outside the castle walls was the profana (or the the profane): the evil, the sinful, the dangerous--in a word, Las Vegas or Howard Stern. The medieval knights would don their armor, mount their mighty steeds, and venture outside the castle walls from the sacra to the profana.
After lunch Silent and I donned our kevlar armor, mounted our mighty FJRs, and crossed the border back into California. Over the radio Silent uttered, "We are back in the castle."
"Roger that," I said.
8. Radar detectors will save your bacon, honey. And yes, we should have bacon for breakfast more often.
9. And finally, my petite cornichon, how much time should one spend on the FJR Forum? The answer of course, is the amount that keeps your life in balance. We are made of mind, body, and creativity. Each needs exercise and rest. To live a full life is to achieve a balance of exercise and rest across each of these substances that compose us. The forum has a place in this balance. Just ask Ari. If my time on the forum allows me still to read a book and paint a painting, then it's probably all right.
And so I carried her upstairs and put her to bed with a kiss on the forehead, and returned to the forum.
Yours sincerely,
JBurleigh56
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