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Mortality

I have noticed that my fellow BMW riders seem to be getting older, I need to join a new club!:confused:


A few years ago my eldest daughter requested that I move the airhead from the driveway into the garage, and close the door.

Her friends were coming over and she didn't want to be embarassed by my red airhead, with a Holstein seat cover, hi viz yellow tank panniers, and stickers all over the bags.

It made me feel good, the tables were turned, and I was the embarassment for a change!

Regards, Rod.
 
bit by bit

It's the number of small niggles that start to add up that annoys me.
The aching shoulder on cold days. The numb thumb and strange tingle in the elbow. That strange cracking noise that comes from my ankles when I get out of bed. I should invest in a synthetic joint company, to see if I can get a shareholders discount in a few years time.
 
Scott, I thought this was going to be an exciting story about being 25 years old and accidentally stepping off a cliff and hurtling towards the bottom of some spiky chasm!

I'm disappointed.

Bald-Shmald. Let me pay forward Hodag's compliment: "You're handsome and mysterious". Get that new bike and enjoy.
 
Good thought-provoking thread.

At 39, I'm not balding or even receding, and starting to think that maybe I won't have those sexy silver temples at 60 that one of my exes predicted (from what I've seen, most redheaded guys' hair doesn't look very good when the colour finally goes. If I'm really lucky it'll just all go white and then I can pretend to be Race Bannon :thumb ).
I'm still childless, mortageless, not locked into any particular career, and still regularly mistaken for 28. I wish I knew what I'm doing right so I could bottle it and make some money! By the time my dad was this age, he had a PhD, two kids, and a house, but he was also far from being a kid himself. I'm still a kid if I'm anything.

But as Neil Peart has observed, we're only immortal for a limited time. I've become so comfortable with cheating the aging process that I secretly fear that some sort of bad-karma is waiting for me down the road. I sure hope not, but who knows.
I'm at the sort of point where I really can't say whether I'm past halfway or not. I hope not of course, but only if making it that far is enjoyable. I'll probably outlive my younger brother- and that is a very depressing thought. But then again I might get creamed by an SUV this afternoon during a ride I'm planning to take in less than an hour. I might catch some exotic tropical-flu on a vacation. I might get shot by a mugger.
But then I might not. It's a cosmic crapshoot, and one I have no choice but to play. Life has been good, despite all the stuff in my life that I always bitch and moan about. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope that I always think so.

In the meantime I'll just keep riding and smiling. :)
 
Life running from the Devil

I Lit Out From Reno, I Was Trailed By Twenty Hounds
Didn't Get To Sleep That Night
'till The Morning Came Around.

Set Out Runnin' But I Take My Time
A Friend Of The Devil Is A Friend Of Mine
If I Get Home Before Daylight,
I Just Might Get Some Sleep Tonight.

Ran Into The Devil, Babe,
He Loaned Me Twenty Bills
I Spent The Night In Utah
In A Cave Up In The Hills.

Set Out Runnin' But I Take My Time,
A Friend Of The Devil Is A Friend Of Mine,
If I Get Home Before Daylight,
I Just Might Get Some Sleep Tonight.

I Ran Down To The Levee But The Devil Caught Me There
He Took My Twenty Dollar Bill
And Vanished In The Air.

Set Out Runnin' But I Take My Time
A Friend Of The Devil Is A Friend Of Mine
If I Get Home Before Daylight,
I Just Might Get Some Sleep Tonight.

Bridge:
Got Two Reasons Why I Cry
Away Each Lonely Night,
The First One's Named Sweet Anne Marie,
And She's My Hearts Delight.
The Second One Is Prison, Baby,
The Sheriff's On My Trail,
And If He Catches Up With Me,
I'll Spend My Life In Jail.

Got A Wife In Chino, Babe,
And One In Cherokee
The First One Says She's Got My Child,
But It Don't Look Like Me.

Set Out Runnin' But I Take My Time,
A Friend Of The Devil Is A Friend Of Mine,
If I Get Home Before Daylight,
I Just Might Get Some Sleep Tonight.


-garcia/hunter/dawson
 
189000782-L.jpg


This bud survived last nights storm. Inhale deeply my friend :thumb :thumb
 
As I near my 29th Birthday, you guys are bumming me out!!! I feel pretty darn old sometimes. I usually just go to a BMW rally, and that shows me how young I really am. Cheers me right up. :stick

:bolt
 
The only thing this "aging" thread has rekindled was the memory I have of being told I was over the hill. I was 20 at the time and the young lass who made that pronouncement was all of 18. I will be 48 in a couple of months and I actually feel more alive than I did back then. Mind you, the lifting of the age related alcohol inflicted haze has probably helped :scratch
 
Youth isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I'm almost 42 and despite the aches and pains, i wouldn't want to be 18 again. I can still recall the day I stopped trying to date girls:banghead and started dating women:evil
 
25...wow, that was about a half of a lifetime ago. At 25, I did have a helluva lot more hair on my head than I do now, and what I had didn't have silver streaks in it.

Yeah, I see my dad staring back at me in the mirror every morning. And, I really don't give a rip. In fact, it reminds me of him and makes me smile.

For whatever reason, my kids and their friends seem to enjoy my company. It's probably because I'm such a soft touch, and feed them all the time.

The older in years I become, the more aware I am of my mortality. However that doesn't keep me from acting like a kid.:dance
 
aerialfilm1 said:
Youth isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I'm almost 42 and despite the aches and pains, i wouldn't want to be 18 again. I can still recall the day I stopped trying to date girls:banghead and started dating women:evil
Click to expand...
Yeah, down with all you young people!

When I was 18, I was dating girls in their mid-20s.

I'm glad I'm so over that! :p
 
Larry Grodsky

Since my deer collision, I have told my story over and over and find myself almost apologizing for being so stupid as to hit a deer. Many of my non-motorcycling friends, and a few cycling friends, seem incredulous that I actually killed the deer or that I actually fell off the bike, or even worse, that I could not have avoided the deer. Admittedly, after 57 years of operating motor vehicles on Michigan's highways and byways and NOT hitting a deer (came close) maybe I too was getting a little smug. Anyhoo after reading this thread I ran across the obit of Larry Grodsky and decided to post it here. I was most fortunate, thanks to Gary Smith of Pittsburgh, PA, to meet Larry and have lunch with him as well as ride with him on some of PA's finest roads. I read his stuff when I come across it as though reading the bible of motorcycling safety. In any case here it is again for you to read.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06101/681096-122.stm
 
Fritz, I am very grateful that you are still here with us. You may have heard what happened to Rick Griffith in Idaho. We were in the middle of nowhere. Riders need to know that there are two types of motorcyclist. One's that fall and one's that are going to fall.
You are the 3rd close friend that walked away from deer vs. motorcycle crash. I promise to thin out the herd. In 4 more weeks I will be in my tree stand with my bow and arrow. Then on November the 15th I will be in the woods with my trusty 30-06.


There is plenty of room for God's creatures....next to the mashed potatoe's and cornbread:nra .
Click to expand...
 
Let's see..I'm 50 and my beautiful wife is 45. Between us we're racking up about 30k miles on our bikes every year, in addition to being addicted to scuba diving. In the past 2 1/2 years:

- We have been shipwrecked in the South Pacific...the 40ft outrigger canoe we were diving off of took a huge wave broadside. The boat was destroyed, we were thrown into the ocean and we spent awhile sitting on top of the overturned hull waiting rescue. The rest of the dive trip was even cooler!

- She crashed her race bike at 60 mph in Turn 5 at Road Atlanta. She spent the night in the hospital, then we snuck out the next day on my bike, with her on the back, still wearing her neck brace...boy was that a sight....

- We just finished a FL to CA and back cross-country trip last month, so we could go to Laguna Seca to watch the AMA and MotoGP races. This trip was amazingly without incident. 6778 miles in 18 days, with 3 days off for the races.

- Last weekend we were rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennesses, in the river section that hosted the 1996 Olympic kayaking events, when a Class IV rapid locally known as "Godzilla" (so-named because it destroyed the entire Japanese kayaking team during the Olympics) ejected her out of the raft and into the rapid. She was saved by a rope thrower from the river bank, stationed there for just that purpose. She's sporting a grapefruit-sized bruise on her left hip from a rock in the river bottom, but is otherwise ok, and she finished the rafting trip as well.

As the saying goes: "Growing older, but not up!" or for this forum "You don't quit riding because you grow old. You grow old when you quit riding..."

Life is terminal. Get out and enjoy it while you can...

By the way, we're going to be taking kayaking lessons soon....can't wait!

Have fun and ride!
 
Growin'old's inevitable,growin'up's optional. I refuse to grow up.Last Friday I picked up a speeding ticket on my way home from work,couldn't sweet talk my way out of that one, but when I got stopped for the same thing,in the afternoon,while poundin'on miles in a poker rally,the officer let me off with a warning,another souvenier. In April,I managed to get pulled over less than 100 miles into my trip down to the Branson Blitz,another souvenier,then after the Blitz,shortly after crossing the border into La.,picked up one for 75 in a 55. A week later,on my way to the superbike races at the Barber Motorsports Raceway in'Bama,got one for 84 in a 60. On the way home,backtrackin'thru La.,got off with a warning ticket on route to the penitentiary to visit my nephew.
Back to the poker rally,I managed to go to every stop on the page,was the only rider out of 80 bikes that did so,buzzed on 950 miles in pullin'that off. Oh yeah,I'll be 63 next birthday.:wave
 
Up until a couple of years ago the salesman that waited on me at Monroe Family Shoes in Monroe, NC was in his 90's. He finally retired and died at 97 or 98, but it was cool to have someone way older than you still waiting on you. Made you feel like a kid again.
I wouldn't have missed the ride for anything. I'm looking forward to the future as much as I was 40 years ago when I was a preteen. Your body may wear out or be worn out but your mind is only as old as you want to be.
 
Young At Heart:
man.jpg


Portland Daily Ledger - 36 year old Scott Conary is seen enjoying his afternoon walk in the park. Every afternoon, Mr. Conary strolls the park where he shares, with the local ducks, stories of his youth, the times spent on his GS motorbike and the period when he was an artist, before the "shakes got too bad". Mr. Conary keeps it all in perspective though, "at least i haven't tried playing shuffleboard!". haha, not yet Scott, not yet...........
 
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