and much funnier speeches than they had last year.” 1 Graduation is upon us and social distancing seems to have disappeared. While the graduation ceremony itself was open only to students (no family, no spectators), the after ceremony picture-taking and milling about looked like 2019 or earlier. You can see a few people in masks in the background of this photo. The crowd had just thinned – I took the picture while stopped in traffic so I didn’t have a lot of time to wait for the right moment.
The Tayles, a local band of my youth, wrote a song called “Master of the Arts” looking into the future of a friend with an advanced degree (“We all say that we knew him when…”). I wanted to play that for you but cannot find the cassette it was on – I may have thrown it and others out when I had no way to play or digitize them. (It’s available on Amazon Music for those who subscribe.) That’s a long way of saying that I am now the parent of a Master, one of the graduates honored this weekend, though in an online ceremony with the department only.
But since I’m talking about The Tayles, here they are at The Nitty Gritty in 1972, from the album “whoaretheseguys?” For some reason, this is on YouTube, while “Master of the Arts” is not.
For years I drank from this bubbler. With the pandemic, it was bagged and only available as a bottle filler. Today, as I was filling my mug, I saw that the bag had come off. Another sign of improvement, of a new normal?
Olio
Per the photo above, my proclamation of the Death of the Bubbler appears to have been premature.
I got to hug my son and daughter in law Sunday for the first time since Christmas 2019, or maybe birthday the next month. I wasn’t keeping track of it then, not knowing it would be the last time for over a year.
When people asked if I ran, I used to answer, “Only if I’m late for the bus” or “Only to chase a soccer ball.” Living with a dog who likes to walk, trot, canter, and gallop, I now find myself running so he can run.
Rhubarb season is back. Since we’ve been watching “The Great British Bake-off” I was inspired to make my first lattice-top pie in years.
Not a perfect lattice, but that won’t affect the eating. The dark rim is the drip tray under the pie.
Lloyd Price
We lost a musical giant last week. Lloyd Price died May 3 (I have seen 3 different dates published, but this date is quoting his wife, who ought to know), at the age of 88. He had his first hit in 1952 with “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”. He went on to start a record company, develop housing, and help to promote the “Rumble in the Jungle”, the heavyweight boxing championship match in Zaire between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.
It was my introduction to New Orleans-style piano, featuring the great Fats Domino.
While many have recorded Stagger Lee in various forms, this is the version I grew up with. My older brothers may have tormented me (see below), but they had good taste in music.
Giro d’Italia
The Giro d’Italia is underway, back to its traditional spring running as the first of the Grand Tours. Like the better-known (in the US) Tour de France, the Giro has various colors of jerseys for leaders in different classifications. The last place rider in the Tour is known as the Lanterne Rouge (red light – like the light at the back of a train). The Giro’s last place rider formerly won the black jersey (Maglia Nera), which was discontinued due to the fierce competition for the jersey. Once again, we honor Luigi Malabrocca and Sante Carollo as honorary members of the half-fast cycling club.
1 Martin Vanderhof (character), speaking of a college graduation in “You Can’t Take it With You”, by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. This is the role that made me realize I was an old man at age 16.
Growing up, I was taught that the necessities of life were food, clothing, and shelter. Going to work, I found those definitions changing. This is another story alluded to in an old post – “a story for another time”. Here we are, in another time.
So what are the bare necessities in my book, and how did I find them? My first full time job was in a restaurant – preparing food for people. My first “career” was in a grocery co-operative – providing basic food via the Willy Street Co-op. I was pretty sure food counted as a basic need.
After 10 years I left the co-op and moved to Northern California, where I was Maintenance Director (then Financial Manager and General Manager) of the Twin Pines Co-operative Community, a community of 79 families that jointly owned an 80-unit low-income housing co-operative (the 80th unit was a rental reserved for an employee and I was the sole renter for part of my time there). I learned that the Silicon Valley was not filled with Yuppies. Before it became the Silicon Valley, the Santa Clara Valley was The Valley of Heart’s Delight, a vast area of fruit orchards. Now I knew why the supply of apricots had dried up back when I was in the grocery biz – the orchards were being ripped out for factories, office buildings, and housing. (The apricot supply has since recovered somewhat.) There were people who worked in those factories and were the secretaries in those offices and who fixed the fancy cars of those over-priced engineers. They were the people I worked for, and they needed a place to live. Yup, housing made my list.
I’d always had a side job or two. While at Willy Street I was a volunteer programmer at WORT-FM, a listener-sponsored community radio station. I was a patient advocate at the Near East Side Community Health Center, and I was the local representative of FLOC (the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, a farmworkers union started in the tomato fields of Ohio – they later merged with the UFW). In California my side job involved co-operative housing in Nicaragua.
In Nicaragua I found that the Matagalpa River (where we cleaned up after a work day) was also where everyone did their laundry and drew their drinking water, as well as where towns discharged their raw sewage. We found a mountain spring, had the water tested, built a dam and a pipeline, and supplied pure water to the houses we were building. (Fred Colgan deserves the lion’s share of the credit for that.) While we weren’t big enough to set up a sewage treatment program, we dug outhouses so sewage from our little community would not go straight to the river.
When my second visa expired I moved to San Francisco and became a plumber (after a side trip for the Mole Poblano tour, o quiere decir La Vuelta de Mole Poblano). It was pretty clear that clean water and sewage treatment made the list of bare necessities, so I made my living doing that. I mostly did residential service work, but also some remodeling and work in bars and restaurants. I used to tell people that my job involved hanging out in gay bars at 9 o’clock in the morning.
Life being what it is (and a story that I probably won’t bother telling here unless shelter in place lasts a really long time), my plumbing career came to an end. I became a college student and then an occupational therapist. Before I became a patient, I had never heard of occupational therapy. My sister (a Speech and Language Pathologist) defined occupational therapists as the people who come up with a simple commonsense solution to a problem; a solution that seems obvious in retrospect. Then she’d realize that she hadn’t though of it. When people ask me what the difference between a physical and an occupational therapist is, I sometimes say the PT’s job is to make sure you can move around, and my job is to make sure you can do all the things you want to move around for. It is a job that varies widely depending on the setting you are working in; and the lines between what I do and what my PT partner does are sometimes pretty blurry. (If you really want to know the gritty details, I have a 13 hour online course for you. Someday I may be able to do it live again.)
I saw firsthand how much access to healthcare depends on money, and how the US, unlike most industrialized countries, lacks a healthcare system. (I work in a hospital that provides care to all regardless of ability to pay – but that doesn’t mean they don’t get billed later, and it clearly affects the care they get after discharge.) Other countries have a healthcare system. We have an insurance system. Healthcare was now clearly on my list of bare necessities.
A common thread running through these, and made clear by our shelter at home situation, is community. I realized I had found my personal definition of the bare necessities: food, housing, water and sewer, healthcare, and community. I hope my list is complete because I’m closer to 70 than to 60 and I probably don’t want to start another career now. I’d like to pretend I had the forethought 50 years ago to build a life based on the necessities and pretend that my life and career trajectory was planned. Never mind, I don’t even want to pretend that. This was a case of going where life led me, then looking back and seeing what the path looks like. Or, as Robert Hunter said:
There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night…
Le Tour de France/La Vuelta a España/Il Giro d’Italia
The French tour has been postponed and is now scheduled from 29 August to 20 September. The Spanish tour is still scheduled from 14 August to 6 September, but there is talk of moving it to the fall. The Italian tour is being run in a virtual format and the real version may be moved to late fall. The World Championship is also scheduled in the same timeframe as the rescheduled tours.
I think the only answer to scheduling anything right now is “Who knows?” I know of one cycling event scheduled for June that is still scheduled and another in July that has already been canceled.
Stay safe out there…ride alone and enjoy the scenery.
If anything is possibly life-threatening, call 9-1-1
If somewhere between those two, have someone take you to the nearest Emergency Department
Nothing in here is to be construed as a substitute for obtaining professional assistance
If your helmet strikes the pavement with your head in it, it is time for a new helmet. A bike helmet is a single-use item in that regard. Before you throw it away, crush it. (It’s not that hard, and can be satisfying in a way. Thank it for its service as you destroy it.) Destroying it ensures that some innocent person won’t come upon it in your trash and say, “Sweet! A free helmet!” and place their self at risk.
Road rash is your most likely ailment. That’s what your water bottle is for. Squirt the road rash liberally with clean water right away. It will hurt less then than it will later. Try to get dirt and gravel out as soon as possible. As soon as you can, wash thoroughly with soap and water. Again, the sooner you do it, the less it hurts. Bandaging road rash is tricky – you don’t want a dressing to stick to it and re-injure the area when you pull it off later – and road rash usually appears on bony prominences (joints) so it is hard to get dressings to stay in place. For road rash you want: Non-stick gauze Roller gauze Tape Maybe 2×2 or 4×4 gauze pads depending on wound size and drainage Band-net See photos below. You may also needs gauze pads (not pictured) if particularly leaky. Hot tip: Cut tape first, stick one end where it’s handy, then you have tape ready without having to free up hands to cut it while trying to hold a dressing in place. The non-stick gauze is impregnated with petroleum jelly (Vaseline), which will make it stay in place so your hands are free. It will also make it not stick to the wound when you remove it later. And it keeps the wound bed moist to promote healing. (Sorry Ivy, who hates the word “moist” almost as much as “mouth feel”.) The roller gauze soaks up some fluids and keeps the Vaseline from attracting dust and grit in the air. The band net holds it all in place. It works well over elbows and knees, where it is hard to get dressings to stay. Cut it longer than you think you need.
Broken collar bones are the bane of cyclists. See a doctor for that. The treatment advice I have would make this too long and I’d rather do it face-to-face.
Broken ribs are likely if you are older or crash hard. Treatment is mostly pain control. In the old detective movies, the hero got kicked in the ribs, stumbled back to his office, and had his secretary wrap yards of adhesive tape around his chest. He’d head right back out to the streets and bring down the bad guy. Broken ribs hurt way too much for that. Plus, the old adhesive tape technique increases the risk of pneumonia. You have to breathe and the chest wall has to stay mobile. Ibuprofen is not recommended, as it slows the growth of new bone, so retards healing. Lidocaine patches can help with pain. The bad news is that they only work for 12 hours, then you need 12 hours off before they are effective again. Kinesio-tape can help with the pain and swelling from rib fractures. It can stay in place for several days. Apply the tape as shown. Round all corners so it is less likely to peel. Apply the tape as shown in the picture below. The two pieces should cross over the area of greatest pain. There should be no tension on the tape. Rub it to activate the adhesive (which requires mild heat). The photo below is taping over a bruise. Same concept for ribs; the central point of the lattice should be the area of greatest pain.
I should probably add that, if you have to provide CPR, Good Samaritan laws prevent you from being sued if you make your best effort. Get trained on CPR and use of AED. Both can be done without training – it beats watching someone die. What is written here is not training. I’m not going to fit a ½ day course into a paragraph; and I’m not qualified to train you. You can do compressions only without breathing. Check for a pulse first. Don’t do CPR on someone whose heart is beating. They won’t like it and it won’t help. CPR requires effort – deep and fast. About 2-2 ½ inches deep and 100-120 times/minute. My trainers taught me to sing “Stayin’ Alive” or “Another One Bites the Dust” to keep the tempo. For most people, the former is probably a better choice; though if I woke up to my rescuer singing the latter to me, I’d be happy. It is not comfortable for the patient. Ribs may be broken. As my friend said after he came back to life, “My chest really hurts. I think she broke my ribs. But don’t tell her anything. She saved my life and I’m not complaining.”
non-stick gauze
roller gauze
band-net
the legs running diagonally up and to the right are a little short…
COVID-19
copyright Jay Ward Productions
On another note, our Fearless Leader told us about the “beautiful” test for COVID-19. I don’t know about his definition of beauty, but that’s a mighty long swab that goes into your nostril. If your nasal passages didn’t curve, it would come out the back of your head. Luckily, it’s a very flexible swab. It tickles but it doesn’t hurt. If you need the test, get tested. If not, save the test for those who do need it, as the supply is limited despite what Fearless Leader says.
After insisting he didn’t need the test, he announced on a Friday night that he’d just been tested. I haven’t been able to determine how long it actually takes to perform the test. The CDC website is vague on this. On the day I was tested I was told it would take 4-5 days to get results. Maybe it’s faster if you’re the President. (And mine came back in 72 hours, per the original estimate.)
If that sounds like a confession, it is.
This reminds me of the HIV/AIDS crisis in San Francisco in the 1980s. Anonymous testing centers were set up throughout the city. Test results only went in your medical record if you volunteered them. Everyone wanted to be tested but no one wanted their results known. To have AIDS as a pre-existing condition meant the end of health insurance for you; not to mention the end of your love life. People didn’t want to come near you. No one would touch you. Treatment was still experimental. Life span was considered limited. When I had a mysterious illness in 1993, my doctor’s first actions were to test for HIV and TB. (I had neither – and I had been monogamous since my first negative test, when my partner insisted we be tested before having sex.)
Now (at least temporarily) insurance is not an issue. At the time I am writing this, I am in “self-quarantine”. Before you read it, my negative result will be back and I will no longer be a pariah. I came down with a cold after visiting an ill family member in Minnesota. Many of my co-workers also had colds and missed some work. That is pretty normal for this time of year. What is not normal is for me to be sick enough to miss work. That hasn’t happened in years. I’m sure my resistance was lowered by my surgery this winter. I lost my voice but didn’t really feel all that sick. I started riding the bus to work instead of riding my bike, in order to save energy, and because my dormant asthma was beginning to raise its ugly head. I was able only to whisper most of the day, which was what convinced me to stop working until I could talk again. I had to sleep sitting up. I was inhaling Albuterol in order to sleep without coughing. On Thursday I was diagnosed with an acute asthma exacerbation secondary to an acute upper respiratory infection (a cold). I was placed on a five day dose of oral prednisone and told to return to work on Saturday. I did not meet criteria for COVID-19 testing.
On Friday evening, Employee Health placed me on paid administrative leave. I was ordered to undergo COVID-19 testing and not return to work until a negative result was posted and they notified my supervisor in writing that I was cleared to return to work. I was to self-quarantine. Note that this was now two weeks after I had gotten sick and the night before I was planning to return to work. I was clearly improving, and was told I would improve greatly after the second day of steroids. They could not yet tell me when a test would be available. Note that this was days after our president claimed that the beautiful test was available to anyone who wanted it. I, as a front-line health care worker, did not yet have access to the test.
On Saturday, I was called and instructed to report for testing. I was greeted by a doctor, RN, and CNA, all dressed in disposable gowns, gloves, and masks. They all placed face shields when we entered the testing room. Swabs were inserted though my nostrils to my nasopharynx (back of the throat, farther down than you’ve ever reached, or maybe thought possible). They were held there for 10 seconds to soak up some goop. That was it. Now go home and wait.
I decided life was not surreal enough so I decided to watch The Twilight Zone. Season one, episode one was called, “Where is Everybody?” A man walks into a town with signs of recent (as in moments ago) life, but there seems to be no one around. The streets here look something like that now. It was the perfect choice. https://ytcropper.com/cropped/FC5e7007b47e54c
My neighborhood library branch was to have a grand re-opening in a new location last weekend. The grand opening was canceled, but the library was to open anyway. Monday it was closed due to staffing shortages. At least I got to see the outside, complete with covered bike parking. And I got to ride my bike for the first time in 2 ½ weeks. It felt great! (And later that day they announced that all libraries were closing effective Tuesday, 3/17.)
Now I know I don’t have COVID-19. I still can’t work because I can’t talk without coughing. The prednisone has not worked its magic. I can’t tell that it did anything of benefit. I can’t very well wear a sign that says “I’m negative!” so as not to scare people when I cough. Sort of the anti-Hester Prynne. While I don’t have it, that does not put me at any less risk of getting it now. While I’m no longer quarantined, that doesn’t make life much different.
The airlines are asking for a federal bailout. The banks and investors are buoyed up by slashed interest rates. Meanwhile, all of my neighborhood restaurants are closed. Some of them allow curbside pick up, but you can’t go inside. Most of those employers don’t provide paid sick leave. Some are doing it voluntarily right now. Who is going to prop them up? They don’t have billions in reserves.
Giro d’Italia
The Giro d’Italia, previously scheduled for May, has been postponed indefinitely.
I could have sworn I had used this clip already, but the WordPress search feature didn’t find it, nor did my manual search. Adrian Monk suddenly looks positively normal.https://ytcropper.com/cropped/FP5e70248033472. As usual, if you only read this in email, you see only my words and miss the good stuff.
to stop and take pictures. After careful deliberation,I have to say the New Glarus ride is my favorite of the Wednesday Night Bike Rides.
The Swiss who settled here called it New Glarus because it reminded them of home. While most of the cattle are now Holsteins and not Brown Swiss, there is still a Swiss atmosphere around here.
The ride started with a long and gradual climb. I didn’t realize how steep it was until gliding back down at 35 mph at the end of the ride. We turned onto Meadow Valley Road for a downhill followed by a few ups and downs. On to Farmers Grove Road for four miles of roller coaster hills, then to Dougherty Creek (which sounds sort of like “dirty crick” in case you’re not from around here). Four miles of following the creek through the woods and it was time to head back up top. A steep climb up Prairie View Road and to the left we saw the pale green of flowering grasses; to the right the deeper green of alfalfa and the deeper still of the thick woods along water courses. Steep valleys meandered off to the right – I thought about stopping for a picture but the scents, the light, the dark recesses in the wooded glens, the killdeers careening around while the hawks circled overhead were way too much to capture with a camera.
After another five miles of not having to think too much because there was no need to turn, we dipped down onto Holstein Prairie Road and another gradual climb with a few roller coasters for good measure. Back up on to a ridge for some great views before the next ear-to-ear grinning descent; and so it went for 30-some miles before we returned to New Glarus for pizza. New Glarus is also home to one of Wisconsin’s worst-kept secrets, the New Glarus Brewing Company. To avoid production pressures, they will not sell their beer outside of the state and, if a distributor is caught doing so, they lose their supply. I won’t say they are my favorite brewery, but I did have a bottle of their Uff-da at the end of last winter’s run and know I need to try it earlier in the season next year before it runs out.
Hats off to the unofficial Maglia Nera winner for 2019: Sho Hatsuyama of Team Nippo Vini Fantini Faizanè. He finished over 6 hours behind this year’s winner, Richard Carapaz of Movistar. Among the elite of the world, there are those who are not-so-elite. Just remember that he could still ride circles around any of us; and, in the third stage, he broke away in the first kilometer and rode a 145 km solo break until caught.
The adoption has been finalized and the results are in: 1.4 miles of highway that looked clean from a passing car yielded 22 pounds of trash. The biggest contributor was Anheuser-Busch, with more Busch Light beer cans than any other single item of trash. Add the Busch, Bud, and Bud Light cans and bottles, and they were breakaway winners.
Driving out, we passed through a serious-looking thunderstorm. Tim swore he saw Miss Gulch fly by on her bike (at 52 seconds in the video below).
The rain let up and it was a beautiful day by the time we finished. Gratuitous photos to follow.
On the way to work, looking east.Storm on the way. A day like today, but on the way to work. Made it with minutes to spare before the deluge.One year ago today – breakfast with Einstein, Jackson, WY.
Half-fast Cycling Club 