Notes from Steve

Years ago, when I first started riding my bike, I used to go by this farm where this turkey was sitting on a fence post.  Every time I passed by on my bike, I was amazed that the turkey was still sitting there.  I even stopped a couple of times to look at it, and I told people (strangers) that it was amazing - this quiet turkey sitting on its post watching all the bikers … Then my nephew Tim rode with me.  “You know that’s not a real turkey, right?”  Now, at the time, I wasn’t wearing my glasses.  I was just wearing biking glasses without a prescription, and I didn’t think I was that blind, but I was. “That probably explains why people who don’t know me are looking at me in a weird way when I talk about this assumed live, albeit lazy, turkey watching the bikers,” I told him. “Yeah, probably”.  I promptly bought prescription riding glasses and saw everything I was missing.  

I told my friend Cathie this story, and she thought it was hilarious, so when we went by the stupid turkey this Saturday, we snagged a photo.  My lesson was that not everything I see is real, and sometimes, crowing about it to others doesn’t get the desired results.  (Those are the prescription sunglasses, and they are great.  They literally changed my perspective.)

Our book club is reading “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson right now.  It’s about his walk on the Appalachian Trail thirty years ago. He was talking about how the mass majority of the population of the states where the trail is located had never been on it or even knew that much about it.  I can say that before I rode the trails in Iowa, it was the same story.  Becoming aware is awesome.  Knowing - with certainty - what’s around you and being conscious and appreciating your surroundings is a relatively new concept for me, but it is so worth it.