Halloween at the barn

Tonight eleven people came by for treats: nine kids and two adults. The kids came before eight, and the adults came after nine. These two pals were intrepidly cruising the southern MB villages and towns seeking out the ideal Halloween situation. They found it. Gretna! There, according to the account, the kids were out on the streets unaccompanied, walking from house to house seeking comfort food. There the whole place "just felt right" as the lights in the houses were on, and people were welcoming little and large people alike into there vestibules and bestowing sweets upon them with care and well-wishes. 

While this all sounds wonderful, my experience of Halloween as a youngster was always one of dread. You see I was never allowed to go "begging." The closest I got to the experience was when mom and dad finally decided not to turn off the lights and go to church to escape the greedy begging trickers and treaters, but to at least give away some chocolate - is my first memory of this handing out a Mojo per person, or was it a stick of Juicy Fruit? Whatever the case, I know that we were not a generous sort of place those first few nights that I was allowed to hand out the treats to the heathen rabble. I do recall that in the last year or two my mom must have been somewhat embarrassed about the meagerness of our offerings, or that I put up a bit of a fuss about it, that we finally stepped-up to the mini-Oh Henry's. Again, my memory is foggy, and my brother may correct me - which I would welcome. 

You see, having broken them down, my younger brother was allowed to, or simply went at it without asking, beg. At least that's my self-pitying memory of it. Whatever the case, to this day my gut reaction to Halloween is one of dread, though I know it to be a great time of community and catharsis and comedy and candy! That's the way my kids experienced it, and that's the way it should be. We should let that inner rabble out to rouse once a year at least. Probably we ought to do this three or four times a year. We'd be better off for it, though we wouldn't always have to give out free candy when we do it. On the other hand why not?

Ride report

in:       3'C wind 10ks SE

out:    9'C wind 10ks SSW

   

Halloween at the Camp

The last "regular" race of the season was at Camp Assiniboia today. The pictures (courtesy of Cheryl and Johnny and Albert) will say more than I can, or should. Except that I hearkened back to my Boys Brigade years, and dressed up appropriately. (Don't ask where I got the shirt and pants - very authentic! I even fastened a green military beret to my helmet!). (singing) "On Stockaders, marching forward, on to victory ..."

   

WWJD

The problem with being like Jesus, or just channeling his spirit here on earth is that there's so much pressure to be right. Not that you have to be correct about everything, but your intentions, those have to be right. By definition as soon as they're off, you can no longer be Jesus incarnate. That's just the way this kind of thing works. So Paul's sitting in the prow of that aluminum fishing vessel, if indeed it makes sense to call that stubby-nosed bow a prow, and he's watching things unfold as he thought they might. They're drifting. The other three are entirely engrossed in fishing. Indeed, they are fishing out of the water a slimy two-foot jackfish that the older brother has hooked. They are completely into this endeavour. To the three of them the world is conflated to this fish, that hook, their net, and the gunwale over which they work.

As he watches the riverbank he notes that they likely have drifted farther downstream than the last time the father started the engine, turned the boat around and nosed it back upstream to the spot where they'd put in. He notes that, relative to the shore, the boat and the water appear to be moving faster. He turns around to look for an explanation as to what he imagines to be an increase in the sound of the river, and notes a disturbance in the water. At least he thinks it's a disturbance. He knows that if he was Jesus he would know for certain whether it was a disturbance or not, and whether or not the disturbance in the water was enough to be alarmed about. It's a reminder to him that he is not, in fact, Jesus, but just trying to see the world that way.

Given this realization his confidence wavers, which serves to exaggerate his fear of what he now fully believes awaits them downstream. What would Jesus do? Should he fall asleep in the front of the boat and wait to be awakened? Should he step overboard and walk to shore (believing that the rippling water will firmly support him as his running shoe touches it - a kind of water to wood miracle)? Should he suggest that they throw their lines over the other side of the boat? Being like Jesus gave him understanding and invincibility, but doubting being like Jesus gives him nothing but questions.


Ride report
in:      2'C wind 10ks S
out:   7'C wind 15 ks SSW

       

I get nervous

This is an observation. I've noticed it most lately when I'm racing cyclocross. I tell myself that I just need to stay calm and not worry about how well I do, but once we've started and I'm out there riding, especially during the first half of the race, I feel the nerves and worry. I worry about whether I'll run out of gas and not be able to finish. I worry that if I pass the riders in front of me, when I know that I can if I want to, that I won't be able to stay in front of them, or that I'll make a mistake. I worry about flatting. I worry about ramming my balls when I remount and doing serious damage (Seriously, who wants that?). But I know that all of this stuff distracts me from the race itself, and from riding as well as I can. 

Dave U says to me, at Cross-Tastic on Sunday, that he told a friend who rides in the A race that since he's finishing at about the same place in every race, he needs to do something different. "You know, just go as hard as you can out there and if you bonk you bonk. At least then you know that you went as hard as you could." 

Well I can see the sense in that. It's also intimidating to me, because then I'm going to worry that I'll bonk early, and end up DNFing or getting lapped/finishing way back. I know that I'm over-thinking it. I'm pretty sure that if I went hard, I'd still finish, and I'd probably finish better than I have so far this season. Then again, I've been pretty wasted by the end of most races, so I'm not sure how much better I can finish. Anyway, the question I have is, how much physical energy does being nervous and worrying about how well you'll do actually take out of me when I'm racing? Does it actually make my body less efficient? My hunch is that it does - if not physically, it must mentally. 

The other way I see this, for myself, is that I've never really liked participating in organized competitive sport. Sure I am a competitive individual and always want to go hard, but that's different than having a "killer instinct" and being able to "play to win." Most times I feel myself playing to "not lose," or to "not suck." Actually I'm often a "when the going get's tough just try to keep going" kind of player. I don't really set the bar high enough or, I'm okay with setting the bar a little lower. At least that's what I hear myself saying when I'm out there racing: "just finish well" or "don't do anything stupid." 

I think I could push harder if I could stop worrying about all this fear of failure stuff. I'm hoping that more racing will help to fix that. The more I race, the more normal it'll feel and the less I'll think about it. If I can just enjoy the exhilaration of being pushed by competition I'll compete better too. Having coached for the last few years I much better understand the value of competition and the necessity of an opponent to help you play better. The better the competition, the better you play. This seems to be a general rule. So I'm loving the race, and learning to embrace the effort needed to compete hard right to the end.

Ride report

in:       2'C wind calm

out:    8'C wind calm

   

Another Cross-asm

This Sunday the race was at Whittier Park, and was named Cross-Tastic. Not an overstatement. Not an overstatement at all. The course demanded much, a sweet much-ness. There were four barriers that required a dismount: First a muck pit down by the red, then a few logs and a series of steps up the bank, then two standard cx barriers, and finally a fiendish series of step up a hill, skitter down the same hill, and then step up the same hillside (pictured below).

Once again the pictures (thanks to Cheryl K) will speak as well. 

In addition, you can get a bike's eye view of what it was like to ride the course, via this video courtesy of Karlee Gendron and her bike. Pretty great!

I was so hot and bothered when I got home that I took my shoes into the shower with me, to reward them for their good work, and to get them good and clean. 

Ride report

in:      6'C wind 10ks SW

out:    9'C wind 10ks SW

South winds

After days, no weeks, of North winds, today it shifted and came in from the South. I hear it first on the weather news, and then when I step out to ride to work I'm immediately aware of the change. It's moist and trending warm. That is, even though it's still below freezing outside, you can feel that the warmth is coming. Do you know what I mean? I'm not sure how to quantify this because all of these conditions could be the same - below freezing, Fall, 15 k wind - and if the wind is from the North, the air would bite shrewdly. But if the wind comes from the South, the same conditions usually feel hopeful. At least at this time of the year.

Some weather guy from central Canada (of course) predicted, two weeks ago, that winter would come hard and fast and that it would be colder than average, with a smidge less snow. What does he know? El Nino? La Nina? Okay maybe these have some influence on things, but if my memory serves me close to correct, it was about 20 years ago that these weather guys started suggesting that these Latin-named currents were altering our weather, and that once we knew which current was in play, we'd know whether the weather would be more extreme in some way, or more moderate. Whatever. I'd like to have the hard data presented in the cold (or warming) light of day, without managing the numbers by scaling graphs to make the differences more pronounced. 

Winter's going to be winter, whenever it wants to be. Some winters hold the snow back until around Christmas, or even later. Most winters wait for Halloween. The last few have waited until after Remembrance Day. I like those the best. But there's really no use in predicting these long term trends. I prefer the more obvious short term observations. If the wind comes out of the South, things will get warmer, and often wetter too. If the wind is from the Northeast things will get colder, and likely wetter. If the wind comes out of the North, brrrr. If the wind comes out of the West, hold on because it'll likely blow hard. 

I love the wind. I hate it too. But I like it more than not. It lets you know what's coming. 

Ride report

in:       -3'C wind 15k S

out:    10'C wind 20k S

It's late

They smile at one another. It's awkward, but not the kind of awkward they'll regret later, the kind of awkward that they'll look back on remembering that conversation. The weight of it. The momentum. In a few years they'll look back on it from separate places. This moment will become that common bond that will, in fact, become their undoing. 

For now though they've just had drinks and they both want to go to bed. For now the only inkling of distress is in this man's far-flung reverie of another life. For now she shrugs, brushes her teeth, splashes water on her face and scans the mirror for blackheads, and uncertainty. It will be all right, she'll think. We'll go to bed and we'll make love and fix it, he'll say as he sits on the toilet. We'll wake up. We'll continue. 

This is what they both will think. And in the end they'll be right, which will surprise them.

Ride report

in:     -3'C wind 15ks NW

out:   6'C wind calm

   

More crossness

I got back on the steed this past Sunday to race Southern Cross. I'll let these pics do the talking. They are courtesy of Woodcock Cycle Works, except for the spectacular sand splat (which is not me, though I did have a similar incident during a warm-up lap - fortunately no cameras were prepared for it), which was masterfully shot by Sierra Blake. 

Cross racing is a good time. A good time indeed. I placed 12th in the B-race, just 11 seconds behind Johnny S. One day I'll catch him. One day.

Ride report

in:      -2'C wind 15ks NW

out:   3'C wind 20ks NW

  

A prophet in his own town

Paul thinks he may be Jesus. At least for this day, and at this time, with these things happening on this river, in this boat. He thinks of those stories of Jesus in boats on the water. When he calmed the storm, when he walked on the water, when he told them to fish on the other side of the boat. He rehearses what he might have to do if things go wrong, which he' s sure they will.

It's happened before when he's had this feeling. He and his friends are walking down the Main Street in the small Canadian town they live in after school. They notice the friend of an older brother of a boy whose Dad owns a car dealership in town driving a racing style Japanese motorcycle with nearly one thousand cubic centimetres of piston displacement. The boy whose Dad owns the car dealership says to the others how powerful the motorcycle is, that it's just as fast as the ones they actually race with in Europe. Paul watches the teenager on the bike scream by, engine whining, gears shifting, so that the front wheel lifts and the biker rides the back wheel. After watching the it pass Paul says, "That guy's going to crash," and thus it comes to pass, with all of the boys watching, that the bike's front wheel indeed dips, rises again, then dips and falls to touch the pavement. The rider has turned the wheel off of straight such that it grabs the pavement and wrenches the whole bike over to the left. The back wheel whips out to the right and slides along blacktop until the rubber catches and grips and by force of momentum the bike lifts up again into the air, tumbles once with the rider still on it, before the forces of nature rip him free of it and he rolls, then slides along the grit and fine gravel that accumulates along curbs on the edges of streets. The bike bounces along and at last scrapes to a stop too.

"Whoa!" says the boy whose father owns a car dealership, "did you really just say that that was going to happen?" The other boys generally smile and laugh and congratulate Paul, who squints at the scene unfolding up the street.

"It's going to be okay," he says and smiles. "It's just a lesson the guy needed to learn about how not to ride." With that Paul becomes a celebrity of prediction - a prophet in his own town. The boys spread his story around town and tell of other close calls like it that he's predicted. They tell the stories with such conviction that Paul starts to think before he speaks.

Ride report

in:        4'C wind 25ks NW

out:     6'C wind 35ks WNW

Not even if he was hungry

Out on the river the boy with the striped shirt begins to consider another facet of his Christliness. The boat drifts downstream, the motor idles and occasionally engages, at the behest of the vigilant father in order to steer around corners or avoid sandbars. The boy in the striped shirt is grudging in this observation. It won't be carelessness that causes this disaster. There will be little room for schadenfreude or "I-told-you-sos" here. So he waits and watches and he does not fish.

"C'mon Paul," says his friend, the older brother. "It's not hard. It's fun!" Paul only imagines that time that he watched his older brother catch a fish and he had to try to hold it for him, while he prised the the hook out of its mouth. The slime of the scales and the sharp edges of the gills stay in his memory. He can feel them on his fingers just thinking about it. He can't imagine anything, even hunger, that would cause him to want to put himself in a position where he was the one catching the fish and asking for help to pry the hook out of that gasping maw. For an eleven year old he dwells more on discomfort and trouble than courage and adventure. 

As if on cue the rod the younger brother holds dips and he yells and the father smiles and leans forward, picking up the net in one hand and touching the bending rod with the other. "Take the line in slow," he says. They all watch as the boy listens and slowly reels in the taut line until the jackfish appears at the side of the boat to be netted and lifted into it. Together father and son unhook the fish and set it free again. Paul watches. Though his anxiousness recedes, he cannot see the point in this, much less the fun. What would Jesus do, Paul thinks, if he was a fish?

Ride report

in:        5'C wind 20ks NW

out:   10'C wind 15ks NNW

Occupy the Krahn Barn!

From the Red! 

Please join us on October 21 as we revel in, and listen to, a Mennonite return to music-loving socialist roots, under the guise of a nearby geographical feature. One more time, and with feeling, to keep the show front and centre, here's the poster.

Let us not refrain from repeating the refrain! 


You can follow The Krahn Barn on Facebook (I know I know ... but whatcha gonna do?) 

Ride report

in:       9'C wind 10ks SE (rain)

out:    13'C wind 10ks NW (rain)

Winning

It isn't everything. It isn't the only thing. But it sure makes a difference. Today, after beating Minnedosa 4-1 and winning a wildcard berth at the provincial championships, it felt like a gift. A well-earned gift. The thing is, that you don't always earn a win, and a competitor who understands healthy competition knows this. Hard work, even hard work and superior play, does not always carry the day. (Ah, those juicy cliches - I'm talking sport and they just dribble down my chin! Just wait for more. Get the nappies!)

When you're on your game you know the fickleness of it. You know that you can't blame the equipment, or the field, or the ref. You know that if you do you're weaker because of it and your win, or your loss, is lessened. So it's a gift to win. Well earned or served up with a surprise, you just take it and nod and feel good about your prayers to the sporting gods, and your attitude to life in general. If you can keep it that way, win or lose, you're onto something. 

The reality is that winning just relieves the pressure, for the moment. Until you lose again, or until they score one, or two, or more on you, before you muster a reply. The quality of the competition and the competitive spirit depends on your ability to understand when you've earned your gift, and when you've been graced (mercied?) with it. Today we earned it, so it feels best. To get better we'll have to see what we learned from it too - that after going down by one within the first three minutes we staved off a collapse and found a way to ignore each other's faults and mistakes, and moved forward. 30 minutes later we scored, and then 10 minutes later we scored again, and the rest, as they say ... 

The victory was an earned gift today. We'll take it. We'll take it when we don't earn it too, and we'll smile and nod and say our prayers for the grace we have received.

Ride report

in:         6'C wind 10ks SE

out:    12'C wind 15ks SE

   

Someone else's business

Two things about the brothers' father: He is borrowing the boat; he does not know the river. Knowing that the boat is borrowed, the boy in the striped shirt infers that the father knows less than enough about how to use it, or drive it, or whatever it is you call the operation of a small aluminum fishing boat. Already he'd watched and been asked to help, and tried to do so but only uselessly hung on to the gunwales of the overturned boat as the father heaved it by the stern backboard off of the back of the pickup, righted it, and then dragged it across the gravel and down slick clay bank, the three boys hanging off of it as it slumps down to the water. Then the boy in the striped shirt scrambled back up the bank for safety's sake, turning around expecting to see his friends beside him only to watch them whooping and heaving themselves into it. The father is already back at the truck hoisting the outboard motor up from the truck box, and then lugs it down the bank.

The boy in the striped shirt simply doesn't believe that this exuberance will end well. The Spring run-off has swelled the Pembina such that it is obvious even to this inexperienced skeptic that it is running fast. Too fast for all this nonchalance. But the father and his sons complete their preparations, load their rods and the picnic lunch into the boat and call out, finally, to him to "C'mon, let's go!"

He inches and slips down the bank, gingerly grabbing at and following the gunwales as he gets to it. Once he climbs in, the father pushes them into the water and hops in himself as the current catches the boat and moves them offshore to the centre of the river. The boy watches with concern as the father climbs past him and over benches to reach the stern. He lowers the propeller into the water and pulls the starter cord three, four, five times before it sputters to life. Drifting with the current now the boy says, above the put-put of the motor, "Is this the direction we want to go?"

"Yup," he says, smiling. "We'll drift down with the current, then tool back upstream and drift down again." The boy tries to return the smile. "It'll be fun right boys!" the father says. "We'll follow the river and catch some fish." The boy in the striped shirt wants to be this romantic. That would not be the word he'd use, not at this age, but he'd understand the sentiment that living in the moment would be a less troublesome way of managing this day, or any day, but he'd have no facility to get there. At least not at this time. In fact, not for another 20 years would he have this facility. In fact, the gravity of this unlikely knowledge weighs on him. It's like a mission. It's like he must be about someone else's business.         

Ride report

in:       16'C wind 25ks SE

out:     27'C wind 50ks SE

A tough day

You win some, you lose some. It's true. The soccer team had a bad day today, and so our league season ended after the semi-finals. Still our record for the season was 10-3-3. We hope for a wildcard berth in the provincials. 

They say that breaking up is hard to do. In this case watching a break up is hard to do. This, also, is true, even watching it from a distance. It's hard to watch people hurt, even when you know it's necessary. I think I'd modify the bard's words to "I say, we will have no more 'going steady'." Let's just practice loose affiliations that allow for quick entrances and exits. Only when you find that you're inhabiting the same physical space, and you're really not minding it at all, in fact you can't really see things any other way should you consider declaring some sort of committed association. 

PS. Telephone conversations are terrible, but I can't imagine having the conversation I just had with my daughter via texts. So I say that telephones are terrible, but they're better than the alternatives.


Ride report
in:      14'C wind 20ks SE
out:   24'C wind 25ks SE

    

Meanwhile he keeps smiling

Two brothers, the tall one and the short one, stand in front of the 1975 Chevrolet Silverado. The short one, younger by 5 years, hitches up his short pants and grins lopsided at the camera his father aims back at him, while the tall one watches and mugs too, for a snapshot that includes a friend wearing a vertical striped shirt - blue, light blue, yellow, green, red, white, and so on. The friend's strewn hair, terse smile, and shoulders hunched forward into the wind mark his reluctance.

There's a river to the left of them that you don't see in the picture, and that he watches out of the corner of his eye. It weighs on this boy's mind. He's seen the boat he's supposed to sit in and he's known all along that there will be fishing going on, and that in itself gives him a low in the gut feeling - not unlike a millstone, or a carp, catfish, or northern pike that turns and reels in the river. 

Of course some of these thoughts I'm articulating for him. I doubt, at the age of 11, that he knows the name of the fish that swim in the Pembina. It's the namelessness of things that daunt him - the murky water, the myriad rivets lacing the hull together above it, the unlikely sputter of the 6 horse Mercury. How long does it take to fill a boat to sinking if a rivet fails? If 2, or 10? 

The 2 brothers, already scrambling down the bank, heave themselves over the gunwales. They yell, Dad hurry! Let's go! They sit on the benches and rock the boat. They look up at him and tell him to get in. He hates them for it. 

     

The cats stay out

Any chance I could keep it light in here? The car's in the shop. A 21 year old biker dies at an uncontrolled intersection. The soccer team wins. Ring around the currency the stock market falls down. It all just drones on. The biological clock ticks. The haze of stubble-burning days are with us. Mice scrabble in the walls. September's still a really expensive month. And the excitement of a provincial election bubbles forth. Everything's possible but there's no guarantee it'll make sense. 

I just bought a "new" (different, not as old, or as heavy as the old John Deere) chainsaw. A Husqvarna. 61 cc. 18 inch bar. Now I'm looking forward to the cutting I've got to do. It was about 25'C today, but still you can feel Winter rumbling down the road in the distance. There's wood to split and stow inside. 

If I was a chipmunk or a squirrel would I worry? The cats seem to. They're more urgent, more hungry. They look at us through the windows wondering about their chances of getting inside and staying. For them it could be life and death. For us it's allergies. The cats stay out. Such a fine line. Poor cats. I guess. 

Ride report

in:       9'C wind 5 ks SW

out:    19'C wind 15ks NW