DNRT

I admit I have had a skeptical and narrow attitude about blogs. I always wondered where these people find the time, or where they arrived at the presumption that everyone in the blogosphere would want to read their every brain burst. Now I’m joining them! However, I am doing this intermittently, almost solely as an exercise to keep me writing. So, you are merely an unwitting victim to my authorial aspirations. You may exit now.

However, if you choose to read, you will find most of what I am writing aims at the theme of Do The Next Right Thing (DNRT). I am speaking on the subject this summer, and writing on the subject for some as-yet-to-be-determined publication. But, not everything will be serious. Sometimes I’ll just afflict you with something whimsical, or a story that has no particular deep moral, except that it’s enjoyable to tell.

Such is the case with this bit of poetry. I’ve been thinking about it because some of us are preparing for the IronWorks Bicycle Tour (Sept 7-10). As you may know I have spent considerable time in the saddle over the past thirty-five years. I wrote this poem as I travelled through the state of Washington on a sabbatical journey by bike from Seattle to Missoula, Mt. I had a crummy map which did not alert me to most the huge climbs I would be making. And, one morning, leaving the little town of Twisp, I encountered the equally memorable pass called Loup Loup. The highway department had just spread a sealcoat of tar and gravel over the road, and that just added to my misery, frustration, and fatigue.

Somehow the rhythm and snarl of a poem by Robert Service came to mind: The Cremation of Sam McGee, and I put this down as my memory. It’s best read while chewing a cigar, or some beef jerky, with a hoarse throat from the dusty road.

The bike trip won’t be this tough. Sign up!


LOUP LOUP THEOPHANY

Heavy-laden leaving Twisp
Full on breakfast, spitting grit
From the tar and chips they spread down on the road.
Hung a left up Loup Loup pass
Dared the Devil brew his best
To defeat me as I lugged my pannier load.

He dealt thirteen miles of testing,
Six percent, deep knee-joint stressing
Made my eyeballs sweat and quads to burn like fire.
So, in full sweat by nine-thirty
As the white line shimmered, blurry,
I determined to make Lucifer the liar.

Churning in the breathless heat,
Up and up I made him eat
Every taunt he threw to make me give it in.
Not a pinhead spot of shade
This side of hell did shadows lay
Across the road that I sure swear began to spin.

When my nose hairs caught on fire
I knew then my straits were dire
And it flashed across my brain that I’d been had.
Then I saw the summit sign
And knew Victory was mine
And announced with swollen tongue: “That wasn’t bad!”

For as every biker knows
Though he aches from hair to toes
Somewhere deep this thought is rooted, crystal clear.
That though pain can cause confusion,
This is true and no illusion:
God lives at the summit and IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE!

7/6/98

DNRT,
Roger Thompson