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From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:20:10 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-22
SONOMARIN SNAPSHOTS
#22 in the second online CAA series
by
Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
Sausalito, CA; 11,565 miles.
(c) February 5, 1987
Suddenly there begins another mad macrophase. The changes struck with our
last wild descent, an abrupt transition at the dusky end of an exhausting
50-mile day. BMW's and solar-heated redwood hot tubs. Vanity plates and
chocolatiers. Evidence everywhere of treats turned de rigeuer, of expensive
toys, of the Good Life. We're in (where else?) Marin County.
As I write in this wooded suburban oasis, a dog named Stony goes mad with
frustration (her tennis ball is imprisoned beneath my Birkenstocks). Two
little girls, flawless, frolic about their two- story playhouse, intent on
adult-simulation. Birds chirp in gentle cacophony, the coffee smells exotic,
and a distant murmur from Sir Francis Drake is the only clue that I'm not
really far out in some idealized image of "country." We've been living a sweet
laziness for the last week: plenty of space, good food, redwood sauna,
separate phone line, bright kids, music, foamy fragrant margaritas, and yet
another new circle of friends.
My foot healed, more or less, in Healdsburg. I still gimp about on my
nifty collapsable aluminum cane, but I can ride OK -- and it took three
pedaling days to make it to the beginning of our Bay Area adventure.
First: a flat, easy trek to Santa Rosa. I visited Lemo, one of my
equipment sponsors (they make ultra-high-quality water-resistant connectors),
and now have a 12-pin medical-grade interconnect on my brain interface unit.
While there, we did the obligatory interviews, yielding a nice full-color story
in the Press-Democrat and a mediocre TV spot. But the article, in this
New-York-Times-owned paper, triggered a succession of radio mini-features
across the country -- significantly simplifying my recent quest for more
sponsors. (This is such a strange business.) Life's events range from
unexpected strokes to unexpected insults: the Wells Fargo Bank in Santa Rosa
insisted on charging $5 to cash a $10 check drawn on one of their local
branches, but there's no charge for me to mail it to Ohio and have it processed
back across the country. Mystifies me...
Second: a mildly hilly, picturesque cruise to Sebastopol, on a day so
beautiful that we almost pressed on past our new host and into the rural hills.
But we stopped, yielding a delightful afternoon of bike work and bike talk at
the world headquarters of Ibis Cycles. Quality stuff here: these folks build
TIG-welded Chrome-Moly mountain and "trials" bikes, having discovered that the
temperatures reached through traditional brazing lead to eventual frame
failures in the brutal off-road environment that attracts the fat-tire set. We
hung around for a day, watching their new house get built, risking my ankle
trying to balance a trials bike, and making the obligatory pizza run.
Third: a big one. 50 miles of up and down -- up to the sky and down to
Petaluma, then back up, past countless Arabian ranches, down past the
reservoir, past Nicasio, and finally up over one last hill to the sudden
profusion of rush hour imports and the unmistakable signs of City instead of
Town. Through it all, climb after climb, the ankle grumbled and complained,
never quite disabling but always very much THERE. Robbed of my natural rhythm
and doing most of the work with my right leg, I tired easily -- arriving almost
delerious at the home of our Kentfield host.
San Francisco, the City, the traffic, the frenzy of the next phase... all
are very close. No hurry. This home, complete with 6- and 9-year-old girls,
has been a place to gather strength, play telephone tag, play tickle-monster,
and line up business meetings. We have babysat, dogsat, and sat around. We
have planned grand video productions and rapped into the night. We have thrown
the tennis ball for Stony, gotten our host onto GEnie (welcome MWANGER), and
taken lazy afternoon saunas. And, most recently, we rode over to the girls'
school and presented ourselves as the ultimate show-n-tell to about 300 kids,
grades K-5.
They filed in orderly and agape, floor-sitting in rows on the other side
of a masking tape boundary. I spoke of travel and freedom, letting the bike's
synthesizer speak for itself. "I tried growing up," I concluded, "but it
wasn't any fun at all. Why not enjoy your whole life? Are there any
questions?"
A hundred hands shot up. I chose randomly.
"Name some of the people you've met," said one little girl. Um... Jim,
Laura, Jackie, Jerry, Dave, Duane, Ken, Michael, and Dave. And Rosie. And
another Dave. And...
"Where do you keep your toothbrush? How many clothes do you have?
Where's your money?"
"How do you two get along?" Fine, we met on Valentine's Day. Giggles.
"What if you come to a river and there isn't any bridge? What happens if
it falls in the river?"
"How many hours does it take to go across the United States?"
"Where did you get all the stuff to make that? Does it play video games?
Is your stereo a Sony?"
"Do you ever not know what state you're in?"
And this one, from a third-grader whose parents are divorcing: "How long
would it take a dad and a boy to build one of those together?"
Every time I moved the bike -- or opened the console to display the
circuitry -- the room erupted in a chorus of ooooohhhh!s One young fellow,
clearly in a state of rapture, stretched across the masking tape line and gazed
at the expanse of chips and cabling. Eyes wide, he cried, "Wow, it looks
like... the whole WORLD!"
When it was over and most were on their way back to a more traditional
education, someone had an idea. "Um, can I have your autograph?" asked the
small voice from somewhere below a proferred scrap of paper and a chewed #2.
"Sure," I said expansively, not realizing what I was getting into. Within
minutes the room was breezy with the flutter of old library catalog cards,
notebook pages, and paper scraps -- all waving urgently in my face in a total
abandonment of the order that had prevailed a moment before. I haven't signed
my name so much since buying that house in suburbia, way back in those dark
years...
Lifestyle sampler. We clambered about Mount Tamalpais with 6- year-old
Shannan, holding her hands, collecting manzanita berries and bits of
serpentine, feeling very much like parents. That night, we tucked her and
Corey in, telling them stories until eyelids grew heavy. Life has become a
multidimensional catalog of realities, a wish book of cultural options.
* * *
Down the road -- last stop before the City. Sausalito tonight: in a posh
townhouse with two thirtyish pretty single women working in big-city radio ad
sales. Fine furniture, talk of men and occult and stock market, cozy hot tub,
Duraflame logs making decorative flames while electric panels in the cathedral
ceiling chew $250/month. Good art, good conversation, the kind of space that
bespeaks comfort and success. The magazines, neatly stacked: Money, Business
Week, Travel & Liesure, Vogue, Metropolitan Home, Bon Appetit. The books:
eclectic best sellers, economic self-improvement, coffee-table art collections.
This is the target culture of media-fed America -- the spacious decor of the
American Dream, baby-boomer style. Very nice.
Tomorrow the City, fast trip, straight shot to Silicon Valley. A layover
begins -- the bike needs waterproof handlebar keys, installation of the new
2-meter transceiver (Yaesu, joy of man's desiring...), packet system debugging,
final helmet wiring, audio switching, a new speech board, console legs,
hydraulic brakes, air horns, a new tent, electronic compass software, map case
velcro, more memory for the Motorola supervisory processor, a CD player,
touch-tone decoder, a cellular phone, and elimination of that irritating little
buzzing noise that's been nagging at me since somewhere back up the roaad in
Washington.
That oughta keep me busy for a while.
-- Steve