I need some help from the "seasoned" bikers among us. I'm having some trouble.

I turned sixty, but that's not the issue here, just a symptom. My temper might be a factor of SADS because it's been pretty gloomy here in Wisconsin, in fact, right now it's gray, rainy and foggy.

I make no secret of the fact that as a younger man I was a club member. And for many bizarre reasons, that was the social fabric that socialized my views and behavior rather than things like my parents, Boy Scouts, the army or a good woman. Yikes, I was a child of the golden-age of 'boomer clubs.

Anyway, I am running the gamut of anger, paranoia, slavish routines and finally I have decided to fully retire. (I now have a home business, and even my wife--whom I've known for 43 years--is telling me to quit.) I have never cared for people much, except for insiders who are rare and few.

I make no secret of being bipolar, and I got myself checked out by my doctor from jump-street, no probs. I began a rigous addition to my gym routine, muscled up and lost almost 70 pounds. If anything I cleaned out my diet. In fact my wife says I'm more thoughtful, and she says our relationship in the last five years is the best.

Still, my thoughts and first reactions are like that of an angry young man. Anything new or anything that changes my routine--like an unplanned errand--is viewed with contempt. Now, I know that many elderly people get cranky, but other than gray hair I haven't physically changed in many years. My doc says my blood chemistry is that of a far younger man.

So you ol' boys on those boated out geezer glides, what's wrong? Is this a physical phase like puberty? If I could, I'd take out my little Harley and waste away a long afternoon, the very thought of that brings a fond smile. What's your opinion?

Hey Tourist,
I ain’t no doctor but I know what you’re talkin about. There 's no fever or symptoms of the flu. Ya I know you got old Black Betty and your new scoot 48 (nice little sporty) if I were to get one it would sure be that one. Just sitten in the geroge. The problem is that you are up in Wisconsin. I take it there is snow on the ground and your stuck in the house! I call it cabin fever. Now a guy like you, and I really don't know ya personally (but I do enjoy reading your posts) needs to be out on the road, you know what I mean (riden). Now if you are retired you need to get someplace where the weather is good enough to get out on your bike and let the wind hit you in the face.

Heck I live in so cal and we have had rain for the last 2 weeks. I got cabin fever and I can ride almost 52 weeks out of the year. The only thing that I can say is that when I lived in snow country I was the same way, but it was that much sweeter when spring can around and I lit up my toys for the first time in 5 months boy I felt like a new born baby. You’re not alone! Hey keep up the posts gives me some good reading material..

Hope this helps

Lenny

Thanks, guy. Just our exchange and the support of this forum is more help than you can imagine. In fact, when BI63 and I talk on the phone I get some positive feedback about our life in motorcycling--and I think that's one of the big problems.

The world of motorcycling I knew is long gone. So are things like a solid work ethic and being civil in public. I'm even finding the highways a hostile place, I have to dodge idiots on the road like they were unfocused shrapnel. And it's even the minor things. A fellow club member (who should know better) has owed me the final payment on a new knife for over six months. I would have gotten a visit from a club enforcer back in the day. The idea of "brotherhood" is a dusty bygone concept.

You mention Black Betty and the little 48 I've named "Spinner." *sigh* I fear you're right. While I never looked at myself as a hardcore brawler (I was the jokester of the group) I do feel an overriding sense of calm on the road. Even the lighted loupe I use on my job has a full spectrum flourescent bulb, and it helps after a few hours. My idea of "unwinding" isn't tearing up some honky-tonk bar, but working through whatever ails me, and I cannot now. And that covers both riding and working now. "The winter of bike storage and retirement."

And I'm sorry to vent or rant, but if this isn't the place I don't know where else. I have always believed that a forum should be a place to exchange ideas, and there might be lots of guys like me out there under the same load. BTW, I had a bad time this week on a knife forum. Once again I had to face "the modern age."

No, you're not alone, IMHO, once you've had that blast of fun from riding the rest of life gets boring and old real fast. Add the cold and dark of the winter and then the holidays and I'm surprised that any of us are still out of jail.
Here's what works for me, I don't call a bunch of old friends that live back in the old neighborhood, they're too far away to visit in person and as soon as I hang up the phone I can't tell ya the lonely feeling. I save those calls for the good weather and when I can be easily distracted from those feelings.
Hobbies, don't laugh, you'd be surprised what a great distraction a scale model of something you love can do to put a smile back on your face. I also do woodworking, make a shelf and give it away as a gift... I built a real nice cabinet one winter. A pet, I've had a dog since I was a kid, funny how a cold wet nose can keep the blues away. I stay far away from people when I get like that, nothing good ever comes from getting your toes stepped on by a rude SOB. A train set, my buddy will do his winter train set when he gets cabin fever, I get a big kick out of visiting him when its set up. The whole thing is beating the boredom, I'm not much on reading but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. I keep away from the magazines, there's way too much selling going on, most of it makes ya that much more depressed, looking at all the cool stuff you're NOT doing. This time of year is good for makeing plans for the good weather, planning routes and reading maps makes me feel like I'm getting something done. When summer finally does role around I'll go and pick one and do it.
The trick is not sitting idle, just like our bikes, it isn't good for the soul.

I hear ya! Take a couple of deep breathes and before you know it spring will be knocking at your door.

Happy New Year!

In fifteen minutes I am going to have my one customary drink of the year a bottle of tequila.

I will resume tomorrow.

Lenny

Guys, I feel a bit better now. Went to the gym, pounded 2100 calories on Gauntlet and five or six sets off my chest. Came home, inhaled a cob salad and found your responses. Right now I'm enjoying a very stiff latte' and looking forward to that "once a year" drink, as well.

(Usually I'm a Patron or Don Julio kind of guy. It has to be 100% agave or it's just paint thinner to me. Speaking of paint thinner, my wife's best friend got me a quart of Anise for Chistmas. Yes, I know that Anise is a deadly poison. Yes, I know a quart of it will take out an entire bike club and half of their panheads. But what's one teeny little shot glass and a few careful sips...?)

The hobby angle is a good suggestion. I don't sharpen and polish my own knives enough. Maybe a few hours over the waterstones will be of some benefit tonight instead of lounging in front of the tube.

Yikes, how long until spring?

Edit: According to Wikipedia: In the 1860's, American Civil War nurse Maureen Hellstrom used anise seeds as an early form of antiseptic. This method was later found to have caused high levels of toxicity in the blood and was discontinued shortly thereafter.

Hey dude, you need to chill bro. I had an issue when I turned 50, but not enough for me to go into a pothole or something like that. Whats gray, rain and gloomy got to do whith not ridin. It was almost 50 today here in buffalo, so me and the boys went for a ride. There was a slight drizzle today. but it was good.



We all did dumb sh_ _ when we were younger,or not always made all the right choices, is that reason for regret, no. These are just some of lifes many experences, if we don't learn from these lessons then shame on us. When your young what do your parents know? (we know now). Boy scouts are for sissy boys. (they still are). Army they use real bullets. (f_ _ _ that). And who the hell in their right mind wants a good woman? Give me a bad girl and some strong rope, giddy up.



Leave the anger at the door bro, It'll eat you up. I know what you mean about people, but watch them and observe carefully, they can even make you laugh. It sounds like you got the important stuff in your life together, your buiness and a partner that sounds like you can trust.



Bipolar , you think you got it bad, I live here in buffalo. Now thats polar. I hate doctors, I have a phobia to latex gloves with vasoline on the index finger. I also am a gym rat. What better theropy than a hard workout and a hard ride, just what the doctor ordered.



Leave the anger to the young bucks. We all hate changes and new things, or being told what to do and how to do it. Just smile and do it your way anyway. What are they going to do, turn us into human beings and send us to earth? Yeah same here, other than grey hair, losing my memory, eye sight, hearing and control of my bowel and bladder, not much has changed from when i was a teenager. Speaking of my bladder, I use to have to push it down so I did'nt get my face wet, now I have to hold it up so I don't soak my boots.



I'm looking foward to the geezer glide. My mind is still young, the package is not the same. I'm done with the show and go, time for me to chill, relax and enjoy. We wake up in the morning surronded by walls, we get in our cars to go to work surronded by walls, We get to work surronded by walls, and back home surronded by walls. We saddle up our iron horses and ride, no walls FREEDOM!



Ride Hard...Ride Fast...Ride Safe

Tourist,

Got the flu/cold right now but I just want to say is.... a part of what you feel is how much you relie on you bike to keep things smoothed out for you, mentally speaking. Its winter and your rolling couch is inoperative.

The particulars of what you speak I think also. Apparently a few others do too. So its not you or me, its those who just don't know and will never know.

Will get back to this whence I feel better. Until then try putting a box fan by your head at nite when you go to sleep. It will piss your wife off but it feels/seems just like being in the wind. I been doing that every nite all my life,lol.

Tssuds, to offer an explanation, I know "academically" that every word you wrote is true. Having said that I'm not sure that my passionate decisions were ever academic. Heck, I'm not even sure the first time I threw a leg o'er I was in my right mind.

As for the Boy Scouts and good women, I find myself faced periodically with those "paths not taken" sort of doubts. Everything of any importance I have or have achieved is from tenacity, hard work and the refusal to fear--either men or conditions.

(I went to a Star Wars movie with an old girl friend. I heard her smirk when Hans Solo remarked, "Never tell me the odds." And while that's funny now, I never do consider the odds. By buying in bulk MoCo pays about seven cents apiece for axle nuts. Consider the 'odds' now at going 90 MPH. And, BTW, that girl friend didn't have a lick of 'good' in her, and the word 'lick' here is used as a pun.)

And to my blood BI63, without much explanation you know the background of the displeasure for me. How do you find sense in a world gone mad? If there is one safe spot for me, it's lost in thought out on the slab. While I'm not a big Christopher Cross fan, this lyric stuck true, "If there's one thing in my life that's missing it's the time that I spend alone." And that's even if I take Windex to my chrome in a peaceful garage. This is just a bump, but like all bumps the kick in the butt is more intense that ten miles of good road.

As I write this it's Sunday morning before the gym and well before the last Packer game of the regular season. I'm kind of a snake hunter's tote sack this morning. The coffee has helped, and the work-out might even be a better ruse. I must admit that there's a 'wild hair' in my Swiss cheese demeanor. I guess it's just another day.

This past week I got banned from a knife forum. I didn't do anything, but it's the fall-out from my ongoing war with a banner advertiser who exerts undue pressure on the forum's owner. In real life the advertiser wouldn't even approach me in a tavern, because that's the way these guys are. In secret, however, he's a brave bold chairborne ranger.

I got a phone call last night from a fellow knife forum member, a good guy and also a knife reseller working out of Mississippi. He's befuddled by the action, as well. But like me, he's in it for the professional exposure and the love of the hobby, not the fellowship of a few guys who have to squat. We spoke for about 30 minutes, and I felt a tad better, and surprisingly a tad worse.

Like you guys, I feel an inner tug to both create and destroy. For example, we all know guys who do some of the most beautiful air-brush painting in our counties, and yet their artistic bent causes them to be the first among us to fly off the barstool in a blind rage. I'm a good knife polisher (a sharpener with a zen focused talent) and a fair minded reseller. I also still think I'm 20 years old.

So thanks guys for your feedback, and more importantly your guidance and patience. It's hard to need a mentor when you should be old enough to be one.