Redding, CA

Andreas Paepcke
Aug 27, 2017 · 6 min read

Well, probably my last entry. All I wanted for my last dinner on the
road was a banana split from Denny’s. Actually, I had one of those at
a Denny’s in Roseburg, and when I lamented to my waitress about
Denny’s being the only one still serving banana splits, she
responded with knowing doubt in her voice:

“Yeah?…”

She considered me for a moment, then sidled closer and confided:

“Try Dairy Queen.”

Which is when I finally understood the freeway exit signs that
advertise all the food joints:

“Denny’s; McDonalds; Taco Bell; DQ; Pizza Hut”

I’d always wondered about the “DQ”. Now I know!

Waitresses often take care of me. Like, tonight, when I wanted nothing
but a banana split. Yet, I felt I should have a reasonable dinner. Something
small before the split. Denny’s has 55+ dishes of which I have with some hesitation begun to avail myself. But both Denny’s and DQ were far enough away from the hotel to be cumbersome with my limp, yet embarrassingly close for an Uber.

So, I quasimodoed next door from my La Quinta hotel into a joint that
is clearly not designed for a small token dinner.

Not the place for a “Juuuuust a bite” dinner

First, my wait person, Aaron, told me an interesting story about his
drug addicted mother releasing him to adoption at age 3, his own brush
with addiction, and current activity of mentoring drug addicts between
19 and 30. He’d like to connect with his biological mother, who lives
somewhere in the Bay Area. Though he hasn’t found the umph to do
it. His whole family vilifies her. He needs to find his own way. I liked him.

What Aaron learned in rehab is spot on, though while he was able to
articulate the lesson, I don’t know whether at 27 he has truly
integrated the challenge. In summary, what he learned is that you want
your self-value to be endogenously generated, as opposed to being
absent, or externally endowed. Activating that endogenous well is the
task of a life time. Failures in prospecting for that flow are root to
an astonishing array of mental and personality disorders.

Shifting self worth into my inner world, away from doing, and from
externally shining is my key to happiness. Given that I am not
continuously happy is evidence that I am not there yet. Therefore the
banana splits. They make the in-between times quite workable,
actually. Aaron was maybe a bit too confident that he had drilled his
well to last his life time. I suspect he will experience some
clogging of the flow along the way.

Well, I figured the Petite Filet Mignon with rice, and five shrimps in
cocktail sauce would be that small, somewhat healthy dinner to warrant
a nice dessert. I had my eye on the Cowpaddy Sundae. (Yes, I know what
a cow paddy is. But I love cows, all right?!).

Unfortunately, there is nothing small at Cattlemens. Here is what I
left uneaten.

Uneaten: all of the oven-warm bread, butter, a bucket of beans, half my salad with associated Italian dressing. Also, the ornamental green thing on my Filet Mignon (just visible in the lower right of the photo).

I felt guilty leaving so much to the garbage can, and I confided as
much to Aaron. To be honest with you all, I wanted a sort of
absolution out of him. I didn’t get it:

“You just had to do that to us, didn’t you?! Leave all that food. I
think it’s very disrespectful.”

My compromise: a Cowpaddy Sundae without the cow paddy. That addition
would have been a freshly baked brownie. Aaron double checked a couple
of times:

“So you want the Cow Paddy Sunday, which is ice cream, whipped cream,
chocolate sauce, Oreo cookie crumbles over a freshly baked brownie. But without the brownie?”

“Yep, perverted, I know, but that’s what I want.”

That’s what I got, and that’s what I ate.

Pussyfoot

What triggered Aaron’s story was my drawing the image below on La Quinta
stationary as I waited on him to wait on me.

These details won’t be interesting, maybe a bit tedious, but we got this far together. So I’ll throw it in, and you’ll suffer though it, won’t you?

Last night in Roseburg I decided to put the bike on its centerstand
over night. My back is behaving, and I remembered to roll it. All
good.

Until this morning when I executed a maneuver I have powered through
numerous times. Notice the slight leftward slope beneath the bike
stand. The slope was less than this schematic would have you
believe.

Schematic of scene in front of the Roseburg Comfort Inn: Me, seen from behind on the bike. The bike is resting on its center stand. Notice the (exaggerated) leftward slant of the ground, as compared to what would have been a horizontal ground plane.

As usual, I climb on, check three times that choir, nave, crypt, and
belfry really are zipped, and I rock myself off the stand. Of
course, given the slope, the bike makes landfall at that slight
angle. What you do is catch the weight (in this case) with your left
leg, and align the bike with an imaginary plumb line.

Not today. My left foot makes contact with the concrete. I apply the
downward pressure to right the bike. And my whole leg just kind
of crumbles. I think the damaged foot avoided further damage to itself and signaled to the leg above:

“Honey, honey, didn’t I mention? We are not doing that bike righting thing today.”

The bike sulked:

“Well, I’m not going to right myself, buddy. I’m going to lie down.”

And who can blame it?

Remember my bike class teacher explaining that anybody can pick up a bike
of any size by using adrenaline? The idea is for your body to be a
hydraulic lift, with oil replaced by adrenaline. I had the adrenaline,
but not enough structure to lift.

This is a video. I was trying for the second method.

I was going for the second method, because I couldn’t get under for the backward lift. Plus, I have no kickstand on the right side, so I would likely have laid the bike down on its other side. Too painful to contemplate.

Fortunately, a hunk materialized from the hotel lobby, and we lifted
together. Once I’m on and moving, physics are on my side. That bike is
adamant about staying upright as soon as it feels the gyro forces. But
it does want those forces first. No exceptions, even for me.

Now, hunks have been the bane of my existence. As an adolescent I
painfully learned that girls did not care about my ability to write
essays, my knack for language, and my ability to explain HF standing
waves on an antenna. They wanted hunks. Know what my first girlfriend
said after my very first time kissing a girl — -her?

“You call that a kiss?”

This after I had irritated her by first asking whether it was OK to
kiss her. What she wanted was a hunk in spirit and form. My mother
consoled me that the hunk preference would wane, though I might have
to wait till college. I did, but you know, even there, beef was
appreciated. Maybe a little bit of that desire stirs occasionally even
with women my age. They just got better in pretending that
intelligent discourse is what drives them wild in a man.

That bitterly said, the hunk from out of the lobby was in fact
handy. I’m beginning to get the idea of why women might want brawn.

The rest of the ride to Redding was partly very smokey from wildfires,
partly warm (105F). Both the bike and I knew the temperature was
higher than normal. Nonetheless, my blow-through jacket, and the
bike’s air cooling kept us reasonable, albeit a tad above the usual
temp gauge midpoint. Good landscape, interesting
trucks. Unfortunately, all the truck weighing stations were in
operation, so I couldn’t test whether the scales operate unattended as
they do in Canada. Maybe tomorrow.

)

Andreas Paepcke

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