* * Wishing everyone a Happy New Year

I'm furiously working on book #4, a novel set in Southwest Virginia called, "Providence, VA". So I haven't had time to think about a blog entry. Please bear with me.

* * Enjoying Christmas dinner with family

Like so many people around us, my family had Christmas Eve dinner at mom's house. I'm guessing, though, that ours was a little bit different than most.

Mom and dad live in Christiansburg, in the same house where I grew up. They have been there for over 50 years now. They have done an excellent job keeping up with maintenance on the house and today it looks better than ever. However, during this holiday season, there were no decorations or lights visible from the outside. The reason is that my family is Jewish.

My wife, daughter, and I arrived shortly after my older brother, who was busying himself in the other room reading a book. Mom had invited another friend to share dinner with us, a Jewish widow from Blacksburg. We sat together in the living room discussing issues of interest while mom put the finishing touches on dinner.

Dad mentioned that he had recently purchased a supply of home heating oil that he hoped would take him through the entire winter season. He is a committed conservationist and is motivated to reduce his consumption of energy. I mentioned that I had recently commissioned an energy audit for our house and suggested to him that he look into that as well. I promised to send him information.

Because my parents and their friend are now in their 80s, healthcare is always an issue. The friend spoke about the treatments that her husband received for cancer during the many years before he died. She said that if they had not been completely covered by insurance, she would be in a precarious financial position today.

We had just begun our discussion about that when Mom called us into the dining room, where for no reason at all, the males sat at one end of the table and the females at the other. Mom lit the Hanukkah candles, and led us in the recitation of the prayer:

“Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah. Blessed are Thou, O Lord Our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah.”

The Jewish calendar is different from the Christian calendar, the former being a lunar cycle and the latter being on a solar cycle. Jewish months are 29 days long and the year has 354 days, with an extra month added every two or three years to offset the 11 day lag relative to the solar year. So, the Jewish holidays dance around a bit relative to the Christian calendar.

The eight days of Hanukkah are almost always in December, sometimes coincident with Christmas and sometimes not. It turned out, this Christmas Eve was the fifth day of Hanukkah. So there were five candles lit in the menorah, along with the “shamus” which is the lead candle which is used to light the rest.

The meal consisted of brisket, potato latkes, cooked carrots, cooked cabbage, and applesauce. Mom is a terrific cook, and it always amazes me how she can produce so much incredibly great food in her small kitchen. She also baked a chocolate cake with chocolate icing that she shaped in the form of a dreidel, the toy spinning top that Jewish kids play with during the Hanukkah holiday.

After dinner, we lingered around the dining room table and continued our discussion about health care and other political matters, as the candles burned down and finally exhausted themselves. Dad seemed particularly flummoxed by his perception that so many people in this country seem to consistently vote against their own economic well-being, principally by not supporting a national healthcare system. Someone made the observation that it was difficult for us to have an insightful discussion about many of these issues because all of us seemed to be on the same side. Judaism is by far the smallest of the world's major religions. As liberal Jews in Southwest Virginia, we seemed to be in a small school of fish swimming in a huge ocean of conservative Christianity.

As our evening came to a close, I think either consciously or subliminally, all of us realized how fortunate we were to live in a country and in an era when we could all celebrate and worship as we choose, whether liberal, moderate, or conservative and whether Jew, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or Buddhist… or, for that matter, none of the above. We drove homeward down my parents’ street and enjoyed the twinkling, colorful lights of their neighbors.

* * Motorcycling on a cold day in December

I'm an avid motorcyclist; I ride in all types of conditions. Today, it was cold. Very cold!

My plan was to meet my friend Gregg at the truck stop in Ironto and ride to Union, West Virginia. The Korner Kafe there sells my books for me, and I was carrying extra copies to replenish their stock. I arrived a few minutes prior to our 9:00 a.m. rendezvous time and I waited. And waited. By 9:10, I decided he had either had a problem or we had gotten our signals crossed, so I set off on my own. It was 27F.

I was riding my classic 1981 Honda CBX motorcycle. The CBX was made in limited quantities and didn't sell well, but it has a fabulous 1050cc in-line 6-cylinder engine. When it’s working the way it should, it is a joy to ride.

I began my journey down Bradshaw Road, adjusting myself physically and emotionally to the ride. I wore four layers on my torso, three on my legs. The third layer on my torso is an electrically heated vest that runs on the bike's battery. I electrified it myself, taking an old thrift store jacket and threading a thin wire through it. I have perhaps $10 worth of materials in it, but it is worth its weight in gold. I also have heated grips, which helps to warm my hands. But my fingertips were cold nonetheless.

Birds flitted around and I kept alert to any deer that may have wanted to share my stretch of pavement with me. Deer are always a threat to motor vehicles, but especially to motorcycles. I've never hit one, but I know people who have and it is always ugly. It was windy and fallen leaves blew across the pavement ahead of me.

Traffic was non-existent; I had the road to myself. It had rained heavily a few days earlier, but happily the pavement was mostly dry. Catawba Mountain was bold and dramatic, painted in the brown of winter with numerous rock outcroppings showing through the trees.

I turned left on SR-311, and as I accelerated, I passed a cop's car sitting beside the road, likely waiting to ruin somebody’s day. The curves ascending Catawba Mountain were fun and not-too-fast.

I descended into Catawba and passed a couple of cars on my way into New Castle, county seat of Craig County, and continued northward towards Potts Mountain. Potts is the first of two mountains that were on my itinerary, Peters being the other. The border of Virginia and West Virginia rides the ridgeline of Peters.

The ascent to Potts’ 3808-foot pass is one of my favorite motorcycle roads. It is smooth and curvy, with great views and good sight distances. Through the middle of the ascent, the roads were dry. But as I continued to ascend, I encountered several wet patches. They portended more problems ahead, obvious immediately as I crested the pass and prepared myself for the descent on the shaded, north side. I had only gone 100 yards or so before it became evident that while riding uphill on the south face was nerve-wracking, riding downhill on the north face would be treacherous and scary. So for a change, I allowed my good senses to take over and I turned around and went back the way I had come. The Korner Kafe in Union would need to wait for another day.

My mind drifted back to a similar ride last winter. I had arrived at Paint Bank, eager to go inside and warm myself by the fire. Before I did, I spoke with a Harley rider who was trying fitfully to fill his tank. He was hypothermic, shaking convulsively and unable to manipulate the gas pump. He was wearing a leather jacket (zero thermal protection) and a wool sweater underneath, exposed at the top. I wondered how his thought process worked in spending thousands on a bike but unable to rationalize spending a hundred on warm weather gear.

The ride back down was great fun; fast and incredibly scenic. Sunbeams illuminated the valley and reflected off the creek way below. Awesome!

I reached the bottom of the valley and rode back into New Castle. From there, I turned right on SR-42 and ascended Sinking Creek Mountain. There is a dramatic overlook of the New Castle area halfway up, but I have stopped there before so this time I did a drive-by. It's 30 miles from New Castle to Newport, and all of it is heart-achingly gorgeous, a delightful mix of forests, farms, and old houses, many dating before the Civil War. Cows and horses munched lazily on brown grasses.

The switch on my jacket had been "on" since I started, but with the emerging sun, I was finally able to turn it "off" a few miles before Newport.

The water in Sinking Creek was clear and fast with the recent rains.

I turned left on US-460 and rode over twin mountains Gap and Brush into Blacksburg towards home. I re-filled the tank; I'd gotten 38-mpg.

My friend in Canada told me he'd already parked the bike for winter. But here, I figure the season never ends. Today's ride wasn't the ride I'd planned, but it was wonderful nonetheless.

* * Mara gets arrested

“The funniest sign I saw was held by an old woman with purple hair. It said, ‘I’m 80 and I’m pissed,’” joked Mara Bertelli, recounting her Occupy Wall Street experience. A double-major honors student at Hollins University, Mara traveled to New York in September, three weeks after the movement began to participate and show her support.

Mara and I are acquainted because she went to secondary schools in Blacksburg with my daughter, and our families became friends. Mara admits to an offbeat look, with a dreadlock-Mohawk haircut and 7 unmatched earrings. She broke from her studies to visit with me.

“The (Occupy) camp had around 200 people. There was free food for anyone who needed it. There were scores of tents. It was a strong, well-established occupation.

“The way our financial situation in America is being handled these days is ruinous to lower and middle-class people. Corporations and our government have no interest in what is good for anyone but themselves. I’m not an economist and I can’t explain in detail what’s wrong – I think even economists can’t fully explain. Critics expect protestors to readily hand out full theses on what exactly is wrong. Just because many protesters can’t do that doesn’t mean their concerns aren’t valid. I share with many other protesters the general distrust towards government and industry about how our country is being run. Most politicians are in the pocket of large corporations.

“The Occupy movements are general forums. They are places for discussions and ideas. It is antithetical that only limited opinions are held or expressed. It is our Constitutional right to show our dissatisfaction through protesting.”

The high point – or low point, as it was – from the experience, was being arrested for marching across the Brooklyn Bridge. “The police weren’t impeding our progress onto the bridge. There were too many of us to know what was going on at the front. We were about a third of the way onto the bridge when they stopped us. There was a lot of confusion about what was going on. When the march stopped, I assumed we’d be turned around. Instead, they wrapped us with orange plastic mesh fence and told us we were being arrested. They let go parents with children and people with dogs, but the rest of us were zip-tied and put into vans where we were taken to local precincts. I spent the rest of the evening being processed. I spent five hours in handcuffs. I got two tickets. One was for being on a forbidden roadway and the other was for blocking traffic.

“We had no pre-meditated intent to be arrested. We simply wanted to march. I got out of the police station late at night and then had to find a subway station to return to the friends’ house where I was staying.

“I contacted the National Lawyer’s Guild and they put me in touch with a lawyer who agreed to represent me pro-bono. My trial date is on my exam week, so he is representing me without my presence.”

I asked her if she thought the experience was worthwhile. She said, “On a personal level, I’m learning that many people who were arrested are found not guilty and are not having to pay fines, mostly because they didn’t know they were breaking any laws.

“On a greater level, we are showing the rest of the United States and the world that we aren’t just lazy apathetic kids. We are bringing awareness to the people that (income inequality) is a problem. It is one thing to sit around with friends and bitch about it. It is another thing to take grievances to the streets in active protests. There was little media attention early on, but not now. The movement is now national, and people are being motivated to show their own feelings of distrust and frustration. It is good to know that people in this country are still capable of getting up off our asses and having our voices heard. As our (financial) situation continues to deteriorate, people will become more involved. The Occupy movement isn’t going away.

“On that bridge that day, I was exercising my First Amendment Right to assemble and express grievances. (That right) was infringed upon by the government in the form of uniformed police. This is supremely unfair. Everyday people are intimidated by fear of being sprayed with tear gas or having sonic weaponry used on them. In order to protest, you must get a permit. You must not use a megaphone. You have to follow specific sets of rules made by the governments you wish to oppose. Unarmed and largely peaceful US citizens find themselves staring at lines of riot cops, with shields, helmets, tasers, and tear-gas guns.

“I am not indolent. I work hard. I want the system to work better for myself and everyone, not just the rich. My family is proud and supportive of me. I will protest again.”

* * Walking in the dark

I love to walk.

It is always great to walk on a sunny day with big puffy white clouds above and birds chirping in the trees. However, not every opportunity allows for such optimum conditions. Last night after dinner, I decided that prevailing conditions were not going to be an impediment to my enjoyment of a few miles of exercise on the Huckleberry Trail.

Now, mind you, it had rained almost continually for 36 hours prior. It was still raining as I left the house, decked out in all of my best rainy weather gear, including a mountain parka, rain pants, leather hiking boots, and a stocking cap. Yes, it was also cold, in the upper 30s. It was so inclement when my wife asked me not to take one of our two dogs with me, knowing that he or she would likely return home sopping wet.

Because there is no sidewalk between my house and the trail access, I must drive my car, even though it is only a half-mile away. Condensation filled the inside windows so thick I could barely see to drive.

I had checked the lunar charts and I knew that a full moon was only a few days away. Even with cloud cover, a moon typically provides enough light to see the trail and I did not carry a flashlight with me.

I was cold as I began and I walked briskly, attempting to warm my body. With my age, my muscles are often stiff when I begin, and the first mile or so is spent getting more limber.

One of the unexpected benefits to walking in the dark is that there is not much to look at. Therefore, the entire experience becomes more contemplative. I am currently writing my fourth book, a novel set in the Galax, Virginia area. Writing a novel requires a lot of imaginative thinking and exercising the body brings increased blood flow to the brain, helping me fire my imagination.

A bicyclist carrying a bright headlight passed me in the dark. Being unable to actually see him, I still said hello to help make sure that he saw me. Otherwise, there was nobody else on the trail.

The rain stopped and within moments, the clouds began to break up. When the moon shone through, it illuminated the trail brightly and dramatically. The movement of the clouds put the incoming beams of light into constant motion. The wind picked up, making it seem even colder, but by this time, I was fully warmed up and the cold was not a problem.

My novel involves the breakdown of the electrical power grid. Therefore, my characters will be spending a lot of time outside and in the dark. It is helpful for me to envision stories to write about if I have experienced similar things myself. For example, at one point an overhanging shrub that I was barely able to see brushed past my head, and it startled me. This is something I can write about happening to one of my characters. The apprehensive sense of not being able to see exactly what is going on when a rustling sound comes from the nearby woods is something I expect my fictional characters will experience.

I reached my normal turnaround point and on this evening, I kept walking for another half-mile before finally convincing myself it was time to turn around.

It is quirky, for sure; most people really don't like to walk alone in the cold, dark, and wet evenings. But this walk of 5 miles or so ended too soon.