06-20-2022, 05:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-20-2022, 11:57 PM by FlyingClayDisk.)
There were actually a couple moments like that in my life (hopefully more in the future, but none as poignant as that one so far)
This was one of them...
I woke up one morning thinking it was Sunday when it was really Monday. I was hungover BADLY, the night before had been a major party at one of our favorite bars. My girlfriend had won a wet T-shirt contest and the band was awesome. Many beers and shots of tequila later we'd gone home. The reality that it was Monday morning, and not Sunday morning, hit me in the face like a baseball bat! SHIT!!
I had class that day, and important class...I had a freaking TEST that day even! SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!! My girlfriend also had a class, an orchestra practice (she was 1st chair flute at the university), and had to go to work too. All that was bad, BUT...it was going to get WAY worse before it got better!!!
I'd come back home (I should say "we" had come back home) to pick up my motorcycle and take it back to Utah where we were both in college. I was 185 miles from where we needed to be!
I don't even remember where we slept that night. I just remember waking up and getting the "Brick of Reality" to the face. I walked outside and it was overcast (it was never overcast in Wyoming). We still had several hours to get where we needed to get to, but we had to get going. I packed up my bike (a Honda Goldwing Aspencade) and off we went. We got about 30 miles into the trip when it started to rain (it never rains in Wyoming!). And it rained! And rained, and rained and rained. Then it started "raining"! All the other 'smart' bikers had long since pulled up under what few bridges there are in Wyoming, but we couldn't stop. Then the sleet started.
My GF didn't even have a decent jacket, and she was now soaked and freezing to death (literally) on the back. I gave her my jacket just so she wouldn't pass out. I'm riding down I-80, in the sleet, on my bike, fighting slush in the ruts, in a T-shirt and in the pouring rain/sleet. (Thank GAWD for a fairing and windshield!!). We had to make it to SLC that day before 4pm. We were coming up on Evanston, Wyoming across the "Three Sisters" (some very steep mountain terrain) (one of the longest, steepest, straight stretches of highway in the country).
I thought we could make it, I really did. I'm pretty sure I could have toughed it out a while longer, but it was cold, and we were both soaked. By the time I got to the Park City, Utah exit my GF was shaking so badly I thought she was going to fall off, and I'd given her all the warm waterproof gear I had. I remember the thoughts going through my mind as I resigned myself to take the Park City exit off the highway. I didn't know where we were going to go, but it was someplace warm...else I was going to be single again.
As I got to the bottom of the exit ramp there were these temporary signs saying things like "Event Parking" (with an arrow), so I followed them. I knew not where we were going, but it was somewhere indeed...
I'd spent every last dollar I had on that bike. It was one of those being in the 'right place at the right time' deals I just couldn't pass up. (Inexperienced Seller bought way more bike than he could handle, had almost crashed on it in traffic, got scared and wanted rid of it.) I'd sold about everything of value I'd owned (i.e. my truck, my car...everything) to buy it. I was willing to take risks, but I'd risked it all that day...more than once...and it was time to stop.
As I rolled to a stop at the bottom of the exit ramp, I figured I'd follow the signs to whatever "Event" this was. Turned out, the 'event' was a big music festival at Park City, Utah. It was a big deal, with a lot of really big names (The Clash, Eurythmics, Thomas Dolby, etc).
Because of the rain, there was hardly anyone there. As soon as I hit the park entrance, the sun came out (finally) and we were in the front of the line of an endless sea of vehicles. They just waved us through.
All the shows had been rain delayed. I'm standing there stripping down my soaked leathers and trying to warm up my GF, and these guys come over...asked us if we wanted some food and a place to warm up. They were roadies for some group, I didn't even know who...or care.
Warmed up, and coming back to reality...I looked down at my wrist and both my GF and I had wrist bands on for the front row VIP section. We were down in front...center stage...right there. No one could have ever planned that! Hell, to this day, not even I know how we pulled that off!
All the tests, all the school, all the jobs and responsibilities...all the rain...all that could wait... all that would wait. This was an important moment. A moment I would never forget.
There must have been 150,000 people at the show that day, and there me and my GF were, front-row, center-stage.
I'll never forget...the sun had set behind the mountains, and the lights on the sets were starting to show their dramatic effect in the sunset. I'll never forget...I caught this glimpse, out of the corner of my eye...my GF, hands above her head, swaying back and forth, smiling ear to ear, rockin' to the music and singing. It was perfect. She was perfect. The World was perfect.
I'll never forget...the whole world could (and almost did) collapse, but in that one moment, that one fleeting moment...there was nowhere else on planet Earth I wanted to be, and no one else I wanted to be with...and if the world had ended in that moment...I would have been content.
.....
Last night, I stumbled across a song by Lenny Kravitz I wasn't really familiar with. And, all of a sudden, that moment from so long ago came flooding back like a tidal wave.
This was one of them...
I woke up one morning thinking it was Sunday when it was really Monday. I was hungover BADLY, the night before had been a major party at one of our favorite bars. My girlfriend had won a wet T-shirt contest and the band was awesome. Many beers and shots of tequila later we'd gone home. The reality that it was Monday morning, and not Sunday morning, hit me in the face like a baseball bat! SHIT!!
I had class that day, and important class...I had a freaking TEST that day even! SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!! My girlfriend also had a class, an orchestra practice (she was 1st chair flute at the university), and had to go to work too. All that was bad, BUT...it was going to get WAY worse before it got better!!!
I'd come back home (I should say "we" had come back home) to pick up my motorcycle and take it back to Utah where we were both in college. I was 185 miles from where we needed to be!
I don't even remember where we slept that night. I just remember waking up and getting the "Brick of Reality" to the face. I walked outside and it was overcast (it was never overcast in Wyoming). We still had several hours to get where we needed to get to, but we had to get going. I packed up my bike (a Honda Goldwing Aspencade) and off we went. We got about 30 miles into the trip when it started to rain (it never rains in Wyoming!). And it rained! And rained, and rained and rained. Then it started "raining"! All the other 'smart' bikers had long since pulled up under what few bridges there are in Wyoming, but we couldn't stop. Then the sleet started.
My GF didn't even have a decent jacket, and she was now soaked and freezing to death (literally) on the back. I gave her my jacket just so she wouldn't pass out. I'm riding down I-80, in the sleet, on my bike, fighting slush in the ruts, in a T-shirt and in the pouring rain/sleet. (Thank GAWD for a fairing and windshield!!). We had to make it to SLC that day before 4pm. We were coming up on Evanston, Wyoming across the "Three Sisters" (some very steep mountain terrain) (one of the longest, steepest, straight stretches of highway in the country).
I thought we could make it, I really did. I'm pretty sure I could have toughed it out a while longer, but it was cold, and we were both soaked. By the time I got to the Park City, Utah exit my GF was shaking so badly I thought she was going to fall off, and I'd given her all the warm waterproof gear I had. I remember the thoughts going through my mind as I resigned myself to take the Park City exit off the highway. I didn't know where we were going to go, but it was someplace warm...else I was going to be single again.
As I got to the bottom of the exit ramp there were these temporary signs saying things like "Event Parking" (with an arrow), so I followed them. I knew not where we were going, but it was somewhere indeed...
I'd spent every last dollar I had on that bike. It was one of those being in the 'right place at the right time' deals I just couldn't pass up. (Inexperienced Seller bought way more bike than he could handle, had almost crashed on it in traffic, got scared and wanted rid of it.) I'd sold about everything of value I'd owned (i.e. my truck, my car...everything) to buy it. I was willing to take risks, but I'd risked it all that day...more than once...and it was time to stop.
As I rolled to a stop at the bottom of the exit ramp, I figured I'd follow the signs to whatever "Event" this was. Turned out, the 'event' was a big music festival at Park City, Utah. It was a big deal, with a lot of really big names (The Clash, Eurythmics, Thomas Dolby, etc).
Because of the rain, there was hardly anyone there. As soon as I hit the park entrance, the sun came out (finally) and we were in the front of the line of an endless sea of vehicles. They just waved us through.
All the shows had been rain delayed. I'm standing there stripping down my soaked leathers and trying to warm up my GF, and these guys come over...asked us if we wanted some food and a place to warm up. They were roadies for some group, I didn't even know who...or care.
Warmed up, and coming back to reality...I looked down at my wrist and both my GF and I had wrist bands on for the front row VIP section. We were down in front...center stage...right there. No one could have ever planned that! Hell, to this day, not even I know how we pulled that off!
All the tests, all the school, all the jobs and responsibilities...all the rain...all that could wait... all that would wait. This was an important moment. A moment I would never forget.
There must have been 150,000 people at the show that day, and there me and my GF were, front-row, center-stage.
I'll never forget...the sun had set behind the mountains, and the lights on the sets were starting to show their dramatic effect in the sunset. I'll never forget...I caught this glimpse, out of the corner of my eye...my GF, hands above her head, swaying back and forth, smiling ear to ear, rockin' to the music and singing. It was perfect. She was perfect. The World was perfect.
I'll never forget...the whole world could (and almost did) collapse, but in that one moment, that one fleeting moment...there was nowhere else on planet Earth I wanted to be, and no one else I wanted to be with...and if the world had ended in that moment...I would have been content.
.....
Last night, I stumbled across a song by Lenny Kravitz I wasn't really familiar with. And, all of a sudden, that moment from so long ago came flooding back like a tidal wave.