EveryThingEarin

A Day at the Races

Or how I spent my Fourth of July. It was a fine day with very good weather. Not too hot, not humid even by our non Boston standards. It was full of nice people and lots and lots of food along with cold drinks. Being American means eating and believe me, I'm not complaining. Even growing up in a large family (six children) and at our economic level (not poor-poor but not a lot of extras either) we had a second fridge - at least by the time I was in high school. Then again with four boys - all with those famous hollow legs we needed the room for the half gallons of milk, stacks of meat and so on. There was a moment of awareness when in high school I prepared myself my little bowl of ice cream and David, or 5 of 6 as we like to call him, pulled out a mixing bowl for his bigger portion.

Part of yesterday was spent going to the races. That is, the motorcycle club my husband belongs to had a picnic. Our host lives on a fairly large parcel of land and has turned it into a racing track. Apparently this is quite normal for people crazed for motorcycles. Some people grow flowers (like me) others like to race around and around and around and around. Well, you get my drift circular as it may be.

Omar was less than happy about little boys of various ages roaring by on mini bikes just a few feet from his water bowl. He knew where our truck was parked and kept trying to lead me there. (Mom, it's here, really, it's over here, let me show you and then let's go HOME!)

I thought it would be a good idea to see if socks and motorcycles could coexist. With or without a flash and the resulting delay with the shutter speed these were the best of 34 attempts. While sitting and knitting on the hubby sock (I'm down to the toe decrease) a 12 year old hotshot came over to see what I was doing with the little sticks and WAS IMPRESSED.

I. IMPRESSED. A. 12. YEAR. OLD. BOY. A boy who has been riding motorcycles since he was 3.5 years old. He informed me that he hadn't actually done any competitive racing till he was 9. Well then, that makes all the difference doesn't it? I have a very nice motorcycle myself, a Honda 230. I even ride it but when you learn to ride in your early 50's it's just a LITTLE different from starting out at 3. I can never quite forget the repercussions of flying through the air and landing on the unforgiving, very HARD ground. And I've found that eventually you do go flying through the air.

posted by Earin Marybird @ 11:29 AM