Hot Tub Time Machine
It’s Day 1 of my May trip to California. I’ve already had two meals with relatives, catching up on life as we know it in California. I’ve woken up at the butt-crack of dawn to get on a conference call with our London investment bankers (Always Something – the name I will one day call my yacht). And now I have spent a half hour in my luxurious spa, set amongst the boulders and cacti of my side yard. I set the temperature at 99 degrees so that I can stay in longer and think great thoughts, shoot the shit with others or just listen to a book on my iPhone. This morning, I was joined by my brother-in-law Woo, which is southern swamp talk for William.
This morning’s hot tub session comes in anticipation of yet another annual motorcycle ride. This time we are going around Southern California. The trip is planned for Palomar Mountain, Anza Borrego Desert, Salton Sea, Joshua Tree National Park, Mojave Desert, Death Valley, Sequoia National Forrest, Paso Robles, Los Padres National Forrest, Angeles Crest, Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear Lake, Lake Elsinore, the Ortega Highway, and then the Pacific Coast Highway past Fort Pendleton. That’s five days of riding and about 1,200 miles of lovely twisty roads over deserts, mountain passes and along the coastline. Woo will not be joining since his 77-year-old shoulder is said by his orthopedist to be hanging on by a thread. My other brother-in-law Jeff will not be joining since he has a pulled Achilles’ tendon and a bit of arrhythmia (he is a spry 65 otherwise). Various others of our group have fallen by the wayside to various ailments as well. One is finally trying a come-back after several open-heart surgeries. And we have two Octogenarians on the ride with Gator Bob and Arturo, doing what they have to do to get through the week.
All of that gave rise to the topic of the morning hot tub session. We are getting older as a group and as individuals. This is our twenty-fourth year riding together. Our group has had 70 members over the years and I would guess that’s we have done 60 or so rides (51 of which are captured on our group website under Trips & Tales). But its getting tough. Fewer people can ride and more people cancel or change their plans as ride dates approach. It’s starting to feel like our organization is coming to its logical end. As sad as that sounds, its only sad if we let it be. I think the trick will be to go out with a bang, so I will be suggesting to this years’ somewhat reduced size group that we plan one last Hurrah next year in honor of a great twenty-five years run. We would gather in one of our favorite western lodges in southern Utah and ride the roads that mean the most to us.
I have already gathered 204 pages of the definitive book on our adventures. Since I am the unofficial scribe of the group, most of the stories were from my own hand, so I feel comfortable editing them into a book. I would self-publish this and give each member a copy as a memento of the ride, as it were.
This group means a lot to me. The team logo is actually emblazoned as a tattoo on my left shoulder. That is more than a sign of commitment. It is a symbol of how much this group has meant to me in the enjoyment of my life.
So sitting in the hot tub, my tattoo is visible and the motorcycle group dynamics are part of the conversation. But the topic turns to the broader issues about the aging life of man. Or maybe its just the aging life of men. Woo and I could not have had more different lives. He was a southern boy who played rugby and joined the Navy to become an aviator. He made the unusual choice of helicopters because it seemed like good fun to him. It took him to Vietnam for thirteen months, flying marines in and out of battle zones, it took him to five tours of duty as a rescue pilot in Antarctica, and it even took him to a tour as a special advisor to the forces of the Shah of Iran in Tehran in the days before the Ayatollahs took charge and tossed out the Shah and the United States. Woo now lives in California and spends his time arguing with his right arm to lift over ten pounds of weight.
My battlefield was in the trenches of Wall Street. I did tours of duty all over the world and in every kind of market that exists. Being younger than Woo, I am still suiting up each day and doing some form of battle. I have moved more to the sort of advisory role he pursued in Iran rather than a direct combat role, but I still have a squadron and a purpose for getting up each morning. One of our topics was my plans to soon move out to full-time hot tub country and what that would do to my psyche. Woo said he didn’t think I would be happy not strapping on my battle gear each day. This from a man who did actual battle versus the metaphorical battle of my career. I’m not sure I understand or believe that. We all move on and are forced to adjust our lives. Some of us can ride longer than others, but all of us sooner or later have to face changing our regimes to acknowledge the march of life across our shoulders, heels, knees, backs or heads.
The hot tub is a great place to ponder the ravages of time. It sure feels good on the aching joints and bones. But mostly, we are forced to sit and think. Try to use the iPad or iPhone and we surely pay the price of a dunked device. So we sit and think and talk and think and talk. We come to great truths and simple conclusions. We did not talk about wishing we could do it all over again, so there is both satisfaction and realization that what we each did was hard enough to satisfy us. We will go spend our day doing whatever suits us and by tomorrow we will be ready for another session in the hot tub time machine once again.