After my family moved to New Jersey, I started delivering The Asbury Park Press on my bicycle. Every once in a while, I'd be chased by a dog. But none ever caught me.
Years later, I realized it had been a long time since I'd been been the object of a canine pursuit. Even when I rode through the countrysides of France, Italy, Vermont, Pennsylvania, western New Jersey, upstate New York, California and Nevada--all places where various shepherds and terriers and such roam free--I didn't have to outrun anyone's pooch.
"Well, that's because they've given up on you. You're too fast." That, from Greg, an old riding partner, is one of the best compliments I ever received, even if it was, shall we say, somewhat exaggerated.
Now I realize why I haven't been pursued:
Now you know what is meant by "a dog's life": one without a bicycle!
On this date in 1965, more than 30 US Air Force jets bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. It was not such the first such raid, nor was it the first to be reported in the press. After the attacks on this date, however, the State Department felt compelled to assert that these missions were authorized by the powers granted to President Lyndon B. Johnson with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of August 1964.
(Four decades later, newly-declassified documents would reveal what many had suspected: The incident that served as the rationale for the resolution had not, in fact, happened. Sound familiar?)
Anyway, I don't have to tell you about the carnage that resulted from the Vietnam War. When I was writing about a Veterans' event for a local newspaper, I talked to someone who'd fought in Cambodia and still had nightmares. He reminded me that more than 55,000 members of the American Armed Forces died there (not to mention many more Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Chinese, Russian, and other fighters). "That's a whole stadium full of people," he exclaimed. "Whenever I think of that war, I picture a whole stadium full of people getting killed."
One of those casualties was Rebecca Rusch's father. He was shot down and killed during the war.
Today she is a firefighter and EMT in Ketcham, Idaho, where she lives. But she is better known as "The Queen of Pain" for her exploits as a rock climber, white-water rafter---and mountain biker.
Among her feats in the latter sport is a record for riding the length of the 228 kilometer Kokopelli Trail. As if that weren't enough, she rode the 1800 kilometer Ho Chi Minh Trail, in part, to get to know her father better. She was only three and a half years old when he was killed.
A full-length feature film about her journey, Blood Road, will open in the Sun Valley Film Festival on 15 March. I won't be able to make it, so I hope the film makes it out my way soon!
If you read this blog regularly, chances are that you won't buy the bike that is the subject of this post.
So why am I writing about it? Well, it was licensed by a band you've all heard. In fact, if you came of age when I did, you probably bought one of their albums and attended one of their concerts. You might have even gone through a stage when you dressed like them.
The band in question is KISS. They, like the Ramones, is one of the most important--and, depending on your preferences, best--bands to come out of the New York City borough of Queens, where I live.
Now, if you remember them from back in the day, you recall their makeup, costumes and their wild antics as well as their frentic music. So it's hard to imagine their name and logo on, say, a classic British builder's or French constructeur's frame. It's even difficult to picture their likeness on one of those flashy Italian bikes, let alone anything from a Japanese craftsperson or American custom builder of that era.
Really, the only kind of bicycle that could have ever been licensed to KISS is one made from carbon fiber. And that is what has just become available from a company called Sciacallo.
I have to admit that I had never heard of Sciacallo up until now. Then again, I don't pay much attention to carbon bikes. And that is all that Sciacallo offers.
And, really, if they were going to "front", if you will, for any band, what other band could it be? The Eagles? Chicago? Would you want anything licensed by those guys?
