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Selected
Excerpt's from the Metal Cowboy's Vault
Order a book from this web site and $20 from each book will be used An excerpt from Joe's Best Selling First book. "Metal Cowboy" "Tales from the Road Less Pedaled" By Joe "Metal Cowboy" Kurmaskie  Oh, to Be Young and Go Very, Very Fast It
was 5:30 a.m.
in Pocatello, Idaho, a thin sheet of icy rain masked sunrise, and I
wasn't quite sure I was up for my latest bicycling adventure.
Coasting through the nearly deserted streets of this small western town, I found myself poised at a stoplight. An ingrained obedience to traffic laws coupled with a sleepy hangover from the long train ride kept me anchored in place though there wasn't a car in sight. As I waited, an old rancher ambled up to the intersection. The fur collar on his long coat was tattered, crusted with tobacco stains, and faded. As his cane tapped its way over my bike, I noticed for the first time that he was blind. One eye drooped shut like that of a tomcat that had seen too many late-night brawls, while the other, still open, was cloudy and distant. That eye reminded me of an African tribesman seen in the pages of National Geographic who suffered from river blindness. The old rancher continued to work his cane over me, tapping as he went. And though the light changed from red to green several times, I remained frozen, allowing this slow survey of my person. The moment felt intimate and awkward, but I did not break it. When he was done, the old rancher stood back, grinned through a ruin of teeth, and said, "Ah, metal cowboy." I was dumbfounded; first, that he had spoken at all, and more importantly, that this battered husk of man had hit upon a perfect description of me at the time, and my story. Though I looked more like a surfer, or a guy on a fool's journey, to him I felt like a metal cowboy, the bike my horse, and the asphalt my trail. "Keep the wind at your back, and find where the innocent sleep," he added. Then, without fanfare, my rancher crossed the street and dissolved into the early-morning mist. A chill passed through me. I have thought about that old man many times during my travels. He was right about the wind, and as for locating where the innocent sleep, I want to believe he meant to look for the best in people along the road, and that's what you will often find. My bicycle has also brought me to the innocence and the best in myself. Collectively, my travels have been the antidote for the cynicism that can gather at the feet of complacency and grow in even the most useful and noble life. I remember the crusty old rancher tapping the back of my bike gently before he crossed the street into the rest of his life. That little push kept me rolling right into the new millennium. But every cowboy's story needs a beginning. Mine started the moment I learned to ride. Until the day I met the woman I would marry, the love of my life was a bicycle. Just a collection of metal, rubber, grease, and gears to the untrained eye, to me that two-wheeled contraption has always represented something more. It has to do with possibilities. In 1970, my sister began her bug collection in earnest, so, at the ripe old age of five, I scooped up her bike and decided to teach myself to ride. How hard could it be? I skipped right past training wheels and took a couple of nasty spills. My five-year-old brain registered that this was going to take some effort, but I desperately wanted to learn. Never mind that the vehicle in question was a powder blue, one-speed tank with a pink polka-dot banana seat, ape hanger handlebars, and pompom-style streamers fluttering from the bars' grips. The flower-covered basket attached to its front and a pinwheel twirling in the wind from its rear completed the look. Macho was not in my vocabulary back then. But by dinner, I was circling the block, growing more confident with every pedal stroke. My sister lodged a complaint with the parental authorities, but by the time they came to investigate, I was gone. Freedom. That's what I felt my first day balanced on two wheels, and through all my years of riding, that feeling has remained. Sure, I love the wind in my face, the sound of my beating heart as I work up a hill, but the simple, clean rush of freedom was what hooked me. Pedaling along, playing the gears like a concert pianist battling through Rachmaninoff, you feel like the hero of a tale that's being written where the rubber meets the road. When my parents tracked me down that evening, I was six blocks away, hanging out by the elementary school fence with some rough-looking second-graders, future Hell's Angels who had whole suits of playing cards attached to their bicycle spokes. I think they respected the fact that I would even approach them sporting a bike that looked like my sister's. "Kid must be fearless," they probably thought. I rode my sibling's cycle straight through winter. Nothing could stop my daily escapes. My parents huddled together, and because there were no official holidays or birthdays on the horizon, they did something unheard of in the history of my childhood: They bought me a bike simply because I wanted one-and not just any ride, but a black-and-gold Schwinn with a functioning speedometer. The speedometer was my parents' one mistake. The expression "speed kills" comes to mind every time I think of that device. We lived at the bottom of a rather steep hill, a hill that needed conquering. Oh, to be young and go very, very fast. Speed didn't kill me that day, but, with my left arm snapped in three places, I was a few steps farther along the road to understanding a body's limitations. Before the plaster on my cast had even dried, I was back on the bike, waving to neighbors and friends as I pedaled along the route of the accident, like a homecoming king in a small-town parade, the fallen hero rising from the ashes. I was blind to the occasional head-shaking and sagelike finger-wagging of parents sitting on porches. Little did I know then that, as an adult, my story would include numerous bicycle adventures around North America, an odyssey across Australia and New Zealand, and even a few seasons spent managing a bicycle-and-canoe touring company in the backwoods of Florida. My love for cycling has helped shape who I am today. That old rancher knew the score. With a few taps of his cane he'd glimpsed this collection of lessons, experiences, and moments of absurdity gathered while atop a bike. Metal Cowboy. My name came looking for me that morning in Idaho-and I found the rest of the story. Oh, to be young and go very, very fast! Finding
Sanctuary in a Wild World
To sleep, perchance to dream. -Shakespeare The long-distance cyclist pedaling the open road in search of adventure is, by default, also on a quest for sanctuary, a safe and relatively comfortable spot to lie down and recharge the engines each night. This often can be a daunting task. Some evenings, after a grueling day's ride, I knew exactly where I would end up: a state park with camping facilities or my relatives' homes. I'd accept an invitation from a newly acquired or longtime friend to simply drop in, or, when I was in vast, unfettered territory like the Olympic Peninsula, the jungles of Venezuela, or the Australian outback, it was a matter of merely deciding that I'd had enough and pulling off the road. (I use the term road loosely when recalling the jungles and the outback.) But on other days, locating sanctuary was just a bit more challenging. During my earliest adventures, the ride from Maine to Florida, especially, I gave camping arrangements and possible destinations far too much of my time and energy. With the concentration of an engineer, I would sit by the side of the road with maps unfolded, or spread them across the booth of a coffee shop, plotting wind speed, weather conditions, planned stops, the average miles per hour I was maintaining, and other complicated factors. Through much effort, since math has never been my strong suit, I'd pinpoint where I thought I'd arrive by nightfall. My calculations were right less than half the time. I chalked it up to my gregarious nature, always getting sidetracked in conversation with compelling people or detouring to check out some eye-catching architecture high on a hill or tucked away along a back road. It wasn't long before I adopted the Buddhist saying, "Don't push the river," as my operating instructions. If there were definite camping possibilities close by, I would shoot for them; otherwise, I relied on ingenuity and no small measure of resourcefulness. The results were often amusing. I've slept in playgrounds and church courtyards, and on beaches. Once, I awoke to find that I had set up my tent in the middle of a construction site. I beat a fast path away from the hammers, nails, and shouts of workers that morning. My selection of certain makeshift campsites often led to other adventures. The night I thought I'd nestled myself in a wooded park was clarified in the morning when the rattle and whoosh of the amusement park's roller coaster brought me out of sleep. The attraction was closed for the season, but workers were testing the ride for weak tracks and rotted planks. That was the morning I got to take a ride on a roller coaster before breakfast. Then there was the time I rose to the aroma of pancakes cooking in a church vestry. I thought I'd gotten my gear packed up without detection, but when I took my stack of flapjacks and placed my donation in the pastor's hand, he winked and asked if I'd slept comfortably under the willow trees. Things didn't always end as pleasantly. My little tent was low enough to the ground that I could hide behind a collection of rocks, or even in depressions and culverts. This made me, when fatigue took its toll, a little too quick to pick a spot and call it home. In coastal Georgia, I pulled off a desolate road and set up shop in what I thought was a quiet ravine. About three in the morning the gray water from a sewage plant made its way rapidly through my tent en route to the ocean. "Rude awakening" does not begin to cover it. I spent half the next day in a laundromat trying to clean up my possessions. And never, ever try renegade camping in Humboldt County, California. At the time, I was not aware of this region's reputation as marijuana-cultivation central. I rolled out my sleeping bag one evening in the pastoral setting of a tranquil valley only to have the sound of a pump-action shotgun being loaded freeze me in place. The briefest of conversations followed and, though darkness had settled in around me, I considered myself lucky to be back in the saddle and on my way. My final resting spot that night was a roadside attraction called Snake City. The owner was more than happy to let me put up my tent, but didn't I want to visit with some of his pets, first? The twenty-foot python named Stretch looked hungry. "Do they ever get loose?" I asked casually. "Rarely" is not the answer I was searching for, but it was already the middle of the night, so I took my chances. But hands down, I discovered, one of the best places to make camp for the night is a cemetery. Maybe that sounds sacreligious, but consider this: As long as you're not the type of person who gets creeped out easily, it's a quiet, safe night's sleep; a spot where you won't be disturbed by anyone else getting up to use the bathroom. Once, at daybreak, I crawled out of my tent to help a worker unload and steady a pair of headstones. He said the couple, married nearly sixty years, had died within days of each other. We should all be so lucky. Her stone read, yours, and his, forever. I considered my scant efforts a form of payment for the evening's stay. Often, I lingered in those graveyards wandering the rows, reading headstones and pondering stories like the old couple's, and many others only hinted at through a few words carved in marble. Rather than causing me to experience melancholia or tumble into feelings of helplessness over the nonnegotiable finality that is death, cemeteries will always represent a gathering of our collective histories, as well as a comfortable spot outside where old friends come together one more time. And a few hours after sunrise on the outskirts of Beaufort, South Carolina, a small country cemetery became the site of one joyous celebration. I thought I was still dreaming: The voices harmonizing gospel reached my ears like a gentle kiss. When I unzipped my tent, a sea of black faces confronted me. They were clutching garbage bags, rakes, and brooms. The fact that I was camping on their property caused my foggy brain to register fear. I'd overslept, a rare occurrence on the road. An apology for being there began to form on my lips. "Shoot," one older woman said, barely containing her laughter. "You're camped right next to my granddaddy, Roger Henry. He liked to sleep late on the Sabbath and skip church as much as possible, so I'd say you're in good company." The cemetery was part of a larger park and church complex, which members of the congregation cleaned on Sundays before they got down to some serious worshipping around noon. When the final amen was declared and the last note on a steel lap guitar sounded, they asked me to partake of a spread of food assembled atop picnic tables in the shadow of the afternoon. Children dashed through the cemetery, playing hide-and-seek among the headstones of their relatives, and I enjoyed some of the best eats, stories, and fellowship on record. I slept indoors that night, my quest for temporary shelter taken care of by none other than the Henry family. The next morning I would ride off into the wilds of another day, and by nightfall there was no telling where I'd lay my head, but for the moment I was among friends, free to sleep, and, perchance, to dream. |
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