superlong AHH poem/Ropeswing/Rich Wheel Building Seminar

May 3, 2010

Last week in the NYT there was an article 'bout the evils (well...) of sitting. Mark Sisson has a follow-up on that, with some neat links. I promise you, promise you, you will sit less if you read this. If you don't want to sit less, don't go here:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-regain-and-maintain-hip-mobility/

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On Saturday, May 15, Rich Lesnik, our own wheel builder and proprietor of Hands On Wheels, will host a wheel building demonstration and seminar in the Rivendell showroom at 11AM.

Non-compulsory raffle tickets will be sold for $10 each (benefiting Smile Train) and the winner will take home the wheel that Rich builds in the course of his talk.

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Monday. I don't expect everybody's following the ropeswing thing, but basically we put up a ropeswing last week, wondered whether it would still be there on the weekend, invited random riders to ride there and see, and here's the story:

Click here

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The Great Scot, A.Homer Hilsen
(Written two years ago for fun, found deep in a file when I was looking for something else, briefly updated and exposed.) It takes a while to read, but if you're bored...

On the high bluffs of Ben Nevis
On that highest mount in Scotland
Which o'erlooks grand fields of bluebells
Blazing in the verdant meadows
See the shining ribbon eastward
Aberdeen, the silver river!
Spy the sea beyond its south cliffs
Gaze at thick and constant clouds there
That 'cept for a week in August
When the winds blow hard and northward
Are opaque, as boiled egg whites.

In an unmapped cave no guide knows
On those bluffs above Ben Nevis
Huddled near a bean-can lantern
In which, flickers faint a candle
(It's the only light for miles)
Who is the withered form there?
Is it ghost, mirage, or dead man?
Did the body meet some foul harm?
No, a closer look reveals that
It's just old A. Homer Hilsen!

And, though outside now the snow swirls
In this Highlands winter night-time
Shivers not A. Homer Hilsen
Au contraire, he's warm, he's cozy
Clad from head to toe in sheep's wool
Thick and grey, boiled, and felted
Faintly scratchy by our standards
Thirty-micron wool, by measure
Used by Persians for their carpets
But A. Homer Hilsen squawks not
Of this wool he's grown accustomed
And this wool to A.H. Hilsen
Feels like Portugal's best flannel.

But sleep's not yet coming to him
Truth be told, A. Homer's restless
As he thinks back upon his long life
Recollections clear, yet dreamlike
Block out all of his distractions
In that desolate cave high up there,
In that hole-cave on Ben Nevis.

Known to all Scots as The Great One
For his selfless way toward others
For his " 'nificent donations "
To the poor and sick and needy
Often grownups, mostly children
Now and then an institution.
For the gifts of woollen sweaters
He himself knit from wool gathered
From his flock of hardy black-face
Roaming wild on ol' Ben Nevis.

Sweaters tightly knit, then boiled
So the children of the miners
Kids whose folks cannot afford wool
Living in the Border Country
In the north of Minnesota
Several thousand miles from here
Where the iron ore mines have shut down
And there is no other business
Where the schools are two hours walking
From their cabins in the country
And the mercury it rarely
Climbs above the single digits
So these children would be cozy
In the bitterest of winters!

Thankful are these children to him
And much more so are their parents
Who, despite their independence
Who, despite their pride, so ingrained
Humbly thank A. Homer Hilsen
For his wool gifts, warmly given!

But the Border Country children
Tho in poem, they're recollected
Are the tip top of an iceberg
Two, three brush strokes in a mural
Drops of brine in oaken barrel
Holding pickles in a deli!

For the kind A. Homer Hilsen
Now sequestered in the Highlands
Now an old man, poor and homeless
Near bereft of all possessions
Having sold them, gave the proceeds
To the orphan boys and girls who
Work the dry, cracked land in Malta;
To survivors of disasters
Whether earthquake, flood, or fires;
To the doctors and the nurse-staff
Who need gauze and pills and ointments
These he sends, by helicopter
To their hospitals in Ghana

I could tell these tales forever
Those in need, who are forgotten;
Those whose plights don't make the papers
Certain not a soul knows of them
Never heard of this man Hilsen
Never met him, still don't know him
Don't know where to send their Thank You's
Most assume "God smiles upon us!
Sends us help down from his heaven!"
But in this case, "God" is Homer,
"Heaven: Just chilly cave-hole
No Saint Pete; devoid of angels.

Down to only three possessions
Is the old A. Homer Hilsen
In the cave, just six by eight feet
With a rock roof barely four feet
Lies on flattened tufts from thistles
Plucked by hand. A. Homer found it
Tween the nooks and crannies up there
Plucked from Scotland's purple flower
Sheltered from the Highlands' high winds
Lucky he was, just to find it
'Fore the fierce winds blew it distant
And to bring it back in fistfuls
So to make his final rest-home
Slightly softer on his old bones.

I'll now speak of his possessions
First of them, his pinhole camera
Like his lantern, made of bean-can
He was rarely seen without it
Like a surgeon with a scalpel
Like a farmer with a pitchfork
Like a sea capt. and his sextant
Like Dave Crockett and his coon-cap
Like young mother with her baby
Or that baby with her blanket
Was A. Hilsen and his camera
Oh, so constant was its presence
Oh, so naked, him widdout it!

And though always well-intentioned
Were the gifts of modern cameras
Gifts from heads-of-state, and family
Bought online with cards of plastic,
Up to sixteen megapixels
Fancy with the largest sensors
To give Hilsen in his old age
Technological advantage!

Brushed champaign or satin silver,
Sometimes blackend paint, like Leica;
Often bulky plastic lightweights
Packed with complicated menus
That reveal their dirty secrets
When you push the buttons proper;
Or the small ones, tiny wonders!
Could fit inside an old sardine can


And they did so once (he tried it)
Every year in weight they dwindle,
Jam-packed full of complications.
Said to simplify life greatly.

Said to relegate his darkroom
To a room, that, with a lantern
Like the bean-can one he loves so
Would be useful as a guest-room
For the old A. Homer Hilsen
Replaced by scanner, software, printer
For a virtual desktop darkroom!

None of this he learned to master
Never understood the options
Even after hours of study
In six languages he knew well
Not enraptured by the manuals,
Ne'er deciphered the instructions
Never figured out the options
Never pushed the proper buttons
Never understood the plug-ins
So although the cameras promised
Such instant gratification
It was all lost on the old man
Progressed passed A. Homer Hilsen
As they piled up in the corner
e-waste in the Scottish Highlands
In his cave on ol' Ben Nevis.

Sure, despite these gifts of wonder
He was faster with his pinhole
Faster with his humble pinhole
Made himself, just like his lantern
From a humble, empty empty bean-can!

They say A. could take a photo
With that bean-can pin-hole camera
Like Kwai Chang Cain snatching pebble,
Faster was he with that camera
Faster could he snap a photo
Than that famous western dandy
Paladin could draw his six-gun.

And the scenes his pin-hole captured!
In his cave's darkroom, developed
On the plate-glass shipped by clipper
All the way from Nova Scotia
Where his cousin, Roy MacMillan
Owns a shutterbug's supply house!

Next in line behind the camera
In the hierarchy of possessions
On the totem pole of widgets
Owned by old A. Homer Hilsen
Is a meter-long shillelagh
Made of genuine Irish Blackthorn.
Prickly bumps along its dark shaft
So hard and sharp you just can't hold it
Save in one smooth part exception
Where with flint-knapped knife he whittled
Smooth the knots, to form a handle
'bout two feet below the knothead!

When he made this old shillelagh
It was in his eighteenth summer
And for many years that followed
'Twas the only one in Scotland,
Objet d'envie, that shillelagh!

?Now and then with his shillelagh
Hooligans he showed them what-for
Swift hard clouts rained down on shin bones,
Cracked too knuckles, knees, and noggins
Sent thugs back to where they came from
Rough rapscallions taught a lesson
By a swift, pitch-black shillelagh
Wielded by its master Hilsen
Left behind, bruises that lingered
Bruises black and blue and purple
Now and then, the skin 'twas broken
Oozing from it, creeks of scarlet
"Just deserts for young Scot hoodlums!"
Was our hero heard to mutter
(None dare twice harrass A. Homer!)

But like magic, blows delivered
By that fearsome black shillelaugh
Wielded faster than a numchuck
By the Scottish Ninja Hilsen!
Did much more than just comeuppance
To those surly louts, delivered
That shillelagh taught a lesson
To those ne're do-wells and scoundrels
And as history has proved it
Each man knocked about by Hilsen
Changed his life after the smacking
Change from crime and General Mayhem
To philanthropy and caring!

Some, like Schweitzer, became healers
Some, like Milton, men of letters
Some, like Lincoln, glorious statesmen
And at least a dozen: Teachers!
To a man did they attribute
Their U-turn-like transformation
To the lesson taught by Hilsen
With his magical shillelagh!

And the last of his Possessions
Aft the camera, the shillelagh
Was the finest of his play-tools
And the way he worldly traveled.
?It was steel and lugged and lovely
Slender tubes that joined with others
With such swirls and points of lugwork
Even dolled-up ladies viewed them
Wearing monstrous hats with birds nests
Hats with vast bouquets upon them
Ladies snugly laced with corsets
In their dresses 'dorned with lacework
Hand-sewn with Egyptian cottons
Or French silks and British velvet
With high boots with umpteen laces
Ladies as I've just described here
Even these upper-crust ladies
Have commented on its beauty,
On that iron steed of Hilsen's,
Have felt dizzy in its presence
Woozy, swooning, finally toppling
When with looking glass examine
Strong and beauteous lugged frame joints
On the bike of A. H. Hilsen.
(Smelling salts, they come in handy!)

A. Homer Hilsen's bicycle
Was blue-grey with cream appointments
Silver racks he bolted to it
Silver racks with smooth dull finish
Buckled bags on to them fastened
Made of canvas, wool, and leather
For to hold his grub on long rides.
And a bedroll, should he tarry.

Fifty years did Homer ride it
Fifty years with no new paint job
Fifty years and endless pleasure
Oh, the beausage that bike boasted!

Rode in snow and rain and windstorms
Making camp where there was water
And a place to lay his bedroll
From Alaska to south Chile
From Mongolia to Maui
All these places Hilsen pedaled,
Learned the language spake by natives
Learned the customs, ate the food there
Helped the children, cured diseases
Built fine schools and educated
He left every place he rode through
Better off because he'd been there!

And at long last, here he huddled
By that lantern made of bean-can
With his camera and shillelagh
With his bicycle for company
And his heart now beating slower
Than it beat in his long lifetime
Slower even than when sleeping
Ever slower by the hour
Fifty forty thirty twenty
In that cave up on Ben Nevis
In that hole in rock, in mountain
Simultaneously the candle
Beacon in his bean-can lantern
Stopped the instant that his heart did,
In that cave-hole on Ben Nevis.