a midway bikelog

A wonderful and unexpected email from my dad a couple of months ago led to a living room reorganization and impending lessons for me and the girls on the piano. Meet Everett.

I got it from Keys 4 Kids, an organization that fixes up old pianos and resells them (and sometimes gives them away), much like some of my favorite bike organizations. A wide range of pianos to choose from, and very helpful folks too. It’s a studio piano from 1961, so it’s built like a tank, and it’s in pretty good shape aside from the pre-graffitti’d bench.

I never had piano lessons as a kid. My dad’s family enjoyed listening to music, but i don’t know that anyone there plays an instrument. Mostly i remember my dad saying, “i’ll listen to any kind of music as long as it’s not too loud!”. On the other hand, my mom’s family was very musical; she and her siblings all had piano lessons, and their dad was a high school music teacher. That grandfather of mine played in jazz bands in the ’30s and after retiring from teaching continued to play horn with the Shriners until he was unable to march. I wish i’d been smart enough to talk to him more about music while he was alive. I played sousaphone in 6th grade then trumpet in 7-8th before quitting. In college i learned the rock instruments and played in bands for a few years, mostly bass guitar, but never returned to reading music, everything was by ear.

So when my dad offered to pay for lessons for the girls, it was a wonderful and unexpected surprise. Piano wasn’t their first choice (it was voice and violin), but i offered that if they can stick to piano lessons for a while they can choose to switch to something else later. I started getting interested in playing too – i’ve been noodling on guitar for a while, but it’s hard to stick with it and progress much when i don’t play with others. I really have too many hobbies for my own good. Piano may well also suffer from that fate, but i’m excited to give it a try.

I generally don’t make a big deal of the new year as it comes along, but this year’s changeover is a little special. The piano, for one, and its requisite house reorganization is a good boost to the overall ongoing reorganizing and decluttering project. Also, I’m starting a new job right after the first of the year, after 11 years with the same company (and getting fed up with their precipitous decline). So for the new year, i’m instigating/embracing change and trying new things.

I bought a roof rake tonight on the way home, after all the dire talk about ice dams and seeing videos of people using chainsaws to clear their roofs. I feel like a real Minnesotan, alright.

Except that as i drove through the neighborhood home, i noticed that pretty much all the roofs were completely clear of snow anyway, because of the 3″ of rain we got today. My house still had some snow on it, which i attributed to my superior insulation, but i still have some ice damming (damning), so i also have some leaky air to deal with too.

In the end, between the dearth of snow and the difficult roof access, the roof rake took about 3 good swipes of snow away. And it was a pain in the ass to do.

The problem with buying a $50 tool that you hate to use but hasn’t paid for itself yet is that you’re then on the watch for more excuses to use it, and dreading it at the same time. Welcome to the rest of my winter 2010/11.

We have 18″ of snow and counting from the huge storm that rolled through in the last 24 hours or so. Even for the Twin Cities in Minnesota this is a significant snowfall: stores closed early or never opened, Metro Transit stopped bus service after 50 busses got stuck in the streets, mail wasn’t delivered to most people, and the DOT just stopped plowing the roads for several hours. It’s a big one. Big snow likes this makes me want to roam.

I love it when there’s snow in the air and the sky is orange and bright, and the hush of new deep snow takes over. The crunch and whoosh of powder over my boots and the crystals of ice growing on my beard. I like passing the closed shops and the houses aglow and the occasional fool trying to drive somewhere, plowing snow with their bumper and sliding around every turn.

I’ve taken long walks in the snow, hiked in snowshoes and skiied, but most often biked. It can be insanely trying to ride in deep snow, and often totally not worth it, but in that time with about 4″ on the ground, or after the first plow has gone through late at night, it’s magical. It’s alien to be riding so fast on snow, having the whole road to yourself, sliding and falling in a snowpile and jumping back at it.

Usually traveling in the snow is unplanned, like the road trip my brother and i took to visit my dad in Ohio one year for Christmas. We drove my little Datsun through Illinois the long way, stopping at a truck stop dumpster to put a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator to get a little warmth from the heater, but never sliding off the road, laughing and joking the whole way.

Most often a snow trip is a lark, and often a grand adventure. I had such a day during the big blizzard of ‘91 that people held as the last big blizzard around here, until today. My friend Marti, a fellow bass player, invited me over to hang out and listen to music. This is just the sort of thing you do when you’re 23 and a musician and unattached and never mind that it’s a cross-town journey and the busses may not even be running.

I think i pushed 4 stuck cars during the half-mile walk to the bus stop, and happily the bus was pretty near on-schedule. It was maybe 1/3-full, mostly with people heading home from work that closed early or trying for a last-minute grocery trip, judging from the few who departed at the SuperValu on the way.

As is SOP, the bus was about 85°F and the windows were fogged, but there wasn’t much to see. Only a few hearty souls out shoveling, fewer still driving, and the city pretty much shut down. Liquor stores were still open, i noted, because Minnesotans in the winter have their priorities, even if we insist on closing them on Sundays.

It’s funny now to think back on days before cell phones. The plan was arranged in one phone call, and neither of us knew if i’d make it there. I had some money with me, but probably no change for a payphone, because i was 23 and in many ways still dumb as a post. But i did arrive with another couple blocks of postholing down what was likely the sidewalk. We walked a block or so to get a 6 pack of beer (still open!), then played music and watched the snow fall and laughed when the busses stopped running and made a night of it.

As the city slowly gave up attending to business as usual today under the growing blanket of snow, i did my job shoveling the walk, i was happy to have my car off the street in a garage, and got the kids excited to dig a fort in the giant pile of snow i’d made in the front yard. It was a good day all-around. But there was still a little spark that wanted to grab the last bus across town and see what happened next.