The Oppenheimer Report 10/14/13

It’s that time of year again, when the boats go in for storage, the docks come out, and the fallen leaves make our front lawn look like a Van Gogh painting. It is also the time that I desperately scramble to get in as much warm weather toy time as possible. Before we know it winter will descend upon us in a tsunami of snow, and all toy usage will require a parka and snowmobile pants. Friday, about an hour before dusk, I got a call from my friend the plumber, who wanted to return a CD I’d lent him. I told him I’d run over to his place to pick it up because it was a nice, warm evening, and I thought I’d get some use out of the ATV. We live on a system of three lakes, and he lives on the southern end of the furthest lake south, about a fifteen minute ride from here. I figured I’d be down and back before sun down. The ride down was great, zooming down the twisting back roads a little too fast, with the spectacular pink dusk sky to light my way.

When I got to his place, he started talking about an old tractor he’d just fixed and used to start clearing a road on his land. People up here get very excited about their farm equipment. Would I like to see what he cleared? Sure I said, if it won’t take too long. I waited five minutes while he finished stacking his wood, then he hopped on his ATV and said “follow me.” This guy has 140 acres of land, and where he took me was to the opposite end of his property. We looked at the land he’d cleared, and I was duly impressed, but noticed it was starting to get dark. I said I’d like to see more, but perhaps in the light of day, so we walked back to our bikes to head back. Then, he couldn’t get his ATV started, and it took a few minutes for him to determine that he was out of gas. I drove him the mile or so back to his home on my ATV and he said he’d take care of his ATV later. Ever my mentor in bluegrass music (we was a good banjo picker himself before he had a stroke) he wanted to loan me a CD to take home with me. By the time I left his place, it was now dark, and cold. Remember, this is rural Ontario, and there aren’t a lot of streetlights where he lives. The ride home was a little uncomfortable, because all of those dirt roads I’d travelled on the way down were not so much fun to travel in the dark. I barely missed two deer crossing the road, and the lights on my ATV only lit up about twenty feet in front of me. Although my night vision is still pretty good, for the same reason I never liked riding my motorcycle at night, I didn’t enjoy driving the ATV in the dark. Something about open air riding in the dark makes me feel more vulnerable. Besides, if anything goes wrong, there I am out in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, with dodgy cell service. Let’s just say the ride home took a little longer than the ride out. 

 Back when I was in my late twenties, I bought a 1967 Triumph Spitfire off a frat brother in college. This was hardly a classic – I think I paid $400 for it- and when the frat brother bought it, it was painted red. Turned out that red was watercolor paint, and when he took it through a car wash, it came out green. I really enjoyed that little bucket of bolts, and spent the next two years fixing it up, mostly on my own. This is something I heartily recommend doing, once. I had just rebuilt the motor and the car was running great. The next item on my repair list was the suspension, but one fateful night, before I had a chance to fix the suspension, I flipped the car on a country road. Operator error. I was tooling down a particularly twisty road near our summer place in Ft Erie, and I took a turn too quickly. I lost control, went up an embankment, and the car flipped over on me. People seemed impressed (by my lack of driving skills) when I tell them I flipped my Spitfire, probably assuming that this was a high speed crash. In fact, I was probably going 35 MPH when the crash occurred, and had it been properly suspended, the car might have been more forgiving of my incompetence. Luckily the windshield acted as a roll bar and I was able to kick out the broken windshield and escape. I could have been trapped very uncomfortably until someone happened by. This all occurred around 2AM and this was not a well-travelled road. I can still remember hearing the sound of car giving one last sigh as it expired, and I remember the sound of one hub cab rolling down that deserted country road. Maybe this is why I don’t like open air rides at night.

Well it’s been more than a week now and the government shutdown over Obamacare is still going strong. Did anyone see The Daily Show early last week? Clearly, Jon Stewart is no friend of the Republican Party, and he made an amusing point. He basically said to the elephants, look, if you think this health care plan is a big enough threat to the country that it is worth shutting down the government, then own up to that conviction. “Don’t fart and point at the dog.” I love that. Once again partisan politics paralyzes the U.S. government, and whether you are a donkey or an elephant, you are probably in agreement that this is shameful behavior on the part of the jokers we elected to lead us. Who is really failing to negotiate? We all think we know, but are not both sides guilty of playing the spin/blame game?  Regardless, today is a good day, and I am truly thankful for my freedom, for my health, for my beautiful wife, and for all the good fortune I have known these many years. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving !   -Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED