Tag Archives: motorcycle

Professors and Jack-hammer Operators

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Is there a difference between being retired and being dead?

Is there a difference between being employed and being dead?

It all depends, perhaps. Is your retirement deadly boring? Is your employment deadly meaningless? It all comes down to “calling” – the sense that one is called to something.

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessey

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessey

Social philosopher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessey noted how curious is was that in their leisure time professors read books and jack-hammer operators rode motorcycles. If it really was leisure, he said, the professors who worked with ideas would be riding motorcycles; the jackhammer operators whose ears were filled with noise all week would be reading philosophy, history or novels.

I think  need a motorcycle!

P.S. My audiologist said I have the ears of a 45 year old jack-hammer operator.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Oct. 1, 2015

Oblivious Dreaming

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Little 6’8″ Steve on his motorcycle with Studebaker Hawk behind

Honda Dream CB 150 Hawk

…

The motorcycle was too small for me,

but was what I could buy with part-time work.

Not loud and rough like the big bikes Harley-

Davidson made, the slim Honda Dream Hawk

would start not with a kick, but with the push

of a button…  Quiet, purring, and clean–

liked even by my mother–I would ride

130 miles to college, then

come  home the next weekend to see my bride-

to-be.  

         The bike was under-powered, meant

for in-town rides, so on the roads I’d draft

behind a semi-truck to reach a speed

of 65.  The truckers hated that

I stuck so close behind out of their sight,

but I, oblivious, dreamed on my steed…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, host of “Keepin’ the Faith” on Illinois Public Radio WILL at the University of Illinois.

Now he spends his time on the prairie looking for a draft of wind to fly his kite.

Steve waiting for a truck?