I Needed A Handle

Forty-five years ago I completed my Masters degree which focused on education/psychology and counseling...a Special Education M,A. I landed back on Earth by submitting to five years of factory/assembly line work at the newly birthed Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California. We then moved up four thousand feet in elevation so that my wife could continue her career working for the Department of Agriculture in Chester, California. I functioned as a 'utility infielder' for Plumas County School District and in my spare time I built the 'cabin-in-the-woods' that we have lived in ever since. After thirteen years of blissful co-existance, my wife and I decided to take a chance on pregnancy. Our son was a "handful" and required an amazing amount of attention and loving care. We were up for the task. Four years into fatherhood I realized our son would be interacting with hundreds of judgemental little beings and their parents for the next dozen years. They would want to know...what do your parents do? His mother worked for the Forest Service but his Dad...part-time a little bit of everything. I needed a 'handle'. I expressed this to my longtime friend Judd Hanna and he bluntly said, "Chuckie, what would you rather be doing?"... I want to start a bicycle shop.

Retirement...Six Months Later

Many of my advisors, old codgers who wandered into Bodfish Bicycles and Quiet Mountain Sports during our last year of operation, warned, "Retirement, don't do it. It's really over-rated." Well, I did it and I find it quite pleasant. yes, the honey-do list is longer and there is less time to 'space-out' when you are supervised from home. I can now work on a backlog of tasks that have accumulated over the last thirty-one years. I bought a stack of trim boards from Home Depot so that I can finish trimming out the house that I started constructing thirty-five years ago. Painting projects seem possible now. Walking and bicycling destinations from a list that's been brewing in my personal 'GPS brain' are now beyond the fermination stage. We are out doing it. There were many hours of 'spinning my wheels' during the off-seasons at the bicycle store over these last thirty years. I really do feel more efficient now that I'm retired. More reading, more riding and more time with wife and dog.

Walking The Dog

We have a trail system behind our house in the 100 acre forest that remains. The rest of the conifers have incinerated...all the way from here up into the National Park, ten miles north. The Dixie Fire continued into Lassen Volcanic National Park and beyond but, from Juniper Lake to the Hat Creek Rim there remains a smmattering of green foliage...much less than before but just enough to remind us of the lush green that always protected our watershed. Our dog has never been welcome in Lassen Park but we do explore the adjacent Caribou Wilderness (dog friendly) on a regular basis. She has a way of remembering every trail we've ever hiked. I holler out, "Gauche and Droit" when we come to trail junctions and she looks back at me with disgust, "I know the way." She really does. Of course the dog walk is for peeing and pooing and sniffing but there is more going on than that. She knows it is good for her keepers too.

What To Do With Winter Days

On those days when we are home and in the same room with a television, we have resolved to expose ourselves to a minimum of NEWS and instead occasional sporting events. We also love to watch movies and documentaries. Pedaling our bicycles on quiet roads and trails, baking sourdough bread and drying fruit (from the big valley below us) has risen to the top of our list of favorite activities. Oops, I almost forgot...huddling into our TheraSauna is a special way to start the day. Lisa is talking about giving the garden a rest this year and not commiting to a schedule of Yoga teaching. We are both hoping to accomplish more in the area of reading and writing in the coming year. Lisa has practiced much discipline with her writings these last couple of years and I have fit in quite a few read-books...forty this year, twenty-five last year. We haven't forgot the fact that we are living on a feverish planet and that we are surviving a rude and violent threat to humanitarian politics. we promote kindness and joy to nearly everyone we interact with. Maintaining the love in our hearts and keeping our daily 'sense of humor'are high on our list of resolutions for 2026!

New Year...New Sprouts

Good news first! We are going to become Grandparents, most likely in the month of May (maybe a Gemini baby). We have retired from the business that we owned and operated for 31 years...BBQMS is no longer. This is not our first retirement. Lisa retired from the USDA (Forest Service) in 2014 after thirty years of servitude...hard physical labor while looking out for the safety and well-being of visitors to the Lassen and Plumas National Forests. We also retired from our bicycle touring business, Outback With Bodfish in '95 after fifteen years of guiding bicycle-mounted folks onto the backroads and trails throughout remote areas of California. I like to say this new year begins an era of 'All Play and No Work'. We are free to wander and explore as a family of three.. our dog Nori always loves a good adventure. Needless to say, many of our future van (Seymour) trips will be along a wide corridor between Northern California and Park City, Utah.

Are We At A Breaking Point?

The year 2026 is only two weeks old and chaos has taken hold in Minnesota, Venezuela, Washington, D.C., Iran, Ukraine and Nigeria. Donald John Trump has contributed to the craziness on all fronts. I have always believed that his goal has been to create as much chaos as possible. Why else appoint the least qualified people in the country to every one his judicial, administrative and legislative positions. It's what Putin has always hoped for...proof that the American Way of Life is headed for collapse. Why is DJT so determined to please Putin? It has been speculated upon numerous times over the last ten years...the possibility that Putin has "The Goods" on Donald. He deeply admires V. Putin and so wants that kind of power. So, four years after Putin began his invasion of Ukraine, The Donald decides it's a good time to invade Iran. Using the same explaination he says that this operation will only last for a couple of weeks.