Not officially, the true start date is August 8th, but for most everybody, today is when it all really begins. The 71st annual Black Hills Motor Classic - the Sturgis rally - a week of many, many bikers all converging in western South Dakota. A friend of mine who is here visiting and riding his Harley around the hills asked me yesterday, "Who the hell let all these bikers in here?" Good question. I guess they just showed up. I rode down the mountain this morning to town, where the main street is blocked off except for motorcycles, so there's bikes lined up on both sides of the street and another row down the center stripe. Local businesses have increased their hours - I got to my "office" here at the Silver Dollar Saloon to find out that they'd opened the doors three hours earlier than usual. Beer deliveries are once a week in winter, twice a week spring and fall, but daily this week. If you don't like the sound of Harley-Davidson motorcycles roaring down the roads for just about 24 hours every day, then this is not the place to be right now.

For a lot of years, the rally was the yearly high point of my life, riding these roads, listening to the thunder of all the engines, meeting people who had something in common with me, a love of whatever it means to be a biker, or at least act like one. After 30 years of riding Harleys, I no longer care whether someone is a "real" biker (whatever that means) or just another person who loves motorcycles, for one week it's for the most part just good people getting together to have a great time. Some of us just go further into the lifestyle than others. I remember when I was voted into a motorcycle club 25 years ago. I didn't even have any tattoos. Now I have a life member card from the same club and more tattoos than I can count. I wonder what drove me so strongly into this motorcycle world. Was it wanting to be independent, which is kind of the biker image, or was it was wanting to be part of a group of like-minded people? Motorcycle clubs are actually pretty regimented, much the reason that all the members who assert their independence really do look very much alike.

One of those 'I want to be different but also want to fit in' things that seem to puzzle educated members of academia who study why people do what they do. Sometimes, there's just not an answer, it's just what it is. I read somewhere that you never see a Harley parked outside a psychiatrist's office. While that may not be true, its idealistic notion is accurate. No matter the problems of life, the demons that one fights during the periods of darkness when the soul wants to just quit, the pleas to God to just rescue what's left, it's been Harleys that have always brought me peace. I'm not even sure what the pull is toward the one brand of machine above all others. Perhaps it's what I was told many years ago by my cousin, another old Harley rider. When I asked him why he rode a Harley, he said, "That's what God rides. If you were God, wouldn't you ride one?" I don't know, I talk with God a lot, but I am starting to think that God likely does ride a Harley. And I know that if I were God, I'd live right here in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I lost my past life but gained a new one. If you are up here for the rally, please ride safe.

I'm sitting in the western end of South Dakota watching another "Black Hills Motor Classic" (Sturgis Rally) start. Virtually all of the vehicles for a 100+ mile radius are motorcycles and 99% of those machines are Harley-Davidsons. And most of the local businesses are thrilled with the money that the bikers bring with them. One place in a small town just north of here doesn't like bikers. Of course the owner will still serve them, but he's now considered some old relic of the past when bikers were nothing more than low-life trash. I remember those days from before the 1960s through perhaps the mid to late 1980s when anyone who rode a Harley had tattoos and whatever other accoutrements motorcycle riders wore back then were considered pariah. We weren't welcomed. "We" were just blue collar workers who loved big air-cooled V-twin engines and were not wanted anywhere.

What happened? I have no idea, I'm not a sociologist and can't intelligently comment on how social mores shift over time. But, something happened in the early 1990s and the people who started riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles were a different group. Professionals with degrees and money started buying the machines. Then, those in that same group (and others) started to think that tattoos were something to get. We old bikers became part of a new group, where what we'd been doing was now drifting toward some level of mainstream culture and positive rather than negative acceptance. Bikers were historically seen as rebels, yet those who were most profitable in our society were embracing that image, an image that was completely opposed to success. The biker image was some tangled group of now hackneyed phrases about freedom and life on the open road, brotherhood and loyalty to some club of like-minded individuals (an individualism that is but is not, as bikers tend to dress alike and act alike yet are still fiercely independent). It must have been that image that at least some of the "new" bikers were attempting to connect with by purchasing big, loud V-twin air-cooled motorcycles. Could it be that some of the successful people wanted an outlet for some sense of rebellion, where they could assume the persona of someone else? An image, a sense - at least for a while - of freedom that they may have lost by becoming what they are, living within current social mores that, just maybe, they sometimes question.

That's likely enough deep thinking for one day, questions without answers. I always felt that virtually all people are sociologically oriented rather than psychologically driven. But, that's just me. If you're coming to the Sturgis Rally this year, ride safe.

After my last post, four very nice people disagreed with me regarding having nothing else to say. I guess they are all correct since I spent this morning thinking about the past few days, conversations and an article I read about success.

I watch the old furry dog chase a squirrel up a tree and then she lays down in the sun, tail wagging and content with her life. Finally I am beginning to understand that should be a content life, it is enough. No riches or things or greed or whatever else makes one a success in modern society. Of course, while living inside society's rules, one shouldn't think these thoughts, might be labeled as an outcast or crazy and then some doctor will prescribe pills to make sure that all the thinking stops. If that fails, once in a while life fails as well. I suppose the truly insane sometimes just decide that life's answers are not inside society at all and they abandon it. I moved to a desolate but beautiful place where, while I have virtually nothing, I really do not have to watch people destroy each other based on the power of wealth or the immorality of culture. I have become nobody. Not seen, not noticed. The rest of the world can move along past me down below, where people can continue to impress each other with what they own. I know, I did it for years. It never really worked. At least now my own insecurities have been replaced by a peaceful understanding that the sun coming up over the mountain should be enough.

Something that has surprised me is that there are other crazy people like me, those who also just said no to whatever life had been doing to them and they dropped out of the world to find something else. I spent the past few days wandering around in a small town not far from here, watching the tourists, looking at motorcycles, listening to people, seeing some local residents who I have met over the past year. I noticed that many of the locals are not really so much different from whatever I have become. One old biker, I learned, used to work for a corporation in Colorado. He said he had worked there for years, had the big house and cars and everything that is supposed to denote success. Now he has a Harley and lives in a little camper up in the hills. He said he has never been as relaxed in his life. Another person (yes, another Harley rider as those with bikes and tattoos do tend to stick together) said he was a doctor at a hospital in Denver, but after some years of success, he didn't feel very successful. He lives in an RV now and just rides his bike a lot. He said he's "finally happy."

I must have run into half a dozen of those kinds of people, who had decided to just opt out of their past lives. And this past Sunday a friend showed up who worked for a company for 25 years, rotating shifts in a factory, until one day he'd had enough of night shifts and he retired. He never did get caught up in buying stuff or whatever else money is supposed to provide, he told me once that he just never felt the need for anything besides trying to be a kind and gentle person. I wish I had lived my past with his wisdom. He has always been one that no one really notices, yet he has lived a grand life enjoying all of it. I read this article about what it means to be successful, it sounds like the author has indeed found success while still living within society. For some of us, it has taken a total shift to some remote place, maybe not yet fully understanding what success is but knowing what it was not. Not toys or titles, rather perhaps some greater sense of truth that a few of us seek up in the mountains. I think the old furry dog already knows all about life and success, she waits to see whether I will also learn as well. Then we can both sit under a tree and be content.

Awakening from a lost past in a surreal present, I realize that I really have nothing more to say out here in the world of modern technology and the internet. I started this blog a few years ago, thinking that I knew something and others might find it interesting. I have since learned that I knew so little that I should have just kept my mouth shut (which is my current personal rule, as I bet in my present life I do not say 50 words in an entire day). So, no advice, suggestions, proverbs or predictions, because whether it be from one's own actions or those of people you do not even really know, life can be completely altered until it's not even recognizable as any part of a reality once taken for granted, despite what you read or think you're prepared for. Thus, I no longer see any point in trying to comment on what goes on in the bizarre world that most people choose to accept.

I believe this: treasure your friends, if you have any. There are damn few friends. If you ever get in a position where your life has come apart, you'll learn just how few. Not much else matters. Those few people really do matter. Everyone else can just go away and believe me, they sure do run away. It's kind of like having a lot of tattoos. If somebody looks at your ink and immediately dislikes you, that's fine, you wouldn't have liked their company anyway. If you knew 100 people, be happy that one remains with you. The rest don't matter.

May life reward you with peace and wisdom. Peace comes from your soul at rest. Wisdom comes from experience. Once you have enough experience to learn that you have a whole lot more to learn, you'll be wise enough to allow your soul some rest and you can ultimately be at peace, at least for a while and maybe for a long time. That is the ultimate goal and there truly is nothing else.

Once I realized that it's April 1st today, I began trying to recall what was happening one year ago, but my journal doesn't even have any entries for the entire month of April last year, and journals from earlier years are not available to me. So, that leaves today as the first foolish day that I can remember. Hopefully, I'll move through this day as less a fool than whatever I'd been in the past. Since there's incredible solitude where I sit right now, there's been time to really focus on the once important pieces of life that strike me now as only the blind follies of an idiot who was in search of a village.

Possessions. I have so few now but still too many. By this fall, I'd like everything I own on this planet to fit in a pickup truck. That way, there's not much to have to take care of and nobody can have the leverage over me of being able to make me do one thing or another just so I won't lose inanimate objects. It's difficult to enjoy life when you spend every moment afraid of losing things, then awakening one day to see that none of the things really mattered. They just have to be moved and stored and guarded and protected. Yes, of course I miss a lot of the past items but I'm still here without them. I once had a giant library of books, each storing knowledge that I could reread as I chose. I have a few dozen books now but mostly just read the Bible. It seems to be enough.

Stability was another part of the past. Life was pretty stable on the outside but so mentally unstable on the inside that the external did not really matter since I rarely saw it. At present, I never know how long I can stay in one place, whether some relatively minor illness will become one that stops my life (as there's no money for any kind of medical care nor do I have much trust in the medical profession) or if some other external calamity will do away with what little remains of my physical universe. But, since my mental stability has finally returned to at least some degree, however debatable, it's now only a matter of adapting to whatever happens instead of living in fear that something will happen. At least if something occurs that I cannot survive, there won't be a giant pile of stuff for somebody else to have to deal with, either. Maybe it's foolish to have no plan at all for life, but with years of plans and ideas and goals in the past all gone away, I wonder why I expended so much effort on them. The big mountain right behind me at this moment is the same as it has been for many years, it's not scurrying around planning. Maybe it's just patient and whole and at peace.

The present is usually filled with events that a fool can enjoy, like the bighorn sheep and the deer running past the windows, the birds landing on the eaves to peer in here, chipmunks racing past the dogs (who always seem to be just at the very end of their leashes). Someone recently asked me about cell phone coverage over on this side of the big mountain, I said I had no idea since I didn't have a cell phone. I sure received the look of one who must be a fool at that moment. Or an email asking if I would be at a certain place next fall and I could not even reply as to what state within these United States I would be in by then. With my foolish thinking, I do have moments of strange clarity, like when I realized that there is a bizarre similarity between some things and maybe I'm a true fool to even ponder these. For example, I have read a lot about the Lakota people who once lived in these Black Hills of South Dakota. Their life was one of seasons, they'd do something in the summer or fall. When I now hear from different people, only those in the motorcycle culture, the "bikers" respond with 'I'll be over there this summer' or 'see you on the gulf coast this fall.' There are no real dates or months. Life lived in the present, only vague ideas about the future. Perhaps that's why I have still tried to keep my motorcycle, one of the very oldest ties to my past. Or, maybe a lot of fools ride Harleys. If so, I am part of that club.

Today is the day for us fools. Go do something foolish, like enjoying this very moment. Life is short.

After a long evening of contemplating what options are available in my life, I awoke to new snowfall up here in these mountains. There is something serene in seeing the pines white and still, realizing the rock bluffs are not watching fuel prices spike upward as the world seems to become more crazy every day. This place is not one of calendars or appointments, rather, it's of seasons. In the greater part of my past life, everything just had to be finished yesterday. Now, all things are finished eventually. I could scurry around chasing thoughts, but if those ideas are not part of God's plan, I will only be running in circles. Gained wisdom brings with it a tenfold increase in patience, time that once was fought now is appreciated, as without the time to actually see the beauty of this place, one could never learn to take the time to see anything at all.

Years ago, I would ride my Harley-Davidson on a big highway to work, and once the day was finished, I'd ride home on a different route so I could go through Valley Forge National Park. I'd often stop to look at the huge trees there. On weekends, I'd ride to a motorcycle club out in the country, the clubhouse was in a beautiful location, especially during the fall when the leaves would be in vibrant colors. That was 25 years ago and I am not only still a member of that club, but I still miss that place and those people. While riding through North Carolina one summer, I stopped at a tiny local cafe for lunch. This was back before doctors and attorneys rode Harleys, so I was not always welcome everywhere. On that day, though, I enjoyed outstanding fried chicken and great conversations with the people there about their state and its history. From getting caught in thunderstorms to riding in the snow, every day was an adventure. I was young but knew how to see.

Somewhere through time, I lost that ability. Insignificant things became more important than just living, what I was doing became greater than what God had placed all around me. When vanity overtakes giving thanks for what is greater than the self, it's no wonder that blindness is the result. Can anyone really buy the ability to look out off of the Blue Ridge Parkway into the valleys below, knowing that the view is there not for profit, but for understanding that God created it? Modern marketing, the advertising of useless things that supposedly would bring happiness through ownership, closed my eyes to just reading my Bible and riding a big V-twin motorcycle. It has been a journey of over 20 years to learn what I once knew. Now I have my Bible and a Harley-Davidson and not much else, but those are more than enough possessions. I look forward to each day, holding the promise of new sights and new friendships.

Whatever life holds, it should be lived, not overlooked.

In my past life, I used to spend a lot of time at a big cowboy saloon in a little town. Over a period of years, two other saloons were started in surrounding areas. Today, the last one of the three closed. The one that I frequented was only open Friday and Saturday evenings. It became the highlight of my week to leave work on Friday and head right there. Live bands, great bbq and most of all, great people. In time, those visits were the only good part of my life at all.

The place itself wasn't really significant. Rather, the friends I met there - everyone who worked there and all the local people who also stopped by - made it what it was, a few hours to forget about life outside and spend time laughing about nothing, bright moments in my otherwise world of darkness. The only decisions requiring any thought there were whether to have another adult beverage and whether to stay for the band.

During the summer, my old blue Harley would take me to that saloon, sometimes encountering both rain and sun along the way. Upon arrival, the parking lot would have the usual assortment of Harley-Davidsons and pickups, patrons would walk outside occasionally to gaze at the storms moving past. Once inside, the rain didn't matter. It was seeing those friends, listening to their stories of both good and bad things that made up their lives, a relaxation brought on by being around those who you have come to love and trust.

The place didn't make all that good happen, it was just a hub for the people there to be good people on their own. I hope someone in that small town can create another place like that, where my friends will be able to gather and be themselves. I'd ride the 1,000 miles on my new Harley just to visit. And I might not leave.

It took me quite a while, but I finally remembered the names of the "furry kids" that I used to spend my time with back in my past life. At least the ones who were still living - many passed on before them and I can't recall all of those, nor do I have any photographs to remind me (of dogs or anything else). There was a big routine when arriving home of opening kennel doors and gates, hearing the dog door to the outside fenced area bang back and forth and refilling feed and water bowls.

The dogs had most of a two car garage, complete with heat and air conditioning, not too bad for critters. When we first installed the dog door, by building an entire wall in the space of one garage door, that seemed to be a great achievement. Except for that first night when I realized that the banging dog door was directly below our bedroom. But, eventually I didn't even hear it. Odd, though, that if there was not a dog snoring in bed next to me at night, I'd wake up.

On weekends, if the weather was decent, some of the little people got to go outside into another fenced area, the play yard. They'd run around sniffing at everything, the males sure to mark their territory and they sure had a lot of territory. Gus, a pretty good sized Boston Terrier, generally went with me over to a concrete retaining wall, where he'd sit on top of it and act like he was king of the world. Abbie, a tiny Jack Russell Terrier, would immediately jump to the top of a doghouse so she could keep an eye out for things to bark about. Meanwhile, Gracie, a little white furry Lhasa who also happened to be deaf, would find a spot for a nap - oblivious to the vocals coming from her house-mates. Those were enjoyable moments for me, far away from a strange reality that was my own life.

These days way up here and 1,000 miles from my past, there's three dogs. A tiny girl, a medium-size boy and a big furry lady. I spend a lot of time with them but since I didn't raise them, there's a different connection than the children of the past. Still, it's comforting to see them here and they all enjoy getting outside to chase rabbits and bark at bighorn sheep.

I don't think I'll ever get another dog for myself. The last one I did get, I couldn't take care of as I couldn't take care of me, either. Thankfully, he now has a happy new home. Dogs give us love without conditions, but we should return the favor by giving them a life of stability and peace.

For many years, I liked dogs much more than I liked people. Maybe I still do.

Birds fall from the sky due to "blunt force trauma" in Arkansas, Louisiana and now Sweden. Fish die in Arkansas while the Victoria River in Canada runs bright green. The New Madrid fault in the Midwest seems to be awakening (thanks, Debra, for the information). Bats die off in Tucson. And honeybees have been dying off for some years. All the experts have a theory. All the theories have to do with some incredible explanation as to why this is happening. Last I read, there's now speculation that some phosgene gas was introduced into the atmosphere. And that would explain all these creatures dying? Maybe in Arkansas but why does it seem to be species-specific (except LA, where it was several types of birds)?

I really do not buy into conspiracy theories or end of the world garbage. I tend to use logic to work out what may have happened in any particular situation, even if logic doesn't seem to be appropriate for any kind of explanation. But all of this happening is just "strange" - and it may be, in my unique mindset of paranoia and talking to spirits, that there could perhaps be something happening well beyond what our modern and educated society might want to truly comprehend. What's all this mean? Hell if I know, but here's what I am seeing from way up here at a high altitude on the side of a mountain:

The critters here have spent the last four months wandering all over these hills and I am grateful to see them about once a day. For the past two weeks, they have not gone more than 20 feet from me. Mule deer, whitetail deer, bighorn sheep, rabbits. They are all camped right here. Since I moved here I have enjoyed a quiet evening conversation with God and with some Lakota spirit guides who seem to like my company. Lately? None of them are saying much. I suddenly hear from people who I knew back in society. All of them want to escape to this place. All of them? How odd....

I suppose that we will all find out what's happening on this planet soon enough. And, while I do not want to sound like I perhaps did something for others by moving way up here (I did not, I moved to keep myself sane), I am quite flattered that others would like to follow this path. Whether I am in a better place to survive whatever comes, I do not know. But I do know, without a doubt, that peace and God both live here.

You all take care of yourselves back in the flatlands.