September 13, 2003
Everyone working hard on twin deadlines. Our big Westerns issue is on track to be a monster and the CG book is hanging out with an October 11th deadline looming. Robert Ray and I are working this weekend to get caught up, and, of course, I’m thinking of groovy additions to the layout at the last minute that drives everyone crazy.

And speaking of driving everyone crazy, Kathy and I had a frank discussion this morning about our savings, or lack thereof. She was reading aloud from an article in Time called “Housebound,” and the dilemma of the current housing prices vs. savings and how you shouldn’t be paying more than 36% of your total income on your house payments and this led to our stormy past when I was riding high one day on the radio and the next day unemployed and borrowing from our IRA just to make the house payments, and in my mind this was about a three month period of tough times, but in Kathy’s mind it was “a decade of insecurity and grief.” We both came to the same conclusion: we’re damned lucky to still be married. Ha. She chalked it up to one thing and one thing only: my sense of humor (see quote below).

Went for two walks with the dogs, once alone and another when Kathy came back from the gym.

I want to do that surf illustration this weekend. I asked the staff if they had any surf magazines at home. Gus and Abby laughed, but Jerry J. stuck his head around the corner and said he’d bring in one. Yesterday, he brought in the newest issue of Transworld Surf, one of the many surf mags proliferating on the newsstand. I wanted good art reference to marry Davy Crockett to a surfer hanging ten (putting all ten toes off the front of the board while riding a wave). Well, Hello Old Man? Nobody surfs like that anymore. Everyone “shreds”, going back and forth, up and down. All the shots are of guys in contorted, inside out angles, ripping and reef-stroking (sorry, made that up). The very idea of a guy standing on a board and going straight in, is so 35 years ago.

That got me to thinking about motorcycle jumping. I remember going to Manzanita Speedway in about 1969 to see Evel Kneival (sp?) jump 15 cars. What I remember is that his ramps covered up about 13 of the cars and that the actual distance he was jumping was maybe 30 feet (I’m being generous). Ooooh! We were so impressed. What a crazy, danger guy! Well, today, the jumpers, and this includes little kids, are doing mega-distances while turning flips! Virtually everything is so much more radical.

I remember being at Eastside Cycle Park outside Tucson and coming over a jump on my Triumph TT Tiger (500cc) and when I pulled into the pit, my riding mate, Hank W., said, “I think you got air! I think your front wheel was actually airborne for a fraction of a second!” I felt like Neil Armstrong, but judging by today’s standards I was actually more like Tip O’Neil.

“You can’t be angry at someone who makes you laugh.”
—Old Vaquero Saying