Deacon Wisdom

Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness. And the serious look may be the sover veil that covers a divine peace and joy. – Edward Chapin

Mathemetician Wisdom

There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely geometrical and there is nothing behind geometry. – Martin Gardner

Hierarchiologist Wisdom

Everyone rises to their own level of incompetence. Laurence J Peter

Marketer Wisdom

Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners. – E. Joseph Cossman

Science Fiction Wisdom

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power – David Brin

Canadian Novelist Wisdom

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity. – Robertson Davies

Comedic Wisdom

You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there. – George Burns

Theoretical Physicist Wisdom

If you haven’t found something strange during the day, it hasn’t been much of a day. – John A. Wheeler

Essayist Wisdom

People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being unjust – E. B. White

Writer Wisdom

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night – Edgar Allan Poe

Management Consultant Wisdom

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work. – Peter Drucker

Writer Wisdom

An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. – Bonnie Friedman

December 1, 2007

American Comedienne Wisdom

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity - Gilda Radner

Radio Host Wisdom

You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a firefly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart. – Fred Allen

Cowboy Wisdom

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. – Will Rogers

Comedic Wisdom

Hello Seeker!
Now don’t feel alone here in the New Age because there’s a seeker born every minute! – Firesign Theatre

TV Show Host Wisdom

The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren’t any space aliens. We can’t be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we’re not all there is. If so…we’re in big trouble. – Ellen DeGeneres

Sexual Therapist Wisdom

What we call “Progress” is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance – Havelock Ellis

Roman Statesman Wisdom

Friendships make prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it. - Cicero

Computer Scientist Wisdom

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. – Alan Kay

Media Executive Wisdom

Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears. – Robert W Sarnoff

Novelist Wisdom

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say “I want to see the manager”. William S Burroughs

Cartoonist Wisdom

Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer? – George Price

Zen Wisdom

Before enlightenment,

I chopped wood and carried water.

After enlightenment,

I chopped wood and carried water.

-Zen saying

Journalistic Wisdom

All animals are equal….but some animals are more equal than others – George Orwell

Jazz Artist Wisdom

If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don’t, you’re simply ducking your responsibilities. – Ann Richards

Expressionis Artist Wisdom

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time – Willem de Kooning

Writer Wisdom

To want to be what one can be is purpose in life – Cynthia Ozick

Motivational Speaker Wisdom

Live your life as though there is great joy to be experienced…an abundance of goodness in each person you come in contact with, and the knowledge that you have enough inner wisdom to answer the mysteries that challenge you. – Meladee McCarty

Irish Playwrite Wisdom

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution – Oscar Wilde

French Author Wisdom

The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in streets and to steal bread. – Anatole France

Unknown Wisdom

My Karma ran over your dogma - Unknown

Welsh Poet Wisdom

Someone’s boring me. I think it’s me. – Dylan Thomas

Writer Wisdom

Never explain…..your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway – Elbert Hubbard

Physicist Wisdom

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the US National deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. – Richard Feynman

Halloween Wisdom

Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite,
All are on their rounds tonight;
In the wan moon's silver ray,
Thrives their helter-skelter play.
~Joel Benton

Comedic Wisdom

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing – Redd Foxx

Modernist Wisdom

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy, you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in. ~ Katherine Mansfield

Novelist Wisdom

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort. – Charles Dickens

Comedic Wisdom

Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.- Jonathan Winters

Satirist Wisdom

People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story about how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than the future. – Chuck Palahniuk

Foster's Law

The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders – Foster’s Law

I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say. – Marshall McLuhan

Painter Wisdom

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.- Henry Miller

Comedic Wisdom

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. – Billy Vaughan

French Author Wisdom

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. – Jules Renard

Italian Philosopher Wisdom..

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else – Umberto Eco

Friendship Wisdom

A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move the body. - Anonymous

Roman Wisdom

Friendship make prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it. - Cicero

Philosophical Wisdom

The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments – Friedrich Neitzsche

Submariner Wisdom

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. The must be driven into practice with courageous patience. Hyman Rickover

Jazz Musician Wisdom

I searched through rebellion, drugs, diets, mysticism, religions,intellectualism and much more, only to begin to find...that truth is basically simple - and feels good, clean and right. - Chick Corea (1941-) American Jazz Musician

Ancient Roman Wisdom

From the end spring new beginnings - Pliny the Elder

American Writer Wisdom...

Genius may have it’s limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped – Elbert Hubbard

Academy Award Winning Actor Wisdom

People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom. - Peter Ustinov

Presidential Wisdom

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand. Woodrow Wilson

Biker Wisdom...

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved - anonymous

First Lady Wisdome

Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water! Eleanor Roosevelt

Race Car Driver Wisdom

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. - Doug Larson

Ancient Wisdom

Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. - Dandemis

Scottish Wisdom

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us - Alexander Graham Bell

Race Car Driver Wisdom

A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience - Doug Larson

Chinese Philosopher Wisdom

There is no calmaity greater than lavish desires
There is no greater guilt than discontentment
And there is no greater disaster than greed.

Lao-tzu

Spanish Wisdom

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise." - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Shakespearian Wisdom

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind - William Shakespeare

Comedic Wisdom

Reputation is character minus what you’ve been caught doing. - Michael Iapoce

Journalistic Wisdom

Just because your voice reached halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reache only to the end of the bar. - Edward R Murrow

Screenwriter Wisdom

Hindsight is always 20/20 - Billy Wilder

Transcendental Wisdom

The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this? -- Henry David Thoreau

Comedic Wisdom

"I’VE GIVEN UP on the whole human species. I think a big, good-sized comet is exactly what this species needs. You know, the poor dinosaurs were walking around eating leaves, and they were completely wiped out. Let the insects have a go. You know, I don’t think they’ll come up with sneakers with lights in them, or Dust Busters, or Salad Shooters, or snot candy. . . . I only wish there were some way I could live out on the moon and watch it all on CNN. . . I just want to describe the mess. But life is dual. If you scratch a cynic, you’ll find a disappointed idealist."-George Carlin, comedian, writer, The Progressive (July 2001)

Amazon Wisdom....

The only thing wrong with a perfect ride to work is that you end up at work.

just a quick note...

to let you all know
that I have tendinitis
and am trying to save my "posting time" for
when I'm at work....one does have to eat ya know....
I have every intention of being back when
working at the computer doesn't hurt...or hurts less

in the interim....here's a quote for you...

Life is like a rose . . . more exquisite and precious, when shared with others - Jane Oechsle Lauer

British Author Wisdom

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon - Susan Ertz

Lithuanian Violinist Wisdom

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other. - Jascha Heifetz

Holly daze...

Hello faithful readers.....

I'm leaving on the 2nd on holly daze
will be back on the 16th ish

so I'm giving myself a wee break to prepare
for the grand exit
and the even grander return....

stay tuned!
ya know I'm too mouthy to stay quiet for long
LoL

Amazon Wisdom

Never pack a rain suit AND sunblock.
Murphy will get confused and make it snow. - Amazon Tee on the White Rhino

Scottish Novelist Wisdom

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant – Robert Louis Stevenson

French Fabulist Wisdom

Beware so long as you live, of judging people by appearances - La Fontaine

Irish Wisdom

All that is necesary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

German Philosopher Wisdom

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Countess of Westmoreland Wisdom

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are...you need one. - Jane Howard

British Wisdom

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. - Samuel Johnson

Caliph Wisdom

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere. - Ali ibn-Abi Talib

Wyzwmn......

has left the building

Happy Canada Day on the 1st

be back Tuesday or Wednesday

Self Improvement Wisdom

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. - Dale Carnegie

Political Wisdom?

If you can find something everyone agrees on....it's wrong - Mo Udall

British Theologian Wisdom

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique. - Benjamin Jowett

Biker Poet Wisdom

Biker Style
by
the IronHorse Rider
12/21/03

In LifeCertain things are black n white
No room for compromise
Straddlin’ thunder, feels good down under
Nirvana for the thighs

You see
There exists no sure fire methods
Grand schemes may take awhile
So, take a hint, a leather blueprint
Do it ‘Biker Style’

Dance abreast a well endowed chest
Accept all it may entail
Gettin’ slapped, feelin’ trapped
Knowing when to bail
Take your time, make it rhyme
Leave ‘em with a smile
Better to be, a fond memory
All due to ‘Biker Style’

One must
Always be the gentleman
Stopping short of being en vogue
Enjoy the dance of circumstance
Ladies prefer a rogue

Take not
Unless freely given
Be grateful for having the chance
In life, to succeed, one must take the lead
Be willing to try, the dance

And thus
Dance abreast a well endowed chest
Accept all it may entail
Gettin’ slapped, feelin’ trapped
Knowing when to bai
lTake your time, make it rhyme
Leave ‘em with a smile
Better to be, a fond memory
All due to ‘Biker Style’

Comedic Wisdom

Love yourself first and everything else falls in to line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world - Lucille Ball

Poet Wisdom

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend. – Robert Louis Stevenson

Biker Wisdom

You will not feel the need to go to the restroom until after you have put on your rainsuit.

News Anchor Wisdom

An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overtrure and not think of the Lond Ranger. - Dan Rather

Wrinkles and Roads

Wrinkles and Roads

I've faced my demons, more than once

Spit against the wind

Walked on water, so I thought

Ventured into sin

Moved the Earth, a time or two

Ate my share of dirt

Spurned the gift of life itself

Death whispered its flirt

Wrinkles travel upon my face

As lines from a weathered map

Roads destined to end at fate

Time, the eternal trap

Wisdom sprouts from failed seeds

Lessons to be learned

Still waters, run deeper still

When bridges have been burned

I'm not one to dwell upon

Choices left behind

I choose to see what lies ahead

For hindsight can be blind

Wrinkles travel upon my face

Reflecting roads of past

I pray to ever taste the wind

The roads, to ever last

Ironhorse Writer

© 1/03/2003

Canadian Self Help Author

Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy. - Brian Tracy

Work Wisdome

I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours - Jerome K Jerome

Biker 101

Biker 101

What is a Biker?

Is it someone who's clearly defined?,

or a perception, merely a state of mind?

Who is a Biker?

One portrayed in movies, through hype?,

or entrapped within a stereotype?

When is a Biker?

24/7 from head to boot?,

or the weekend warrior, who sheds his suit?

Why is a Biker?

Fulfilling a preordained legacy?,

or simply indulging fantasy?

Where is a Biker?

As for me, it couldn't be clearer,

all I need do is look in the mirror.

by

The Ironhorse Writer

8/10/2002

Ancient Greek Wisdom

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted. - Aeschylus

Chinese Wisdom

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” - Chinese Proverb

Left or Right
By Wild Bill © 2005 all rights reserved

Simple sounds this day of spring
Cold steel turning warm
Rhythm sets my mind to roam
Direction starts to form

With not a thought my foot descends
A click and kick is felt
Hand relaxed, gears engage
Power takes the belt

Motion starts in a roll
Butterflies descend
Colors bright, shoulders tight
Feeling starts to blend

Left or right is on the mind
Decision is defaulted
A cage is rushing up on me
All the motion halted

Familiar turns are easy
Follow an older trail
Dare I take another track
Where shadows are not stale

Left or right is in the air
Heads or tails the gamble
Fate then takes its proper place
And down the road I amble.

Old Guy's Biker Wisdom

The twisties – not the superslabs –separate the riders from the squids.

Dirt Tracker Wisdom

“Why are motorcycle dealers closed on Sundays? Because Sunday is for worship... Catholics go to church, Motorcyclists hit the road.” – Justin Skalka

The Biker Code - Wisdom for the Ride

Ride for the love of it and all that goes with it. Don't try to explain matters of the heart. Get lost in the moment. Expect the unexpected. Be aware and always prepared to ride. Know when to come home. - John "Reb" Everett

American Novelist Wisdom

"And I to my motorcycle
Parked like the soul of the junkyard
Restored, a bicycle fleshed
With power, and tore off
Up Highway 106 continually
Drunk on the wind in my mouth
Wringing the handlebar for speed
Wild to be wreckage forever." - James Dickey

Motorcycle Daredevil Wisdom

"Riding a motorcycle on today's highways, you have to ride in a very defensive manner. You have to be a good rider and you have to have both hands and both feet on the controls at all times." - Evel Knievel

Planet Earth Wisdom

Hope doesn't come from calculating whether the good news is winning out over the bad. It's simply a choice to take action - Anna Lappe

British Comedian Wisdom

"People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs." - Alexei Sayle

Japanese Wisdom

When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends. - Japanese Proverb

Motorcycle Wisdom

Safety doesn't happen by accident. ~Author Unknown

The Biker Code - Wisdom for the Ride

"For some there's therapy, for the rest of us there's motorcycles.Years ago I found myself dangerously close to depression. I had 2 options: spend the next 5 years and thousands of dollars in therapy, or take a "nonconventional" approach. I bought an 1987 1100 Harley sportster. The Best Therapy Ever! - "Amazing Grace Veradossa - The Biker code, Wisdom for the Road

The Biker Code - Wisdom for the Ride

Never snub any rider no matter what he rides. Someday we will need every brother and sister we can to fight off the man trying to outlaw us. - Thomas "RoadKill" Anderson ( The Biker Code - Wisdom for the Ride)

Scottish Poet Wisdom

Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul, Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society - Robert Blair

Cartoonist Wisdom

Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night....without the satisfaction - Lynn Johnston

Biker Wisdom

Never be ashamed to unlearn an old habit.

Biker Wisdom

Everyone crashes. Some get back on. Some don't. Some can't. ( Pray You Have the Choice )

Essayist Wisdom

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Motorcycle Wisdom

Learning to ride at 41 is better than never learning to ride at all!
Great motorcycle quotes and wisdom...

Cookie Elf Wisdom

Life is just a mirror, and what you see out there, you must first see inside of you. - Wally "Famous" Amos

Motorcycle Wisdom

Motorcycles don't insult you if you are a novice.

American Presidential Wisdom

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done - Dwight D Eisenhower.

Candian Biker Wisdom

Don't lead the pack if you don't know where you're goin'

Chinese Wisdom

The palest ink is better than the best memory. - Chinese Proverb

Author Wisdom

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. - William Arthur Ward

Science Fiction Writer Wisdom

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself - Lois McMaster Bujold

Jewish Novelist Wisdom

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.- Elie Wiesel

Nonconformist Wisdom

They always talk who never think. - Matthew Prior

Educator Wisdom

Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide. - Marva Collins

Ancient Greek Wisdom

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. - Cicero

French Intellectual Wisdom

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom - Marcel Proust

Danish Entertainer Wisdom

Laughter is the closest distance between two people - Victor Borge

Presidential Speechwriter Wisdom

Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care. - William Safire

Author Wisdom

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary, men alone are quite capable of every wickedness - Joseph Conrad

Western Actor Wisdom

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory - Paul Fix

Inventor Wisdom

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless - Thomas A. Edison

Motorcycling Author Wisdom

That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. - Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Old Guy's Biker Wisdom

Motorcycles don't insult you if you are a novice. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Quotes

Old Guy's Biker Wisdom

If your motorcycle is boisterous, you can buy a muffler. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Quotes

Old Guy's Biker Wisdom

If your motorcycle smokes you can do something about it. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Quotes

Motorcycle Wisdom

Your motorcycle will let you know if something is wrong. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Wisdom

Motorcycle Wisdom

Motorcycles never develop spare tires. - Old Guy's Motorcycle Wisdom

Biker Wisdom

A motorcycle can go for more than one ride in an hour - Old Guy's Place Biker Wisdom

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. - An English Professor

Presidental Advisor Wisdom

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems ~ John W Gardner

Science Fiction Writer Wisdom

The two most common elements in the univers are Hydrogen and stupidity - Harlan Ellison

Lebanese Wisdom

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees - Kahlil Gibran

US Presidential Wisdom

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. - Abraham Lincoln

Parental Wisdom

My dad always used to say, "If you're falling off a cliff, you may as well try to fly. You have nothing to lose." -- Captain John Sheridan

Danish Philosopher Wisdom

Life can only by understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards - Soren Kierkegaard

Human-Computer Interface Expert Wisdom

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. - Jef Raskin

Dutch Wisdom

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains - Dutch proverb

Western Author Wisdom

For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction , biography and history offer inexhaustible numbers of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time - Louis L'Amour

Got a questionnaire from Old Biker Hen....

she's compiling info for a book - Here's my answers.....

Karen aka WyzWmn©

Nickname? And if there’s a story behind it, would you share it?

I am called WyzWmn….an anagram meaning Wise Woman although I have close friends that continue to pronounce it Wiz as in Wizard (I’ve never been able to figure that one out) Wyz started out as a nick name given to me as a joke – because it was opposite to the person I was as a very young woman – originally I was called “PMS365” and that evolved to “Aunty Kranky” by family….although why anyone would name me cranky is beyond me *snicker snicker*

However…as time went on I became the “older more mature woman” in my group of friends, the person everyone went to for advice…I developed a reputation for a kind of advocacy work amoung my friends and WyzWmn began to evolve. That coupled with the fact that I am a practicing Wiccan with a lunar lien and a generational story teller (descendant from a long line of women story tellers)…so get comfy…I’m long winded!

When did you start riding? Or how old were you? And why? (There is no need to give your age, or a year that would give away your age, if that makes you uncomfortable.)
I think I originally started riding as a means to piss my father off…he was an Ontario Provincial Police officer (OPP) for 30 years and as regimental as the day is long…so my version of rebellion became motorcycling…when my means of rebellion became fine-tuned that is…

I went for my first motorcycle ride on the back of a 450 Honda with my Uncle Ron…He is my mother’s youngest brother and only 10 years older than I…at 51 that’s not a big age difference but at 10ish it’s massive…I thought Ron was cool and sexy and all those illicit things that my father disliked for his little girl. At the time, we were on holidays in Merritt BC (from Perth ON) where my Mom’s family lived and Ron had got stuck babysitting me (in those days 10 yr olds had babysitter’s now days they have boyfriends and shop at the Rubber Rainbow…but that’s another story)

Anyway Ron took me on this long ride around Merritt, a here to fore unknown to me and we ended up at the drive-in with a bunch of his friends where by he got horrendously, gutter puking drunk and I had to walk home by myself in the dark…it was a smozzle…my father roared my mother and grandmother shrieked like fishmongers…my grandfather just smacked his lips and drank beer as was his wont.

Quite the scene….but all these years later the thing that sticks with me is that feeling of exhilaration…that elicit thrill. I can still close my eyes and see him in his chino’s and baby blue short sleeved cotton sport shirt, penny loafers and white cotton sox (sheesh, how schmaltzy eh?) and I can see me holding on for dear life more afraid and out of my element than I ever had been before…but still exhilarated, the kind of exhilarated that kids feel when they are first discovering their sexuality…those naughty and nice ingredients that in later life define us. (No helmet either…my my my we were brave and stupid in those days…)

Long story short – we went back to ON and I was riding my own in the bush around Thunder Bay by the time I was 13. My Dad didn’t forgive my uncle Ron until I was in my 40’s…well at least he said he’d forgiven him – but who knows?

What was your first bike?
My first bike was a 2 stroke dirt bike. It was so beat up it was always a wonder when it kicked over (and in those days I had the knees to be able to kick it!) I’d leave the house in the morning and not return until I ran out of gas or darkness descended.

I stopped riding for a while when I discovered boys. Then I discovered men and rode as a passenger for a while. I rode an old triumph chopper that was mostly held together with baling wire and luck. I then graduated to a chopped Sporty with a real 50's version back rest that looked like it had been stolen from the iron fence at the cemetery along with a coffin tank and fish tail pipes. I was young and thought I was smokin!

Over the years, I've had many bikes and I’ve been involved in many accidents, from dropping the bike myself, to spinning out on a lawn and flipping, to cresting a hill on a dirt road in first ride of the season in spring to find that the road had washed out. (I landed on the coffin tank and flattened the damn thing with my butt!) But all in all the greater majority of my accidents were as a result of riding as a passenger with someone who was not in “good control of his machine” so I went back to riding my own.

I rode without a license until I was 40 (shhhh – it’s a secret) and at 40 decided that I would impersonate an adult and take the Canadian Safety Council MC course so I could get a discount on my insurance. I discovered instead that my riding skills were comprised of a clabbering of bad habits and the course gave me a healthy understanding of the need for me to be accountable to my actions while operating a motorcycle…and an understanding that I was not immortal and could in fact die if I didn’t start paying attention.

What has been your best experience?
There are too many experiences to have one single “best experience”.

The phenomenon of truly amazing people from all walks of life coming together under one theme….riding.

All the years I spent volunteering for the Ride for Sight, culminating in 4 years as BC’s Ride for Sight Chair. Riding in the snow, the first ride of spring every year, the first time I had a riding story published, dealing with many years of health issues and not being able to ride for both health and financial reasons culminating in a move to Vancouver Island and the purchase of my current ride (a 1974 VW trike called “the Pickle” as in my motorpickle)….becoming a member and then a “core member” and then an officer of the Southern Cruisers Riding Club(SCRC) here in Victoria and discovering another “family”. Having members of my club work tirelessly and at their own expense to restore my old trike to beauty and safety, having perfect strangers approach me to talk about my ride!

The people, the places, the people, the parties, the people, the road, the people the weather, the people, the wind in your face, the people, the events, the people, the fun, the people, the agony, the people, the love and of course, the people.

Even after all these years – the feeling of the open road and no specific place to go…but going.

What has been your worst?
I broke my back in the early 80’s and then was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. I wasn’t able to ride for a long long time. I was miserable…and probably earned “Aunty Kranky” during that period…stayed in touch with many of the people but didn’t actually ride for reasons of health and finance.

Anything else you might want to share.
I write, have a couple of blogs and write for the Busted Knuckle Chronicles. http://wyzwmnswords.blogspot.com/ http://wyzwmnsworld.blogspot.com/ http://www.beltdrivebetty.com/joomla07/index.php

Why do you ride now, or what does riding mean to you?
Being a business woman and spending my days dealing with administrative issues, I find more and more all the time that the only time I really feel “me” is when I’m riding…even when I’m riding in traffic I feel so much more “liberated” than I do at home or in my office. So much so that my family will often tell me – “you need to get out for a ride…yer like a bear with a cut butt!”

I have found the largest group of truly honest, loving, respectable, trustworthy people in the riding community. For every person I have come across that is a boor, or un-integral I have found a half dozen really wonderful people to counter the negative pull…with odds like that – one can’t go wrong

Words of wisdom, or lessons learned.
My wisdom is nothing more than repeated practice. I am able to “sound” wise because I have (without bragging) had some truly serious trials and have come through…not always on top but come through….I have retained my sense of humour through it all – only because of an undying need to laugh and love.

Only because: "Ya gotta laugh or yer hair falls out!"

Irish Playwrite Wisdom

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. - Oscar Wilde

Authoress Wisdom

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been - Madeleine L'Engle

Theoretical Physicist Wisdom

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. - Albert Einstein

Cartoonist Wisdom

Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night....without the satisfaction - Lynn Johnston

Motorcycling Author Wisdom

Driving a motorcycle is a sensual, visceral, and immediate response. It’s the blast of air parting in an almost physical way around your body. It's the feel of heavy steel machinery between you thigh’s and knees as you move through turns, running a good road on a clear morning. It's the taste of wet grass, deep woods, damp river banks, and freshly cut hay that finds its way to the back of your throat. You know and experience what is around you and feel the very sensation of motion itself, in a way that you never can behind the wheel of a car.

In a car you drive a road; on a motorcycle you feel it. On a motorcycle every rise and dip, every change in surface or cant, every turn and straightway, is a temporal and physical experience. In a car you are enclosed, removed from what is without by the machinery that moves you, the windshield, the air-conditioning, the heater, the radio, the upholstered cradle of your seat, the locked doors the surrounding frame, they all separate you from the reality of the road and the weather. On a motorcycle the machine and the environment are an integral part of the experience. Coming home in the afternoon, the sun touches your shoulders with great warm hands. Somewhere in the middle of a long day of riding - especially on curves, where the lean and torque, body and bike angle, gravity and speed, determine the physics and the line of movement - the machine becomes an extension of the body, a melding of what is human and what is mechanical.

- Karen Larsen "Breaking the Limit"

American Author Wisdom

Age is no guarnatee of maturity. - Lawana Blackwell

Science Fiction Writer Wisdom

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Roman Statesman Wisdom

Where is the dignity unless there is honesty? - Cicero

Presidential Wisdom

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever acheive greatly - Robert Kennedy

Buddhist wisdom

If you find yourself saying, once too often, "Someone should do something about that!," tell yourself: "I am Someone." - Dalai Lama

French (Russian-born) author and salonist Wisdom

We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found - Tzvetan Todorov

Contemplate:

The first faults are theirs that commit them, the second theirs that permit them

Producer/Director Wisdom

Drama is life - with all the dull bits cut out - Alfred Hitchcock

Science Fiction Writer Wisdom

The popularity of conspiracy theories is explained by people's desire to believe that there is some - group of folks who know what they are doing - Damon Knight

Cruising Rider Quote

The walls of my church are made of asphalt, brick and solid steel; it`s lined with rock and wood, river and ocean. I ride its pulpit and I preach its damn gospel.

Austrialian Nurse Wisdom

He who controls you conquers you - Elizabeth Kenny

Motivational Speaker Wisdom

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Bonnie Jean Wasmund

Journalistic Wisdom

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it. - G. K. Chesterton

Authoress Wisdom

No good deed goes unpunished - Clare Booth Luce

TV Show Host Wisdom

Expecting the world to treat you fairly
because you are a good person
is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you
because you are a vegetarian - Dennis Wholey

American Astronomer Wisdome

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back - Carl Sagan

Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be. - Jim Horning

American Cartoonist Wisdom

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer? - George Price

French (Russian-born) author and salonist Wisdom

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse. - Anne-Sophie Swetchine

British Writer Wisdom

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before - Robert Lynd

British Physician Wisdom

Health is not values till sickness comes - Dr Thomas Fuller

American Singer/Comedian Wisdom

I never know how much of what I say is true. - Bette Midler

British Writer Wisdom

In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. - Aaron Rose

British Prime Minister Wisdom

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life - Herbert Henry Asquith

American Sitcom Wisdom

The Great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel - from "Taxi"

English Writer Wisdom

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest. - William Hazlitt

Scottish essayist Wisdom

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. - Thomas Carlyle

Pulitzer Prize Winning Novelist Wisdom

The only difference between a rut and a grave....is in their dimensions - Ellen Glasgow

Motivational Speaker Wisdom

We don't have to wait for fear to vanish altogether because that moment will never come; all we need is a moment of daring that can change a whole lifetime of waiting. ~ Diane Conway

Greek Philosophy Wisdom

All paid jobs abosrb and degrade the mind. - Aristotle

Famous Cartoonist Wisdom

Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation. - Kin Hubbard

Famous Comedian Wisdom...

I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top 2 corners of the map so it won't fall down. - Mitch Hedberg

Famous Actor Wisdom

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously - Peter Ustinov

Famous Author Wisdom

Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But becuase it sees more, it is willing to see less. - Rabbi Julius Gordon

Famous Author Wisdom

Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone - Anthony Burgess (1917 - 1993)

TV Personality Wisdom

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead. - Johnny Carson

Motivational Speaker Wisdom

Did you ever see an unhappy horse?

Did you ever see bird that had the blues?

One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses. - Dale Carnegie

Screen Writer Wisdom

If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital. If you don't feel like you are writing somewhat over your head, why do it? If you don't have some doubt of your authority to tell this story, then you are not trying to tell enough. ~ John Irving

Economicist Wisdom

We increasingly live in a complicated world in which those things that can be done in one click get done, and those that can't, don't. ~ Brad DeLong

Famous Author Wisdome

A classic is a book which people praise and don't read. ~ Mark Twain

Computer Scientist Wisdom

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. ~ Donald Knuth

Inspirational Writer Wisdom

The pessimist borrows trouble; the optimists lend encouragement. ~ William Arthur Ward

Author Wisdom

In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn't been good versus evil. It's hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. ~ Deirdre Sullivan

Start thinking in 2007!

If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. ~ Lao-tzu