Jitterbugging for Jesus

Welcome to another exciting edition of “Road Warrior Yarns,” an occasional feature here at the blog that is saving the world.

The Road Warrior on his chunk of heavy-metal road thunder, “Heavy Lunch.”

So Monday morning my Chinese-made motorcycle “Heavy Lunch” body-slammed me, not once, but twice. (The Chinese make many great products like Trump ties and firecrackers and cheap motorcycles steeped in ancient, mechanical martial arts.)

Which is to say I jumped off of it and landed hard on the right side of my body as it careened into a ditch.

Here’s how things, my body included, went down…

I was trying to tap down my speed down a steep, forbidding mountain road and, being the road eater I am, had the presence of mind to make sure Heavy Lunch landed on his right side.*

This was so that I could jump off of him on the right side and plant my right leg and sturdy hiking boot in a road rut to break my fall.

Still, the momentum of my bailout slammed me to the ground harder than that Montana Congressman who recently slammed that reporter who jumped up and whined, “You broke my glasses, you silly wabbit!”

(I was very worried about breaking my glasses, which I’m happy to report came out without so much as a scratch on the lens.)

I suffered a bruise and then another bruise on top of it on the upper right side of my leg. Today it looks as if a black-and-blue, upside-down map of Montana morphed onto my skin overnight. (I’ll spare you a selfie in case you’re having a meal.)

Early and very early this morning I got up out of bed to go empty my bladder (which men of a certain age do frequently at night and I’m a man of a certain age) and was in such a state of pain (Montana’s a good-sized state) that I heard Satan laughing with delight.

I shouted, “Get behind me, Satan!”

And I heard hounds on the edge of town yelp in the night.

Hounds on the edge of old San Ignacio Town howled in the night. Or was it the drugs?

So I’m maxed out on pain pills (which may explain the sounds of Satan and hounds yelping at me in the night) and wish I had a whirlpool inside a steam room I could move into for a few days and nights and sweat out this soreness.

But back to the mishap. The uphill road to my destination was dry and quite smooth–up to a point, which was a point I didn’t see ahead until I was accelerating up the steeply road and there was no turning around. I didn’t know the said road would deteriorate ahead into a booby-trap of patches of loose gravel and fresh, jagged ruts from the storms that have ushered in the Belizean rainy season lately.

A mountain bike can handle such a treacherous path. A heavyweight highway bike like the one I’m touring the country on these days is made for some Steppenwolf heavy-metal thunder cruising on good, smooth pavement.

I mean, Heavy Lunch* is heavier than the offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys.

And anyway, motorized two-wheelers don’t come with four-wheel drive (duh) for off-road treachery. I’m thankful I didn’t go sliding down the hill and have “Heavy Lunch” jump my bones.

Another sympathy card a “friend” (?) sent me upon learning of my pain today.

The couple I went to see–an American expat* and his wife who moved to Belize from her native Thailand many and very many years ago–are two people I see in town frequently and they’re always asking me: “When are you coming out to see us, Paul?”

In fact, in recent encounters it’s been more like, “We’re disappointed you haven’t dropped in on us, Paul.”

Mind you, I’ve heard they have a fabulous, scenic mountainside home and compound with a restaurant where she cooks fabulous Thai food. But you have to know where it is to know there’s even a restaurant there. There’s not even a sign on the highway or on the off-road location where it’s located saying there is a restaurant up ahead and bikers on big bikes should park at the bottom of the hill and call us and we’ll come fetch you in a motor vehicle that renders treacherous road traps as harmless as a silk pig’s ear (and silk pigs’ ears have not yet been show to cause cancer if eaten in moderation).

So I went up to surprise my friends with a drop-in on Monday morning for coffee en route to another destination and, naturally, they weren’t at home and the restaurant is closed on Mondays.

This was a learning moment. Next time I drop in on somebody to surprise them I’ll practice prudence and surprise them with a phone call to say I’m coming and how friendly are your road conditions to a road-eating chunk of heavy-metal thunder made for paved highway conditions?

Meanwhile, I want to thank friends of mine for all your electronic sympathy cards and letters with questions like this succinct noted on Facebook from my friend Cathy Gordon in The Woodlands, Texas.

“This is what retired ministers do?”

I can’t speak for other retired ministers but I’m more complicated than most (complicated is what tactful people call “head cases” nowadays) and by the way thanks for the empathy Cathy Gordon; I’m feeling the healing power of your love and concern.

Another sweet friend, Carol Lusk Rodowskas up in the state of Maryland wherever that is, sent me this heart-warming sympathy card.

So tune in the next time we have another edition of “Road Warrior Yarns” at http://www.jitterbuggingforjesus.com, the blawg that is saving the world with its wit, wisdom, provocations and stimulations while possibly (probably!) alienating whole towns, nations, cities and states.
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* The expat is a Texan and graduate of Texas A&M University who has finally stopped doing one-year gigs doing soil reclamation projects for the U.S. Army in dangerous places like Afghanistan (talk about a dirty job) and settled down in Belize where he has lived most of the past many and very many years when not off helping the Army somewhere, much to the relief and happiness of his wife.