There’s a song that I listen to by Daniel Johnston called Don’t let the sun go down on your grievances

Whenever I listen to it, I am reminded of my grandfather, Jesus Gonzales, born 1908. It paraphrases something that he knew, something deep. It was to clear your mind of any toils or stress from the day that just passed you by. Jesus, or Apa, was married to Margarita Gonzales for many, many years, and he rubbed off on more people than I’ll ever know. He was one of the happiest men that I knew, in one of the happiest marriages I will ever know, ever.

He was a simple man who simply loved life. That feeling and mission I can certainly share with him. He told me to never go to bed angry, at anything. This is before computers, before we began to live in a life surrounded by computers and overwhelming days. He was never too busy for anybody, including you and me.

So I paraphrase him, as Apa wouldn’t mind, and say not to let the sun go down on your grievances. Sleep well, tell the one you love that you love them, and breathe in all the we have. Thanks Apa. I miss the days where I would go “fishing” and hunt for the raisins in my Quaker Oats oatmeal.

You knew exactly how to live life, and we all learned from you to pass it on and on.

Don’t let the sun go down own your grievances:

Don’t let the sun go down on your grievances
Respect love of the heart over lust of the flesh
Do yourself a favor: become your own savior
And don’t let the sun go down on your grievances
And when you wake up in the morning
You’ll have a brand new feeling
And you’ll find yourself healing
So don’t let the sun go down on your grievances

The group (me, Marcos, Rick, and Kim) made it home alive and well last Wednesday from the Houston-Canada-Houston motorcycle trip. It was a lovely, yet determined motorcycle trip that included my Honda Nighthawk 750, Marcos’ Triumph Bonneville, and the two ST’s (1100 and 1300) from Kim and Rick.

The route of the trip looked (very roughly) something like this:

Too many stories happened to put into one blog post, but here are some points for added excitement to the pictures!:

• Even a dead bike on the side of the interstate didn’t stop Kim and the crew. She dumped the bike in Rockford, Illinois and bought a new one on the way home to finish the trip!
• There is some amazing food in this country in shacks in the middle of nowhere. Country Girl’s Kitchen will get you the biggest whitefish fillet that I have ever seen in my life plus what seemed like 8 other courses for $7.99. And how can I forget the huge and tasty chicken jerk wrap made from scratch by a South American living in Canada for the last 28 years. I need to fast for a few days in memory of these meals.
• Highest price of gas paid for – $4.29 in Michigan.
• Two unexpected coolest towns on the trip: St. Louis, Missouri and Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
• The women in Canada are disproportionately beautiful and I must go back.
• We met a motorcyclist who was on day 28 of his trip from Cuernavaca, Mexico and had done over 8,000 miles with his buddies through Florida, DC, Maine, Canada, and was on his way home when he ran into us at the same hotel in St. Louis.
• No speeding tickets for us law abiding beatniks. Although I did get one on my way to San Antonio two days later. Ahem.
• Over 3,500 miles in 10 days!

On to the pictures! You can view the entire album here at Google Picasa Web Albums.

http://picasaweb.google.com/koverholt/CanadaMotorcycleTripLoneStarTrippers

View all photos in the album

Plumbing, trees, lighting. Websites, motorcycle rides, freeway traffic. Bills, checks, 30%. It’s like a Google Set generated from my abstract days. School is set to start in a week, and I am ready; or I adapt instantly – the same mindset gets accomplished in a successful way, no? This semester presents me with a weird schedule, open of course to all sorts of things.

Certainly it is not just me who is addicted to mountains of change over and over? Either way, the idea of a core mind or something to hang onto that changes constantly is intriguing to me and I learn more about it every waking day as my brain connects and reinvents concepts that it thought it had down cold.

My definition of the purpose of life changes seemingly every week. Not my mission or intention, but my purpose. And five years ago, I didn’t really know or care what the difference between those was. Maybe such an adaptive purpose leads to stronger purpose. Wait, of course it does.

A world of fire, math, engineering, minds, and so on is useless without shared minds or minds. Are the words of a writer that much valuable without anyone to read it?

Back to plumbing, bills, and music for now. After you read this blog post from PickTheBrain and start off YOUR new year with death, don’t forget to embrace the randomness in life: not just on an ultimate planned trip in the next 1.5 years, but today, and tomorrow, and the infinite tomorrow.

Thanks.