Pure hooptedoodle

"I
like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the
guy looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks.
. . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I like some
description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break
loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or
sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I
don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the
story."
    Spoken by Mack
in Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck.

There is a
group of us at my office that likes to go on lunchtime rides. We don’t go far, 20 miles or so, but we go
three or four times a week. One of the
guys in the group is named Zane. He’s a
very fit, highly cynical, fifty-something triathelete. He likes to talk politics on our rides, which
used to really annoy me until I figured out that he can’t talk politics at
speeds above 23 mph. I’ve turned it into
a motivator to take long pulls on days I don’t want to hear his political
slandering.

Sometimes Zane
falls over with no apparent reason. One
time he was bringing up the rear on a brisk ride with a tailwind when we came
to a stop sign. Those of us in front
heard a crash and a thud as we slowed down. We looked back and saw Zane picking himself up off the road. Naturally we circled back to see if he was
OK, to which he nodded in the affirmative, but he didn’t say anything. He just got on his bike and we continued
riding.

Last week
Zane fell as he was trying to open a gate through the airport bike path for
us. Most of us can open these gates
without putting a foot down, open it enough to get through and give the guy
behind a chance to make it through too, but Zane just wasn’t in his rhythm that
day. I watched him miss the gate, then
miss his handlebar, then fail at getting out of his pedals. His fall wasn’t terrible, but it must have
hurt a bit. Once again, he didn’t say
anything. He just got back on and
started riding.

I used to
think Zane fell down because of the aerobars on his bike. But seeing him miss the gate showed me
otherwise. Now I think he’s just trying
to give me some hooptedoodle to think about when I ride my bike.