The 26th annual Rolling Thunder rally brought motorbike enthusiasts out in their thousands. The gathering of riders in Washington D.C. aims to help turn the spotlight on the plight of military prisoners of war. It’s also intended to focus attention on troops missing in action. The bikers assembled in a parking lot at the Pentagon in Virginia. They headed out together, crossing the Memorial Bridge and finally ending up at the Reflecting Pool facing the Lincoln Memorial on National Mall. The rally attracts biking enthusiasts from all over the U.S. each Memorial Day weekend. – Washington Post

The Memorial Day weekend had turned into a magnificent few days of bliss. It started cool- so cool that the first plunge in the Big Pink pool was a near life altering experience. More temperate conditions prevailed as I headed south with a load of sentimental debris, and the Farm was a welcome vision when I arrived. Peaceful, but not quiet- the powerful roar of the 17-yer cicadas rolled out of the woods below the back deck, lending a certain science fiction sound track to the otherwise bucolic setting.

I thought about important chores that needed to be done- check the garden, mount the brass dragons on the side of the barn, stuff like that. Or deal with all that crap in the estate office.

Chicken and egg, you know? I will have to pull all that stuff out of there to get it organized. Where are the day laborers when you need them?

I unloaded the Panzer and added to the chaos in the garage. Then I took a holiday moment to catch up. I was chatting via the vastly improved speed of the satellite internet with a pal- a combat vet- and I thanked him for his service.

He caught me up short by reminding me that Veterans have their own holiday, in November. This day off is for those who did not come back, he said.

I had time to think about that. The first note on the plan was to see if I could get the new satellite broad-band to communicate with the television. I have one of those television plans that I don’t fully understand, or use much, and actually using all those DVDs seems like more trouble than it is worth.

How did I get suckered into a new technology that is obsolete? I have a large box of cassette tapes I need to get rid of, and probably those BetaMax tapes I thought were thought were a good investment not so long ago.

I do like some aspects of living in the future, though. I have taken to just buying the television series that have good reviews, and watching them in batches when I have the time and inclination.

The old satellite connection could not support streaming video, so the point was moot. I suppose I could have used the view-on-demand feature, but that is another expensive option I don’t want to deal get used to.

I could not get the Sony Blu-Ray DVD player to access the internet, and have been looking around for an alternative. I hate to use this solemn holiday as a product endorsement, but the Roku 3 streaming video box costs less than a hundred bucks, and the thing works like a dream. I can access my Amazon, Netflix and Hulu Plus accounts from the safety and privacy of my couch.

Fabulous.

Then I wandered out to check the garden. Fabulous progress there, too. There is all kinds of stuff growing there. The slight downside is that the lush greenery is nothing that I planted, and it is all an exceptionally nice collection of local weeds that really liked the fresh-tilled soil.

I could have followed the guidance of The Naked Gardener, shed some clothes and got my fingers deep into Culpeper’s rich red dirt, but the nagging imperative of all that stuff back in Arlington was calling.

“Why not,” I told the Russians later over a vodka on their front porch, “I run up in the morning, get a swim, and fill the Panzer up with stuff and bring it back. Should be a piece of cake.”

Mattski nodded, serene in the knowledge that his garden was planted, weeded and complete. He picked up his banjo, strumming a few chords of “Dueling Banjos” from the film Deliverance. I should have listened to the cautionary music.

I did manage to get organized enough to get on the road at a decent hour and the Sunday morning traffic was light, as I had expected. I hit Big Pink in record time, and wandered through the now spare and freshly painted unit. It did not feel like home any more- the construction effort in the front bathroom and the blank white space of the walls made it sterile and unwelcoming. The stacks of incorrect art the Realtor and The Stager had evicted needed to get out of town and down to the farm where they can be whoever they want.

(The girls still look apprehensive, but the Harem Master is content above the bed at the farm. VADM Rex had it above his bed, too. Photo Socotra).

I loaded boxes and artwork into the car until the level of junk was up to the windows. The central problem was the painting from the estate of VADM Rex. It had been hanged with pride- hung?- in the dining nook at Big Pink. The Stager had cringed when she first observed it.

Where the hell would it go at the farm? Could I get it down there without puncturing the canvas or cracking the ornate frame?

Time would tell, I thought, and packed around it with a quilt embroidered in the memory of PFC Evan W. O’Neil, KIA at a place called Shkin, Afghanistan on 29 September 2003. I bought it at a silent auction held at the New England Homeless Veterans Shelter a few years back, before the war on the roof of the world took a back seat to the Iraq invasion, and things got really ugly. It was appropriate cushioning, I thought.

Then to the pool, and a refreshingly chilly dip under the watchful eyes of Milos, the new Polish lifeguard, a chat with the usual suspects who have emerged from their units after the long winter, and back in the Panzer to head home to Culpeper. New concept, I thought, looking at the clock on the dash. Should be there in time to get unloaded and set up shop on the back deck and listen to the cicadas.

Instead, I was about fifteen minutes late to miss the consequences of two motorcycle accidents.

(This was west bound Interstate 66 at two-fifteen. Traffic was a lot slower than it looks.)

I had not calculated the fact that while Rolling Thunder was still in progress downtown in the District, a vast hoard of Harleys (and some Rice Burners) that had already completed their circuit of the city and had snaked downtown, past the monuments and Vietnam Memorial’s solemn black wall, and thence back out of town to surround the bewildered four-wheelers.

(Bikers are different. Grid lock means it is time to dismount and grab a smoke. Photo taken with personal peril by Socotra).

I had thought I was going to miss this edition of Rolling Thunder, since I had only ducked back up north from the farm to pick up a load of crap from Big Pink. I was lucky- Rolling Thunder and a couple biker crashes brought it right to me.

It took an hour to get to the Beltway, not that I minded. It was sort of cool to see a different sort of traffic jam in Arlington.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com