The article ?The Means To Notice It All? by Bud Miller/Zen Motorcyclist was originally published on the ?RoadRUNNER Motorcycle Touring & Travel? magazine website on 9/22/2016.
This past Mother?s Day, my girlfriend Erica and I rode to a farm not far from my home that she had lived on for a time. We were visiting the owner, Sally, who Erica had grown close to during the time she spent there and who she?s remained friends with ever since. As I approached on the cycle down a long, narrow, winding gravel driveway and under an idyllic train trestle, I spotted horses and donkeys in the fields, chicken coops and tractor barns, all the stuff of a working farm. The sky wasn?t looking so good, but it was a May day, I?ve ridden in the rain before, and besides, the dark clouds and winds created the kind of weather I?ve always loved riding in. Sally, a strong, no-nonsense woman, appeared to be close to my mother Mary?s age. She actually reminded me a bit of my mom. A bird had made a nest in a broken light fixture on her porch and laid eggs. Sally saw to it that the switch to the light was disabled and a sign was posted warning visitors to use the side door lest they suffer the wrath of a mother protecting her young.
I sat on the floor as we spoke, petting Sally?s huge, fleshy-faced English Mastiff. We covered a lot of topics. Sally is sharp, up-front, an avid reader, and direct, the sort of person I love talking to. I got the feeling that with her there are no games or fear of offend...