El Tour de Tucson 2009

Last weekend my wife and I went to Tucson to participate in the El Tour de Tucson. I had written in September about training and getting ready for the ride, and how I had forgotten how fun it is to ride. Well we did it, the 66 mile ride, and it was a blast. We have done the ride in the past, but it’s been a long time, and after this ride it was easy to see that it was way too long.

What hit me during the ride though was a simple thought. What a great country this is. I can’t think of anyplace else in the world where people voluntarily give up their time, money and effort to be a part of a huge fundraiser like this, and enjoy it in the process!

There were 8,200 registered riders this year, with the proceeds going to fifteen different groups. The tour was originated in 1983, and since it’s inception it has raised over $26 million for various charities. Now remember, this is just one ride, one weekend, in one state. It doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of American charitable work. Look at all of the breast cancer walks and runs, bike rides, marathons and half marathons, Iron man competitions, golf tournaments, softball games, for MS, Aids, Leukemia, ALS, local and national charities. I can’t even begin to guess what the number of participants and volunteers would be to cover this massive endeavor. Google American fundraising and take a look.

Our event, the 66 mile ride had a little over 1,200 riders in it. Lining up at the start we could see the Catalina Mountains in front of us, and it was a beautiful, warm morning. As start time approached they hoisted a basket on a crane above the balloon arch which was the official starting point. Various safety announcements and housekeeping items were being announced, with little attention being paid by the crowd.

Next, the National Anthem was being sung. You could see the wave of silence move through the riders as we all heard it, and within the first few lines of the song there was total silence in the entire crowd. And we were off.

Five hours and 66 miles of hills, up and down, smooth roads, roads made entirely out of patchwork, wind in your face and at your back, Riders from their early teens to their ‘80’s. Bikes of all types, mountain bikes, tandems, folding bikes, old and new bikes.Riders of every shape, size and description. People along the route cheering us all on with signs, claps, bells and whistles. Aid stations with volunteers to hold your bike, give you food, water, a smile and an encouraging word. Thanks from everyone along the route. Police and fireman along the entire route directed traffic and kept us safe. There was also the bike patrol along on the ride, to help out with any type of mechanical difficulty.

Reaching the end of the ride they funnel you along a street lined with barricades, and hundreds of people, again all clapping and cheering, making us feel like champions. You cross the finish line to more pats on the back and handshakes. Go collect your medal for taking part in the ride, and realize that you were just a small part of something great. Getting out of yourself by giving to others. What a way to spend a day!

Real Heroes

There was a show on Veteran’s Day that I wish most guys had seen. It should be required watching for men. “The League of Grateful Sons.” A lot can be probably be deduced from the title. You can find out more about this show by punching it into Google.


Hero is a word that has been so misconstrued over the last decade that it has very little resemblance to what it means. This comes from Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, “Hero, 1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.” A definition like this could be fairly upsetting to some who follow the post-modernistic route. In the words of my friend, Michael O. “Oh well.”

It pretty much excludes most people that have been written about and held up as heroes today; professional athletes, musicians, actors, politicians etc. Most heroes don’t talk about it. If you are hearing how heroic someone is from their press agent, TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, Oprah or Katy Couric, you know that you’ve got a phony in the works.

I grew up around heroes, and I almost forgot about it. It was a generation of heroes, and I ran into them every day. My Dad, my grandfather, my older cousins, the guys my parents knew from church, from our camping group, from work, and the other fathers and grandfathers on Laughlin Street, and the neighborhood.

I’ve met heroes at work. One was a B-17 pilot out of North Africa, and completed his 50 missions by the time he was 23. Another was a Marine infantryman; he made his way across the Pacific, and back home. One was a tank commander in Europe. I had a cousin that fought his way up the length of Italy, and another that was a bombardier. I’ve met men that were cooks, mechanics, sheet metal workers, medics, truck drivers, chaplains and clerks.

They served in the Pacific, in Europe, in Alaska, in Texas, Great Lakes Naval Center, Brooklyn, Chanute Field, Florida, and Oklahoma. Some enlisted, some were drafted, and some served at home farming, working in factories, taking care of the church.

I count it as a blessing that I grew up with men like these around me, to teach me, to lead, to set examples of how to live. More importantly than that, I am a Grateful Son.

Thank you Dad.

Surfin' the AM waves............

When I was a kid I remember radio being a blast, plain and simple. AM was the standard, and FM was something that we really didn’t know all that much about. FM was out there, kind of mysterious, it was kind of like the UHF on TV, which was channel 32 in Chicago. Weird stations doing strange things.

AM was where the music came from. The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, The Troggs, The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, all the stuff that is heard on the “Oldies” stations now. And not surprisingly a lot of what I still listen to today. When I first heard it, it was coming from a small counter top radio, tinny, and a little scratchy.

There’s a station in Phoenix now, 1480 AM, which is playing a lot of that again. What’s really cool about it is that for someone my age (do the math!), hearing “She Loves You,” coming over the AM airwaves again is the way I first heard it. A little tinny, and a little scratchy, and there’s something calming about that.

Last week my wife and I, and Hobie (the best dog in the world), took a quick overnighter to Payson. A chance to get away for a day and spend some much deserved time with each other. I take a small radio with me (they used to be called transistor radios), and when I’m relaxing, I’ll put on the headphones and cruise up and down the AM dial, looking for something fun to listen to.

Payson has a station that was doing something I haven’t heard in years. They were running a buy, sell, trade show, where listeners would call in with what they had, or what they were looking for. It was one of the things that local radio stations did before going conglomerate. It’s nice to know that some of that still happens.

Listening at night to AM during the winter gives me a chance to pick up stations from quite a distance. Years ago there was an evening when I picked up KOMA in Rocky Point, Mexico. It would fade in and out, but it was there. I remember sitting on top of a cabin one evening, KOMA tuned in, listening to Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot), while watching the sun go down over the Sea of Cortez. That is golden.

One of these days I’ll go into my nearly career in radio. Forks in the road take us in different directions. Sometimes willingly, sometimes kicking and screaming. I was talking with a friend of mine recently who’s been in radio his entire working career. He pointed out that you can either be a jock, or flip burgers, it’s merely variations on the same theme. I ended up on the burger route, for the time being.