The Blog!

Quite often someone I have known for ages, or maybe someone I met recently, reads my blog and ask;

"why do you do it?"

Now you must understand that such a question has left me puzzled before.  I'm no celebrity, I have no millions of minions following on Twitter, I rarely visit my Facebook page.  I have no boobs to flash or even books to hawk.

Normally I would answer without thinking about it;

"Well as  you know, I do like to write."

or

"It's how I keep in touch with a lot of friends world wide, as opposed to writing 50 or 75 or a hundred emails (with photos) each week."

I don't like to write that much.

Truth is, as I've known for some time, I don't have a lot of time, nor inspiration and in fact am lazy about 'writing' in general.  Witness the many novels I have in various stages of completion.  I mean, look at the lives we lead... always busy, even with the advances in technology, we never seem to get around to just dropping a letter in the mailbox with photographs wrapped in cardboard, any more.

but... that's only half of it.

This morning, while sitting on the biffy, it came to me.  Like getting hit upside the head with a bat, kinda came to me.  The answer to the most oft asked question, why do I blog?  What's the point, who really cares anyway? After all I'm not a Kardashian, nor a former President (well I was of the Ft. MacMurray dirt riders but that doesn't really count) I'm not a Nobel Peace prize winner.  I'm not an Einstein, nor am I a Gandhi to inspire millions.  I'm just normal, a Dad and a Husband and a run of the mill guy.

I'm not worried about the message I'm sending here now, because the people I am most close to, generally don't read this blog.

So here's my revelation this morning July 2nd, 2014 to that simple question...

It's for my girls.

Yup, that's it.  I have two daughters both young women in their early thirties, both busier than the mythical 'one armed paper hanger'.  Both with lives of their own and both whom I wished would spend more time with Dad, but realize they don't have more time...

then there is my young wife... and her adopted daughter.

I met Brenda quite by chance on November 5th, 2008 after returning from several months full filling a dream I carried for decades, about riding my bike in Europe.  Long and short of that, I love this woman, her daughter, as I do my own kids and family (and even friends)  All of whom have lives of their own, busy, little time like myself. 

Yet with all the feelings I carry in my emotion on wheels head and heart, I realize that even those closest to me, sometimes, many times, have little time for me.

Does that make sense to you reading this?

I have more contact with friends like Ron, Mike and the occasional former flame, than I do with the very people that I should be most connected to.

Strange isn't it.  Anyone out there have the same feelings?  That you are lost in a vast wilderness, trees all around or maybe an ocean, no land in sight except for the odd speck of coral...

Yet there it was, bumped on the noggin as I was doing my thing this very morning.  The reason I really do this.

My Dad and I did not have a close relationship nor for that matter my Mother and I.  To my sister, who is a decade older, after arriving in Canada, she engulfed herself into junior high and friends and her outgoing personality easily translated into a rather boisterous lifestyle she is in a position to enjoy it totally.

Me, I'm more the strong silent type.  You'll never see me standing on a bar table drunk, singing (poorly) a Rod Stewart or Beatles tune. Nope not I.


I blog because this is my way of leaving behind a written and photographic legacy to those people closest to me that in their very busy lives, have little time for me right now.

Now don't get all wimpy or feeling sorry for me out there.  I have a fab life... traveled around, owned not one but three Motorcycle shops, a garage full of motorcycles and I know I have contributed to the planet in general, in my very own way my entire life... just that when it comes to my "girls"

I feel sometimes... invisible.



Life is short.

I know this as well as anyone.  With the collisions, several that could have ended in my premature death, the double pneumonia's and the heart attacks... I could have cashed my chips in long ago, but like I believe, it just wasn't my time.  Maybe it's cuz I love cats so much and everyone knows they have 9 lives, a couple I may have inherited, but for whatever reason I am still a willing participant on this planet.

Who knows when that luxury, that gift may end?

So I blog... I write about my ideas, my dreams, my experiences both good and bad, sometimes I reveal a bit about myself that you may not have guessed.  I fill in the blanks with photographs of my day, my trip, my adventure in this life I lead, hoping that some day, maybe long after I am scattered into the wind and earth, people and that includes MY people, will read over the 400 and growing installments,  view the pics and say to themselves...

"wow, that Frank, he really was a Dr of Enthusiasm... he sure covered a lot of ground and we're glad he cared enough to share it in this way... with us."

Think of it as me, dropping that brown envelope stuffed with photos and a hand written note, into the mailbox...