SEEKING PERFECTION

FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
Jim's approach to biking differs from mine. I put my trip together in under a week. For bikes, I wanted light and cheap and with spares available. I checked prices on the Internet and emailed the Honda agent in Veracruz.
Birmingham to Boston with Aerlingus was the cheapest flight to the Americas. Hoping for an upgrade, I found a secondhand Irish jumper and a green cord shirt at a charity shop in Hereford. I waxed my Church's walking shoes and stuffed five months of heart medication and two FootPrint guides in a hold-all: Mexico and Central America, and South America. The guides have maps that give an idea of where places are. For detail, I talked with people on the road and picked up road maps at gas stations.
Jim is a planner. He and Liz have toured the US and Canada on a Harley (they towed a custom camper trailer). Jim has explored Mexico with the gang and ridden south through Central America to the Darien Gap. He wants to complete his long-distance biking with a ride through South America. Triple bipass and a bad back have ended his Harley days. Harleys are too heavy. Fall and he would be pinned under the bike until help came. The Harley is for sale and Jim has downsized to the trail bike.
However - it is a big However – Jim is seeking for perfection.

PILLIONS AREN'T FOR COWARDS

FANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - MAY 4
My tires are shot. A man at Honda in Queretaro told me they are cheaper in the US. Yes, but you pay to have them fitted. And availability is a problem: Honda 125s aren't common in the land of super power. Jim checks via the Yellow pages – no success. So we order a fresh set at a local bike shop for delivery in 48 hours. We leave my bike at the shop and I ride pillion home behind Jim on his trail bike. I hate riding pillion. Riding pillion surrenders your safety to a fellow biker. Bikers are adrenalin freeks. Risk is fun.
Except for cowards.
I am a coward.

SOUTHERN COOKING AND LIGHTNING STRIKE

silver foxes

FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
The Donaldsons have been introducing me to Southern cooking: fried chicken, corn bread, collard greens, black-eye peas, grits.
Grits are for chickens. The rest is great – especially the corn bread. So are the politics.
Jim and I are avid and cantankerous followers on TV of the Democratic Party's Presidential Primaries. We are angered by the same crap, dismissive or suspicious of the same people, hope for an outcome of which we doubt the probability. Yes, Senator Obama...
We share other attributes. Jim has had triple-bipass surgery. I've had a couple of minor heart attacks. Jim has been in agony much of the past six months with a bad back. I suffered six months of back pain; the truck cured me.
Jim has a long silver mustache. I have a trim silver beard.
And we both enjoy toys.
A massive white Harley and an equally impressive trail bike bare witness to one of Jim's passions. I am privileged to sit astride the Harley.
Ride it?
No, thanks...
Harleys weigh a ton.

HOLIDAYING WITH MOVIE STARS

FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 -APRIL 4
the Donaldsons are typical of the American heartland as portrayed by the Hollywood pre the 60s - the Hollywood of segregation. They are decent folk, open, kindly, generous and honourable. In stature, they are taller than the average European and make a handsome couple. And they are white. James Stewart would have made an excellent Jim. Liz is played by Deborah Kerr.
In his early days, Jim was a staff photographer for Time Life. Divorce and custody of three children switched him to the construction industry. Liz inherited a 500 acre farm and they bred horses for a while – Pintos. Horses enjoy company. See them in a paddock, heads together. What do they discuss? Grass? Stallions? Horsemanship? They make a big target. Lightning killed the Donaldson's two best horses. My daughter's husband, Michael, lost two mares last year. I lie in bed and wonder that giraffes survive.

SPUD GUNNING

FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 29
A sun-shiny Spring afternoon in the hills outside Franklin, North Carolina: rain has washed the air; tiny patches of pale pink blossom shimmer in sunlight on trees sprinkled with minute green jewels. Liz and Jim and I are on the deck at the rear of the Donaldson's home. Jim is introducing me to spud-gunning. The gun is made from plastic water pipe. Jim loads the eight-foot barrel with a plump potato and charges the combustion chamber with two squirts of hair spray. He spins the sparker: Whoomph!
That whoomph is spud-gunner heaven (think car crazies responding to the whining roar of a tuned Ferrari).
The spud flies high over a row of massive trees and I stamp and caper and slap my knee with juvenile glee.
My turn to fire.
A well fitting potato hurtles three hundred yards. Accuracy? A barn door is a suitable target – or maybe the barn - a big barn.
Jim and I whoomph a sack of red salad potatoes while Liz watches with that look of kindly condescension. You know? The look all women keep in their armory? The Boys with their toys look...