First Torrey House Press Edition, March 2014
Copyright © 2014 by Scott Abbott and Sam Rushforth
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher.
Published by Torrey House Press, LLC
Salt Lake City, Utah
| eBook ISBN: | 978-1-937226-24-4 |
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013952250
Cover design by Jeffrey Fuller, Shelfish • shelfish.weebly.com
Interior design by Rick Whipple, Sky Island Studio
Cover image “Evening Landscape with Two Men”
by Caspar David Friedrich
Author photo by Nancy Rushforth
Diatom photographs by Sam Rushforth
For Lyn and Nancy
(if they’ll have it)
—CREDOS—
Your ass back and your head down.
(mountain biking)
Both skis on the same side of the tree.
(backcountry skiing)
WILD RIDES AND
WlLDFLOWERS
Philosophy and Botany with Bikes
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3. Ed Abbey Had a Mountain Bike
9. Murderers, Fornicators, and Coffee Drinkers
11. 6,047,086,034 6,047,086,035
12. This is True Worship
13. A Carbolic-Acid Enema
14. Lardass
15. Agnostic Praying Mantis
16. Little Column?
17. Empty Sockets, Sardonic Grin
YEAR II
18. A Pretty Decent Fall
19. Mistletoe Birds
20. Ecstatic Phenomenon
21. Sage Grouse Lek
22. Oblanceolate to Spatulate
23. Wicked Concoction
24. Mr. Nice Dick
25. Evolutionary Theater
26. Jesus is the Answer
27. Horny Goat Weed
28. As Common as Paradox, As Odd as Love
YEAR III
29. Strange Behaviors
30. Elderberry Melancholy
31. Do You Believe in Love?
32. Just the Stuff About Your Virility
33. Mr. Feelgood
34. Death Defying Act of Defiance
35. Nurses
36. Stories I’ll Tell at Your Funeral
37. Transcendental Balance
38. Life’s Essential Injustice
39. Standing in the Snow Thinking About Plums
40. I’ll Bury Her Among Piñons
YEAR IV
41. Driving Off the Spleen
42. Draw Me No White Dresses on Corpses
43. Who Has Once Met Irony…
44. A World of Yellow Scent
45. Happy Hour/Under God
46. Canvas for Paint, Paper for Ink
47. Too Old a Dog
48. God Stories
49. A Trillion, Trillion, Trillion Years
YEAR V
50. Not the End, Yet
Epilogue
“Wildflowers” is self-evident. But so you don’t waste your time reading this book if you’re expecting a mountain-bike version of Downhill Racer, we’ll explain at the outset that our goal is to “live to ride again.” If you want to read about really wild rides, ask somebody who still feels immortal, one of the young guys at Mad Dog Cycles, for instance. We, after all, are academics with