Second Thoughts

Woodstock, New Brunswick

I've just finished reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" for the umpteenth time.

At the age of 30 I thought the book was brilliant, right up there with " Grapes of Wrath", "Catch-22" and "Naked and the Dead".... provocative and insightful. Maybe I was smoking too much illicit substance back then? We did some stupid things in those days, like loading our one-year old on a motorcycle between us and taking him out on the Tallahassee highways.

The parts about putting yourself in the right frame of mind to fix mechanical problems have been very useful to me...but maybe I focused too much on that part of the book (and all the "quality" philosophical stuff) at the time and ignored the sad relationship he was describing with his son Chris. So here goes the ghost of Phedrus, running down the road lecturing about tappet noises and stripped bolts and apparently unwilling to even begin to face the problems of a failed marriage and a frightened child. Maybe that was the whole point and I just missed it on the first fifteen readings?

In real life, Chris was stabbed to death at age 22 while Pirsig was living on a sailboat in England.

After 30 years, I'm viewing the book with a more jaundiced and possibly more mature perspective. Understanding the scientific method, reconciling the classical and romantic view of reality and being able to fix machines are all OK...but having a loving, trusting relationship with your own son and watching him grow to become a good man and successfully raise his own children might be the subject of a much more useful book titled "Zen and the Art of Fatherhood".

All in all, it's just a very sad book chronicling a brutally honest personal failure with some good tips about adjusting tappets and tensioning and lubricating motorcycle chains.

The Scientific Method

Cobscook State Park, Maine

I picked up another copy of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” back at a rural flea market in Vermont for 50 cents.

I got my first copy of ZMM in 1975 from a hitchhiker. I picked him up in Tallahassee on the way back to Tampa. I asked him if he minded making a short detour so my son and I could float down a spring fed river near Perry, Florida. I had an extra inner tube for the hitchhiker.

And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good?
Do we need to ask anyone to tell us these things?

...Robert M. Pursig

We are dry-camping in the Cobscook State Park in Maine, near the Canadian border. It has rained hard five of the six days we have been in Maine.

My blind psychic guide and spiritual leader, Chris Macleod, strongly advised that we explore the Canadian Maritime Provinces this year rather than return to Alaska, the West Coast and the American Southwest. Chris and his lovely wife, Helen, are with us on this trip in an purely ectoplasmic sense. As we progress, his wisdom will no doubt be revealed more fully...radio waves...

Yesterday we explored the town of Eastport in Maine which is said to be the easternmost town in the continental U.S. Of course, the Aleutian chain in Alaska sits on the 180 meridian so Alaska really is both the eastern and westernmost State.

We found John 2.5 miles off US 1. He makes smoked salmon and we bought some salmon dip and smoked salmon popsicles from him.

Our house batteries (two big six volts wired in series) have been going quickly dead. This creates all kinds of problems in dry-camping: no cabin lights, no refrigerator, several fire and carbon monoxide alarms beeping and other nasty issues. We're getting up into the Bay of Fundy area with it's 20-30 foot tides and great seafood.

My first hypothesis was bad batteries, but as I checked the water levels in the two batteries I noticed that the nut holding down the attached cables to the negative terminal of one of the batteries had worked loose and fallen off.

I asked Princess Firecloud to reach her thin, graceful, delicate hand down into a cramped area to retrieve the fallen nut. My hypothesis has now changed. I think the batteries are ok, but we had a bad ground. I love the bulldozer of the scientific method.

The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called “yourself”.

...Robert M. Pursig

The batteries are back to normal function...some doofus at the factory failed to tighten a nut...I have complete faith in the bolt, but never the clown with the wrench.

Statement of Problem: one of the RV stabilizers has become slow to retract. My working hypothesis is that it needs a shot of lithium grease on the exterior of the shaft. Hypothesis two: look for the existence of a grease fitting.

Faith in the Bolt

Marquette, Michigan

We are running down the road and suddenly a tremendous scraping noise comes from under the RV. I pull off and see the seven-foot steel generator exhaust pipe on the road. It's still attached on one end by a strap secured by two rusty half-inch bolts. I pull out a deep 1/2 inch socket and try to undo the attached end. Both bolts are rusted and corroded from the heat. One comes off and the other bolt snaps. I remember Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I'm really mortified about the snapped bolt. I put the pipe in the RV.

Later I examine the exhaust pipe and see the problem. A U-bolt was not tightened adequately when the exhaust pipe was installed at the factory. The U-bolt was intended to secure the exhaust pipe to the generator. Perhaps big jet airplanes have better quality control. I hope they do, but my doubts reappear on takeoff.

We crapped out on the things we hoped for in this area. The fishing trip with "Uncle Ducky" in search of 60 pound lake trout was $550 rather than the $80-$175 that I usually pay.

We went into Munising to talk to dive Captain Lindquist (who I have visualized as a cross between Lloyd Bridges and the crusty Captain of Jaws I) and find out that the next dive trip is not until July 5th.

We go on Captain Lindquist's glass bottom boat to see ancient shipwrecks and I suddenly realize that all the dive sites for the shipwrecks are in 15-30 feet of rocky 55 degree water. I begin to visualize another trip to Puerto Rico for a 125-foot wall dive in warm water or a week on a Carribean live-aboard. There are over 6,000 documented shipwrecks and 30,000 lost souls in the Great Lakes. One of the shipwrecks is over 200 years old. It's an unidentified French boat that must have appeared to be something like a giant Cheerios box. Not really sea-worthy when the skies of November turn gloomy.

The guy who runs our RV park here appears to be crazy as a shit house rat. He talks really fast about obscure civil engineering topics. When I attempt to enter the conversation he ignores me. Finally I give up. Whenever I see him he has a shovel or chainsaw. He has built maybe 300 camping spaces here and so far has between one and three guests.

We had a nice lunch today in Marquette after I re secured the exhaust pipe. I had a portabello sandwich and Mrs. Phred had California sushi rolls. We each had two glasses of Reisling. In the background is another huge abandoned iron ore dock.


I'm totally puzzled by this old gas pump. It could be they have it set for $.459 and just multiply by ten and ignore the fact the the pump only goes to $99.99 dollars. Or maybe the rate is $1.459. Either way the dollars on the pump makes no sense. It's a mystery without any clues.