On getting pulled into things

minding the gap with Jed

I spent my youth getting lost in the woods around these parts with Jed. Now at fifty, he and I are out there again, getting lost, smashing through trees and attempting to find where that ‘youth’ part of me got left behind.

Jed is an insistent and resilient dude. He builds mountain bike trails. He’s insistent because he makes trails whether people want them there or not. This leads to things like outlet malls or new subdivisions being created where he and others had spent countless hours building trail.

He’s resilient because he just keeps building more trail. When it comes to ‘borrowing’ a bit of unused land to ride bikes on, the ‘correct’¹ approach is to get permission. Ask the landowner. Then get the lawyers and insurance involved. Next? Someone gets hurt. Lawsuits happen and the trails die. It takes years before a shovel hits the dirt. Years? Jed and I are getting old. We don’t have years.

Jed’s approach? Fuck it. Build it. If they don’t like it, they can put a mall on it later. Jed co…