Riding the motorbike to work Tuesday along Highway 20, I felt the thud of an enormous insect striking me squarely in the upper chest (I was wearing my leather jacket, but given the warm temperatures, it wasn’t zipped up all the way).
The bug, which seemed to be a wasp of some kind, popped out and up and nearly ended up inside my helmet, which would’ve been unnerving to say the least. And I can make that statement from experience, since I’ve had bees in and/or nearly in the helmet on a number of occasions (only have been stung once, thank goodness).
While I don’t like having bugs, rocks or other things hit me as I ride, I accept that as a price I might have to pay for a means of transportation that’s both really fun and, at 50-plus mpg, really economical.
btw, I’ve always used a helmet with a face shield and always will; I really don’t see how the non-face-shield guys do it, because bugs/rocks can strike you with a lot of force; they must be a lot tougher than I am, I guess.
I’ve had a few pretty close calls with terrestrials (deer, skunks, squirrels, etc.) but fortunately have never hit one.
I did, though, have a bird about the size of my fist hit me solidly in the chest one day a few years ago as I cruised down the Kings Valley Highway; felt a lot like being drilled by a hard-hit, bad-hop ground ball.
Not long after, on a road near my house, I nearly got a face full of vulture one day as a buzzard wafted toward me after reluctantly leaving its carrion as I rolled past at about 20 mph; had I not ducked, it would’ve hit me.
One night a month or so ago, also on a road near home, some kind of raptor (couldn’t tell if it was an owl or a hawk) came flying out of the roadside brush and flapped into my right leg; thankfully, the contact was only glancing and we both went on our way. All I didn’t need was talons in my lap.
And now, today’s Catch of the Day, No. 26, a 1940s Marty Marion glove of the Montgomery Ward brand. Marty, a slick-fielding shortstop, was the National League MVP for the Cardinals in 1944 (though it’s been argued that he wasn’t even the MVP of his own team that yeara, given that St. Louis also had Stan Musial).
Anyway, here’s the glove, which I bought at a second-hand store in Albany for around $20 maybe 15 years ago:
