2020

After all I'm not just in a race against time, against culture, against the doomsdayers, I'm in a race against the whole world.

What race you say?

The race to have 2020 not suck.

Look I get it. 200,000 dead is a big deal.

Until the cdc admitted that only 6% died of Covid alone.

And in California still only one kid under 17 has died.

And that thing about T cells fighting from past colds, and then there's country X which handled the virus better than the U.S. with no lockdowns, and then there's the graphs of different U.S. states and counties with varying mask requirements yet virtually the same results.

But you don't wanna talk about the virus do you?

There might be hope for you yet.

I'm not big on the whole quote-on-top-of-a-beautiful picture thing but I mean really, with a picture like that I could write almost anything and it would sound great. Especially if you hear it in a slow NPR type voice. "You are becoming the best version of yourself every moment of every day" which of course could be attributed to... no one ever.

But Mark Twain? C'mon now.

And that's really what we're talking about right?

Fear.

Why is it a race you ask?

Well I think it's pretty clear, we're being pressured to abandon all hope that anything good might come out of 2020.

And many of us have become believers.

Fall will officially be here in a few days and with Halloween cancelled in Los Angeles we can't even have fun in our masks.

In other words 2020 is going down quick.

And if we want to alter the narrative -

It's up to us.

That what - that it'll all be ok? That life will be controlled? That we can eliminate fear out of most situations?

Well I hate to break it to you but...

We don't.

I know this may sound harsh to those reading who are embracing the full frontal assault of fear and stats and unemployment and cases rising and the stock market and the death toll but..

We don't know. And we won't know.

We never knew.

Just like I didn't know how many bikes we would find when we left Long Beach that day in 2018.

Just like I didn't know if I would find Joe when I headed across the United States that day in April 2019.

Just like we didn't know if we'd need the help of two random ladies on a porch in Eastern Tennessee.

But we did find bikes. Eight in fact. And we found the help we needed.

And we found Joe.

And we finished the movie.

And I started making bikes again.

And I wrote a book about the experience.

Pretty stoked I won't lie.

2020 was looking like a conquered foe.

* * *

My father's pride and joy - The wheelchair-accessible Independence Trail carved into the hillsides above the South Yuba river, burned to the ground.

Yes all of it.

But....

Fundraising has already started.

And there should be enough $ to cover a long-overdue documentary about the trail.

Directed by yours truly.

I'm sorry to disappoint you but 2020?

It's what you make of it kid.

Get busy.