Polar Bear Lewes, Del., November 7, 2010

Lewes, Del., November 7, 2010

Part of the fun of Polar Bear riding is riding with friends. It is also one of the challenges. Our different riding habits and personalities make good blog fodder.

Russ, Carl and I rode down together on Saturday, a day early for our Sunday Polar Bear run to the club's self-acclaimed “South Pole” in Lewes, Del. (If you're a local, that's pronounced “lose,” not “Lewis.”)

Russ' brother lives on a farm in southern New Jersey. My folks live in Wilmington, Del. We both exited the turnpike at number two.

I was headed to my folks' home to do some chores for Mom, visit with Dad and play with Heidi their Schnauzerdoodle. Mom rewards me with scrapple breakfast. Russ and Carl I think skipped the chores, but got scrapple breakfast all the same. Carl even texted photo proof to me Sunday morning.

Scrapple is a Pennsylvania Dutch thing. My folks are from Lancaster County. I was actually born in Lancaster and lived in Intercourse for five years before we moved just over the line to Delaware. That State paid school teachers better and therefore my father's prospects (and not inconsequentially my own) improved.

Scrapple is traditionally made with all the parts of a pig that are not good enough to go into sausage. You mix what's left of the hog with oatmeal and spices and press it into blocks. Later you slice the blocks and fry it, hot, on both sides. It may be what some folks would call an “acquired” taste. But I grew up on the stuff.

My Grandfather Loynd was once a butcher and explained it this way, “You butcher the hog and cut out all the fine cuts, pork chops, loin, and such, plus the bacon. Then all the little trimmings and bits that are any good go into sausage. Next you collect up everything else and that makes scrapple. Then you sweep the floor and that makes puddin'.”

Russ and his brothers go in together to raise some pigs on the Jersey farm. They like scrapple so much they grind up the whole hog for it. That makes some mighty fine scrapple; I have had the pleasure of sampling such.

I once went through scrapple withdrawal when I lived in Milwaukee. I got so desperate I made some myself. I used pork tenderloin and it made some of the best scrapple I ever tasted. But it was a lot of work with the food processor.

Standing at the Stratford Dunkin' Saturday, visions of scrapple dancing in our heads, Russ and I began the parlay as to how we should organize our group ride. Even for just three riders it can be delicate negotiations. For my opening play I graciously conceded the lead to Russ.

But Russ countered, saying he wanted to sweep because the metal rods in his hand sometimes caused unexpected throttle surging and he would go shooting up in speed. “Uh, isn't that all the more reason to put you up front?” I asked. “I mean if you're going to suddenly go shooting up through the bikes.”

But what Russ meant is that it is easier for him if someone else sets the pace so he can follow.

I shouted over to Carl, “You okay with the rocking chair?” Carl responded, “Sofa!” Okay. We're off.

We had a nice ride down in reasonably light traffic. We made one comfort stop just after the turnpike un-split itself. Looking at the line at the pumps we decided to stretch our tanks to Exit 2.

At our comfort stop I suggested we could meet up again Sunday morning to resume our ride to Lewes. I had gone on Google Earth and found a Dunkin' Donuts on Route 13 just below I-295. Russ and Carl would be approaching from the east, I from the west. It seemed an easy place to reconvene.

The address was 1001 North DuPont Highway.

Perhaps it is a foible of my profession. I am often guilty of providing too much information. Attempting to ensure absolutely clear communication, I confuse my listeners by explaining something in greater and greater illustrative detail.

In that spirit, I cautioned the guys that our meeting place was on the southbound side of North DuPont Highway. Carl punched 1001 SOUTH DuPont Highway into his GPS Saturday night. And I never saw them again until Lewes.

Now Carl and Russ both passed lie detector tests, administered by the Delaware State Police, swearing that your faithful blogger told them the address was SOUTH DuPont highway. I don't think so even today. I even gave Carl a written note, which he acknowledged receiving. Still, I do have to admit I am reaching an age where I hear one thought in my head and somehow enunciate another, entirely different thought, through my mouth.

I described at length, in pictorial detail, with elaborate hand gestures, how they would come over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, exit onto 295, then turn south onto 13, and finally see the Dunkin' on their right. I described the pink and orange logo they would see, on the sign, at the facility, on Route 13, southbound.

The final result says something about the faith my fellow riders have in me. Russ and Carl blindly let their GPS take them down a dead end dirt road in the middle of the worst part of New Castle, Del., to a small church, on South DuPont Highway before they called me on the phone to express their confusion. Fortunately Russ says he was “saved” right there in the dirt parking lot as Carl and I sorted out the mishap via cell phone.

I took Carl's call standing on the berm in front of the Dunkin' overlooking Route 13, watching the rest of our guys blow by, all the way down from Connecticut, they having departed early Sunday morning.

Carl and I tried to coordinate a second meeting place. I proposed just after the toll booths after they cross the C&D canal. I even babbled on about what the bridge looked like, what a canal was, where we could meet after the tolls.

I stood on the shoulder of the road past the bridge tolls for 20 minutes. Neither Russ nor Carl appeared. Neither phone call nor text was received by me. I finally sent Carl a text to tell him I would see them in Lewes; his voice mail was accepting no inbound messages.

Turns out, Carl and Russ also saw our guys go by and decided to chase after them, and without so much as a “by your leave” to me.

When I finally arrived at Lewes, after waiting for Russ and Carl to never show, twice, I got all the excoriation about being late. Grumpy even took the group photo without me. Talk about insult on injury!

So this is the second time in as many rides my “pals” have left me behind and out. Maybe they're trying to tell me something?

I mean our guys were picking up random riders at rest stops on the way down. And they couldn't grab me on the way? They picked up another foreigner, Jim, from New York, when they pulled in for gas on the turnpike.

New Jersey Matt may have started something here with non-Connecticut, Connecticut Polar Bears. Who knows? Maybe someday in the future there will be a Connecticut location on the Polar Bear calendar.

Riding alone in my thoughts, I drifted back a few years in my mind. It felt good to me to be back on the Delmarva peninsula. (Delmarva stands for Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.)

My first job after graduating from college was here. I was running all over downstate Delaware, the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the Virginia peninsula writing stories for “The Delmarva Farmer” weekly newspaper.

Our copy deadline was Sunday at noon. I used to party Friday and Saturday nights with some girls I knew in high school who rented a house over in Sea Isle City, on the Jersey Shore. (“Jacks” had a soft ice cream machine at every corner of their Tiki bar that dispensed pina coladas.) Then early Sunday morning I would haul my butt onto the first Cape May to Lewes ferry, drive across Delaware, then across the Eastern Shore of Maryland to arrive bleary eyed, copy in hand, at the newspaper offices.

I would stay over in Easton Sunday night because our print deadline was noon Monday. We put the paper together in a mad frenzy Monday morning. These were pre-computer days with waxed galleys and literal cut and paste.

There was this typesetter girl on the night shift. She was kinda quiet and cute. Pretty, not in the hot babe way that young men seek, but attractive and trim. I noticed her. However the whole typesetting department was young girls. This was this one proofreader too. She was a hot babe type. Couldn't spell and was a critic of sentence structure. But who could get mad at her randomly rewriting my copy with a body like that? So I was too distracted to much notice Cynthia Trever.

It took a bit more effort on both our parts for me to discover that behind that quiet front of hers was a sharp wit and smart mind and a hidden feisty nature. She was nervous in some things, sure in others. She was independent. She asked for nothing and offered everything.

I danced with her at the company Christmas party, right about this time of year in 1979. But I didn't remember her. I danced with a lot of girls from work that night. The date I brought to the party didn't dance.

A week later at our more informal, back-shop, holiday party I was sitting on a concrete step to the press room, eating some oysters, chatting with my boss. That typesetter girl came up and said, “So Chris, when are you taking me dancing again?” Not missing a beat I said, "How about next Saturday?" We made the date.

After she left, my boss asked, “This happen to you often?” “Oh, all the time,” I replied.

Cynthia Trever and I ended up getting married after we got to know each other a lot better, sometimes over scrapple sandwiches at the H&G restaurant in Easton, on Route 50, northbound side.