Hedonistic Altruism

This has nothing to do with writing or anything except perhaps human nature.

After church today they had the Sunday School picnic which is an excuse to bring dishes and lay on a big feed and eat outside whilst hanging around with friends. This put us on the road home a lot later than usual.

My wife, Mary, and I saw a kid pushing a Honda Spree northbound as I was headed southbound.

As you may know, I ride a Honda Metro on beautiful summer days like today. My brother rides a Puch Maxi that dates from the '70s. So, I whipped the van around and pulled alongside the kid. "Can we help?" I feel a sort of kinship to all moped and scooter riders.

The kid turned out to be a teenaged girl of short stature and a butch haircut.

She said yes and I tried unsuccessfully to start the scooter. It fired a couple times, but I couldn't get it to catch. The next time the battery gave up the ghost. Besides, I didn't have any ether to spray into the carburetor.

She indicated that she was headed toward a friend's house who lived nearby.

Between Mary, the girl, and I we managed to manhandle the scooter into the back of my van. The only tricky bit was getting the stand to engage. Next time we'll put a scooter facing backwards, not forwards. We gently drove up to her friend's house careful not to tip over the scooter.

Having dropped off the girl and scooter at her friend's house, we bid her farewell and went home. I felt good. We'd helped a damsel in distress. Mary expressed how good it felt to help out. We made out way home basking in the warm glow of having done a good deed.

The Savior speaks of the Scribes and Pharisees who made a big show of their alms-giving and religious observance. He advised them to do good deeds in secret that they might be rewarded later publicly. Then he said of the hypocrites that they have their reward. I always understood this to refer to the praise of other men who witnessed their displays of piety.

Now I understand this a little differently.

I've been stuck on the side of the road before. And I've felt helpless in the face of non-cooperative machinery. It is not fun to push a dead scooter a mile or so home. So, I know it meant something to that girl when we stopped.

That made me feel good. It made me feel like a better person than I really am. And I could sense just a bit of admiration in Mary's voice when we were heading home. She thought I was a better person than I really am, too.

And that feels good, too.

This probably is nothing new to most of you. It's no secret that the high-profile altruists like Mother Theresa derive great pleasure from their acts of Christian love.

I don't think they are phonies like the Scribes and Pharisees, but I do think this pleasure is the bulk of their motivation.

The Savior was right. They have their reward, because I know for a fact that I have mine.

The Fellowship of the Two-Cycle Fumes

This story starts 30 years ago. While I was away at grad school my dad and brother, Mark, went to Muskegon and bought his first moped. Over the years my little brother has accumulated quite a stash of mopeds. The total number of mopeds that he owns is classified.

And a couple years ago he ran into the Ghost Riders.

Then Mark turned me onto my Honda Metro II scooter a few of months ago. I figure he didn't think I was ready for a moped, so he recommended a scooter. Between then and now, most Mondays have either been cold or rainy or busy.

Tonight was busy, too, but a meeting got canceled. So, I called my brother.

"Where you at?" I asked. Not much for phone etiquette, I know.

"In my garage," Mark answered. He's cool with lack of phone etiquette.

"I can be there in the time it takes to get my scooter from my house to yours. You going to Founders?"

"Sure. Come on over."

I got to Mark's house on the other side of town then the two of us drove to Founders microbrewery downtown. I got there and saw about 30 mopeds parked, but only about three scooters. And my 2nd-cousin Lee was there who I hadn't seen in 25 years. He was riding the orange Puch that Mark helped him find last year. I looked over the various mopeds parked there. It was a cool sight.

I figure that although I like my scoot, I'll probably be riding my wife's "pink Puch" to future Ghost Riders meetings. I'm buying the pink Puch as soon as Mark gets it running. It's not pink, really, sort of a champaign color. The Ghost Riders have about a half-dozen old guys like me and Mark, but mostly a bunch of kids in their 20s.

After a few minutes of introductions to Mark's friends in the Ghost Riders, we all took off on a ride. My little Honda has this gentle, purring, 4-cycle engine that would never disturb anyone's sleep and its exhaust emissions have a bouquet not dissimilar to rose-water, in my unbiased opinion. This is in contrast to the sound and fury of over two dozen 2-cycle engines. These brethren of the chain-saw engine were belching so much smoke that I could sense Rachel Carlson spinning in her grave. Spotted Owls, no doubt, quaked in their nests this night.

I was unfamiliar with the protocol. The first stop on our ride was to the gas station, where we all bragged about our mileage. A fitting start as we extended a two-wheeled, two-cycle, 100mpg middle finger to the foreign despots who've doubled the price of gasoline.

My brother brought his dog in the bike trailer he's modified for canine transport. It's a chick magnet (which would work better if he were one of those 20-somethings), but it means he tends to stay near the back of the pack. Since I was the new guy, I kept with him.

However, since I was running flat-out most of the time and sometimes felt a need for more power on hills or catching up, I figure I'll be doing some performance mods on my scooter.

Other guys have some very fast rides. Oddly, these guys would stay near the back then zoom to the front whenever we came upon a red light, where they'd stay in the middle of the intersection until everyone had gotten through. They would act as sheep dogs keeping the heard together. I wonder if the police would approve.

It was great fun to course through the streets of Grand Rapids in a roaring horde of mopeds. A mobile cloud of two-cycle exhaust fumes. After the ride, Mark and I went back to his house and we hung out for a while before I scootered home well after 11:00pm.

I've heard that scooters and mopeds are a fad. Maybe so, but I had a great time with my brother.