Hello. This is Sue again posting to Andy’s blog. Thank you ANdy.

Today, November 18th, would have been Shannon’s 55th birthday. To celebrate his birth, I will take a solo ride to Gilroy Hot Springs. Shannon hadn’t been there and we had planned to do so the next time when for a scoot.

The story here is about riding with Shannon from my seat. A unique seat.

Many people have been on a ride with Shannon. I believe I am the only one who has also had the privilege and pleasure to ride many thousands of miles with Shannon.

Shannon took me on my first motorcycle ride, which was also our first date. Though out of character for me to jump on the back of a bad boy’s motorcycle, I just knew from the moment I met Shannon that I would be safe while in his company.

Our first ride was up highway 9 and down into Boulder Creek. We rode the VFR since the LT needed tires. Shannon gave me very strict instructions not to hold onto or lean into him. Ahh, all right. Will do.

Without proper riding gear and a very old helmet that had a piece of foam in the top, why did I feel so safe? Shannon is why.

I wanted to be a good passenger. I was so afraid of doing something that may upset the balance of the bike. I tired to sit still and upright. At the same time I wanted to learn how to ride with Shannon.

So I shut my eyes, put one had on his thigh, and held onto the grab handle with the other. Yes, you may think I was out of my mind closing my eyes. But think about it. No anticipation of the next turn. No fear of a car turning, stopping, or pulling in front of us. As we gilded along, I could feel Shannon’s slightest body input at each transition. Left turn. Right turn. Acceleration. Deceleration. Always as smooth as silk.

Riding the LT was different. I never felt the need to hold on. I could lay my head back on the top case and watch the clouds, birds, and trees go by. I frequently held my arms out as we rode through the twists and turns during the thousand of miles we enjoyed together on that bike.

Sunday rides. Hardly a Sunday passed without Shannon taking me for a ride. Only weather, sickness, or injury, and yes there were those, got in the way. Even if he went for a ride with the guys, he more often than not would come and get me in the afternoon and take a quick ride. He knew how much pleasure I got from riding with him.

Our usual route took us up Bear Creek Road, into Boulder Creek, up HWY 9, maybe to Alice’s and then home. I recall one particular Sunday. It was the weekend Shannon shaved his head. We’ll save the head shaving for a future story.

We stopped at a wide spot in the road right after we crossed over Skyline Road. I snapped a few photos, including this one, the first photo of Shannon’s shaved head.

For our first overnight ride we decided to celebrate the New Year by going to Jenner. Though the weather report was for clear skies, we ran into a heavy drizzle. Yikes…my first experience with wet weather on a bike.

We stopped in Point Reyes for a mid morning treat. I don’t recall the name of the bakery but I do remember how yummy the treats were.

Our route home took us north to Steward’s Point. Shannon wanted to ride by the spot on Skaggs Road where he had broken his leg some years ago. We happily rode by the spot and continued east by Lake Sonoma and into Santa Rosa to visit Shannon’s sister and brother in-law.

A truly memorable trip.

Our ride down HWY 25 was also another one for the record books. My first, and not my last, 100mph sprint on a bike. I liked it.

It was a glorious early spring day. I packed a picnic lunch. We found a lovely spot along Carmel Valley Road on which to trespass and spread the blanket. A yummy lunch followed by sun-warmed nap made for a picture perfect day.

The most recent rides we went on where as two riders.

The first was on my two bikes since Shannon’s Triumph was still in the “needs work” mode. Shannon rode Daisy and I rode Iris. We stopped at the Bear in Los Gatos for the traditional cuppa coffee/tea.

Riding behind Shannon made me giggle. That long body on little Daisy. For him, he was just happy to be riding.

When I wanted to swap bikes, Shannon face lit up. Having never ridden a SV, Shannon was up on one wheel in a puff of black smoke. Guess the bike needed to be really ridden.

When we got into Saratoga, he pulled off his helmet and gave me that devilish grin of his. He liked my SV.

We ended our first ride as two riders back at Shannon’s where he prepared a yummy brunch. We watched a documentary on a moonshiner in Tennessee and then he washed both bikes. A girl couldn’t ask for a more perfect day.

In September 2009 he surprised a bunch of us by showing up on the annual Larry’s Ride. About 30 of us stayed in Mariposa and took day trips in that beautiful part of California. I planned to take a solo ride into Yosemite. And to my delight, Shannon planned the same ride.

We departed shortly after the group left. We quickly were up highway 140 riding along the Merced River. Shannon zipped passed a car. I was unable to get by so I waved him on. A few miles down the road I got by and Shannon had slowed to wait for me. As I approached him I was engulfed by what felt like a ray of sunshine. Warmth. I knew it was Shannon’s energy. It was so vibrant it took me by surprise. I knew at that moment I was safe.

As many know, Shannon loved Yosemite. He was enjoying himself as he took in the splendor as we rode into the valley.

g

We rode to the Awahenne for brunch. We sat outside on a glorious fall day. With full tummies we took a nap on the lawn.

The next day we joined the group. As you will guess, I didn’t see hide nor hair of Shannon expect when he passed me doing a wheelie and when we stopped at meeting points.

His Speed Triple was well appointed. He loved the Isle of Mann TT and attended twice.

It was a long day ride with temps well into the 90’s. The hotel pool was the first stop when we arrived. Shannon clearly had the best seat in the house.

And I had the best seat in the house on the way home. Shannon trailered his bike to Mariposa. When I offered to buy him lunch for a spot in the trailer, he quickly loaded up my bike and gear for the trip home.

Riding with Shannon was an honor and pleasure. Thank you Mon Petite for imparting your love of motor sports on me.

xo

Each morning I read a page from “Healing after Loss. Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief”. I have found these reading to be helpful as I move through my sadness surrounding Shannon’s death. With Andy’s encouragement, I will share a selection of those meditations.

I will go back to the day I started reading, July 19th. Each page has a quote from known and unknown people followed by an in depth interpretation by the book’s author, Martha Whitmore Hickman. Then a closing with a suggested mediation for the day. Depending on the mediation, I may or may not include all three pieces. I may also skip a day or two depending on how I feel about the particular day’s offerings.

July 20

My resolve to live “one day at a time” also means “one world at a time”. But where my loved one is, a fragment of my spirit lives, and waits.

July 21

…All those who try to get it sole alone,
Too proud to be beholden for relief,
Are absolutely sure to come to grief.

– Robert Frost

We all need people to help us cry.

July 23

People in mourning have to come to grips with death before they can live again. Mourning can go on for years and years. It doesn’t end after a year; that’s a false fantasy. It usually ends when people realize that they can live again, that they can concentrate their energies on their lives as a whole, and not on their hurt, and guilt, and pain.

- Elisabeth Kibler-Ross

No one is asking us to forget, to turn away from all that we loved and cherished in the one we have lost. We couldn’t do that even if we wanted to.

The task before us, and it can take a very long time, is to incorporate this grief and loss into the rest of our lives, so that it doesn’t continue to dominate our lives. It’s no longer the first thing we think of when we wake up in the morning, or the last thing we relinquish before we sleep.

A child said ot his mother, in regard to the outpouring of kindnesses after his father’s death, “There are so many good things. There’s just one bad thing.”

The “bad thing” will always be there, but when it begins to take its place among the good things life offers, we’re on our way.

**************

Even in my sadness I will be open to new adventure.

July 24

My heart is in anguish within me…
And I say “O, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest.”

Psalm 55:46

I will choose my flights carefully – but where might I go

July 26

I am a citizen of this day. Tomorrow will bring its own demands, its own gifts.

July 28

God, bless to me the new day,
Never vouchsafed to me before:
It is to bless Thine own presence
Thou hast given me this time, O God.

Celtic Prayer

May this day be a New Day for me.

July 30

In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpse. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to s a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.

-Dag Hammarskjold

In the community of love, all are at home.

July 31

Pain has an element of blank.
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A time when it was not-

-Emily Dickerson

I will be present to the moment as each day unfolds.

Aug 1

Faith is a way of waiting-never quite knowing, never quite hearing or seeing, because in the darkness we are all but a little lost. There is a doubt hard on the heels of very belief, fear hard on the heels of every hope.

-Fredrick Buechner

We recognize ourselves here – “all but a little lost.” Because we can never really be sure of along that the particulars of our faith, our hope, are what we would like to believe they are. But not quite lost, either. Because as sunshine follows rain follows sunshine, faith, as it waits moves from confidence into doubt onto confidence again. So, in a comforting solidarity with the rest of the waiting faithful, we make our conjectures, hope our hopes.

And every once in a while some minor miracle of insight and confidence. Some serendipity with no explanation other than grace, renews us, and we are wiling to relinquish our need to know the details. Instead, we trust that all shall be well.

**************

I will wait in faith, trusting that One I cannot know, knows and cares for me.

Aug 2

We cannot do everything at once but we can do something at once.
- Calvin Coolidge

I cannot beat to look down the long road of years without my loved one. But I don’t have to. I have today. And I will, today, do one new thing.

Aug 3

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds. That sees into the bottom of my grief?
-William Shakespeare

Grief is one of the great common experiences of human beings, and yet sometimes we feel so alone in out sadness. Even when family members share the same loss, the grief is different for each one. Our history with the person is different. Our place in the family constellation is different. We are of different temperaments. Sometimes our very closeness to one another makes the differences in the way we express grief hard to understand. Yet we long for common understanding.

Or do we? Our grief may be in common, but is is private as well. Our loss is unique, our own turf. No one can feel just as we feel.

Well, is there some other force-some “pity sitting in the clouds”? Some god? Some force of nature? Again, it is our longing to be known, to be accepted, to be comforted.

In time we will find solace, as we walk around and around this grief, walk through the middle of it, look at it for every angle. But we can do that only if we know that beyond our fingertips, our friends and loved ones are loving us, wish us well. As we do for them.

**************

I have what I need to see my way through this-if you, my friends, are with me.

Aug 4

Nothing can fill the gap when we are away from those we love, and it would be wrong to try and find anything. We must simply hold out and win through. That sounds hard at first, but as the same time it is a great consolation, since leaving the gap unfilled preserves the bond between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; he does not fill it, but keeps it empty so that our communion with another may be kept alive, even at the cost of pain.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It is strangely reassuring-this suggestion that the pain of the empty space will always be with us. Because while we do want to feel better, we do not want, ever, to forget.

We will, of course, find new places to put the affection and love and time that we used to pour out to the one we lost. Not to do that would be to turn inward, refuse to be vulnerable-a poor memorial, a poor stewardship for the life left to us.

But our ability to love and care is not limited to some finite number, so that taking on a new love means replacing an old one. Time does not expand, but love does-as with a parent who has three children, and then has another.

What was once loved and cherished is not replaceable.

**************

Mon Petite, There is a space in my heart that is always yours.

Aug 7

By discovering my own inwardness I am in communion with all other human beings, with nature and beauty and the goodness of all that is.
-Maria Boulding

I am a part of all that is. The great mystery of creation holds me at its heart-as it holds my lost love. In this we are together.

Aug 14

This is not way out, only a way forward.
-Michael Hollings

I stand at the threshold o new life. What will I do? I can stand still. Or I can go forward. Those are my choices.

Aug 15

Can we, in the air that surrounds us, the sunshine that bathes us with its warmth and light, the life that surges in our own being, imagine the abiding presence of our love done?

Aug 23

I am grateful for words that heal.

Aug 25

The moods of grief, like the moods of the day or of the year, are to be honored, and will pass.

Aug 26

I will try to be present to this day.

Aug 29

I was in a garden at the Rodin Museum. For a few minutes I was alone, sitting on a stone bench between two long hedges of roses. Pink roses. Suddenly I felt the most powerful feeling of peace, and I had the thought that death, if it means an absorption into a reality like the one that was before me, might be all right.

**************

I will watch for my own moments in the garden.

Sept 2

What restraint or limit should there be to grief for one so dear?
-Horace

Only from within me can my timetable of grief be discovered.

Sept 4

This is a land of living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love – the only survival the only meaning.
- Thornton Wilder

I know that love does not cease with the event of death.

Sept 6

Who sees Me in all,
And sees all in Me,
For him I am not lost,
And he is not lost for me.
– Bhagavad Gita

What we are grieved and sometimes terrified by is the sheer fact of loss. The loss of the loved ones’ presence, the loss of his or her love, the loss of his of her Being. How can we be content in a world from which our loved one is forever gone?

But the wisdom of this passage from the Bhagavad Gita, and of passages from other sacred Scriptures, is that the creation continues to embrace us and all those whom we love. We are still somehow bound together in a giant conspiracy of love, mutual care, and ongoing life. As we are not lost to creation, we are not lost to one another.

This is not to deny the pain of separation and the uncertainty of Not Knowing. “Faith, said the apostle Paul, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What we can be fairly sure of, from our own experience and from the experiences of others, is that there is more going on in the universe than we can detect with our five senses. “Now”, Paul also said, “I see in a glass, darkly. Then I shall see face to face.”

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Creation holds us, one by one, and all together.

Sept 8

I know that we live in the lives of those we touch. I have felt in me the living presence of many I have loved and who have loved me. I experience my daughter’s presence with me daily. And I know that this is not limited to those we know in the flesh, for many guests of my life shared neither time nor space with me.

– Elizabeth Watson

All of us experience a kind of spiritual communications with friends who are not necessarily in our immediate physical presence. When we get together after long absences, it seems”as though it were yesterday.” Is this perhaps partly because we do carry one another somewhere in our unconscious minds, though we are separated?

If with the living, why not with the dead? And this sense we have of knowing those whose words we read or whom we hear about, so that if they walked into the room we would know them–is this, too, evidence of a communication of spirits?

The world os the spirit is a world without walls–of time, of space, of physical reality. We can close our eyes, retreat into ourselves, and be at home with the throngs of people we know and love. Surely this is in some way akin to the “communication of saints” of which the mystics write.

**************

When I am alone, I can choose some company to be with me. Mon Petite, I choose you.

Sept 9

On the wings of time Grief flies away.
-La Fontaine

Years from now. I may agree grief flies away in time. But don’t push me.

Sept 10

In the midst of darkness there is light; in the midst of sorrow, joy.

Sept 11

Be still and listen to the stillness within.
-Darlene Larson Jones

I have a place of peace within myself. I can find it…and do.

Sept 12

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming… This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now I have wrestled with it, it’s no longer so. I feel happy–seep down. All is well.
– Katherine Mansfield

Through this experience I will find in myself new strength and wisdom–perhaps, even, new joy.

Sept 15

Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem. And, more that once, that impression which I can’t describe except by saying that it’s like the sound of a chuckle in the darkness. The sense that some shattering and disarming simplicity is the real answer.
– C.S. Lewis

I suspect that a large part of the energy we spend in pondering the various possible scenarios of life after death is just the energy of grief needing a place to go. But since we are given to speculating and since there is a persistent conviction found in many religions that there is life beyond human death, perhaps we could throw our hats into the ring of hope, and surmise that while we don’t know what God is doing in creation, God knows, and will see us through.

In attending to the mysteries of life after death, I will listen for the chuckle in the darkness.

Sept 17

Take rest. The field that has rested gives a beautiful crop.
-Ovid

I will care for myself in honor of my life and all who have shared that life with me.

Sept 19

There is a really no such creature as a single individual; he has no more life of his own than a cast-off cell marooned from the surface of your skin.
-Lewis Thomas

I am organically connected to all of life. I am not alone!

Sept 20

The main impact is just the loss, the incredible loss. The expectations just were gone. The old age that I expected is different. It just never occurred to me that she would not be in the next rocker… At the Catholic school that I went to, the motto was hic et noc, Latin for “here and now.” What they meant was you do what is necessary-here and now.
-Cokie Roberts

This is the only day I have for sure. May I use it well.

Sept 21

I don’t believe you are dead. How can you be dead if I still feel you? Maybe like God, you changed into something that I’ll have to speak to you in a different way, but your not dead to me Nettie. And never will be. Sometimes when I get tired of talking to myself I talk to you.
-Alice Walker

Sometimes the veil between the living and the dead seems thin, and lighter than air.

Sept 22

As I am able , I will reenter the world around me with courage and expectation.

Sept 25

It was coming to John that when the great people in one’s life die, one is forced to be more oneself. One is forced to grow up.
-May Sarton

I will carry with me forever the strength Shannon bequeathed to me.

Sept 27

To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.
-Mother Teresa

I have the power and responsibility to keep my life moving.

Sept 29

Haste, haste, has no blessing.
-Swahili Proverb

With out hurry or panic I will dwell in the house of my grief.

Sept 30

All that we do
Is touched with ocean, yet we remain
On the shore of what we know.
-Richard Wilbur

I trust that what is unknown to me is for my good and my ultimate peace and joy.

Oct 2

All I know from my own experience is that the more loss we feel the more grateful we should be for whatever it was we had to lose. It means we had something worth grieving for. The ones I’m sorry for are the ones that go through life not even knowing that grief is.
-Frank O’Connor

Saddened as I am by loss, my heart lifts in gratitude for the richness, love, and silliness Shannon has brought to my life.

Oct 5

I sit on teh rich,. moist earth, green earth, and draw my knees to my chest. All is not lost. The birds have simply moved on. They give me the courage to do the same.
-Terry Tempest Williams

Can we say goodbye to our loved ones not in the expectation that they will come flying back in the spring, but that, in way we cannot know,. they will continue to be present to us, continue to love us, as we continue to love them?

IN teh turning of the seasons, I find promise and hope.

Greetings. My name is Sue. Andy kindly gave me access to his blog so that I could share my thoughts and feelings about our mutual friend Shannon Criss. Thank you Andy.

Since Andy has an entry titled Shannon’s Garage, I’ll start by sharing my time in Shannon’s garage.

Though not a regular attendee, I joined in on a few Wednesday nights in Shannon’s garage. I usually only stayed an hour or so since it was clear this was time for the boys to do their stuff. I would sit back and smile as I watched them discuss what needed fixing, how to fix, fix it, not fix it. It was comical, yet organized and manly.

The other times I spent in Shannon’s garage were about he and I. I recall one of my first visits. Shannon gave me the tour. The braces and casts. The tools. The fishing rods. The race leathers. The trophies. The custom-built workbench. And of course the photo collection. I went home knowing much more about this man I was falling I love with and longing to have my photo on his garage door.

On subsequent visit I was sitting on the LT as Shannon was futzing with something. In a pathetic little girl voice I rarely use I said “I’ll never have a photo on the garage door since I am only a passenger”. Shannon stopped what he was doing and walked over to me. He took my hands, said it didn’t matter and asked me what was something I was passionate about. I told him waterskiing. He asked me to give him a photo of me skiing.

I searched through my photos to find the perfect one. On the water. Off the water. In a tournament or not. I finally decided on a photo taken on Lake Shasta. It was at dusk so the lighting was lovely. The spray was a perfect arch.

The next evening I went to Shannon’s to deliver my photo and found him standing at that perfectly built workbench cleaning some sort of motor part. I gave him the photo and told him the story about when it was taken. He handed it back to me and asked to put it on the door. Because the photo is an 8X10, it took a bit of time to find a spot that wouldn’t overlap with another photo. Funny, when I looked for the photo during Shannon’s Life Celebration, I had to giggle at how out of place it looked amongst all the riding memorabilia. But never mind that, Shannon wanted my photo on his garage door.

And I saw something surprising on the garage door the afternoon.

Shannon and I were on a typical Sunday ride. We ended up at the Mystery Spot as I had not been there. What a crazy place that it. Anyway, we picked up a bumper sticker. While we were dating it was on the wall near the door into the house. As the years past, I would visit Shannon but did not spend much time in the garage so I didn’t notice it was gone. I was surprised to see the bumper sticker on the garage door. That day was a special to him as it was to me.

I got a call one evening from Shannon asking me to come over and help him. He said he needed another set of hands. When I arrived I saw the LT lying on its side. Oh my, I was taken by surprise. He looked sheepishly at me and apologized for letting “your baby” I loved that bike, more about that later, tip over. We heaved and hoed and got the LT upright. On occasion I would tease him about it.

Something I don’t think many garage visitors noticed was a map of Great Britain pinned to the underside of the rafter boards above the mailbox. Pushpins marked every place Shannon visited in the Mother Country. Shannon and I have a common love of GB so he set up a stool for me to stand on so that I could add pins to every place I had visited. When I was done, we shared stories about our individual visits and talked about visiting together one day.

I liked to watch Shannon move around his garage. His tool boxes where neat and tidy. Bottles, cans, jars set out in what I assumed was a logical pattern. I know if I wanted the half-inch, wood handled, square, angled, wrench with the nick on the top, OK I made that up, he could walk up to a tool box, open the drawer and find it. That man was orderly.

I received many phone calls from Shannon using a speakerphone he saved from a junk pile at IBM. I could tell he was walking around the garage doing this and that, chatting away about the day’s news. The garage, where he found, and created, happy times.

Shannon loved being in the garage. I can picture him now. Oh, I miss Mon Petite.

Shannon’s garage.

I loved Shannon’s garage. It was such a comfortable place. All
the pictures and postcards and momentos that he had afixed to the
inside of the garage door were endlessly interesting to look at,
read, and laugh with. Pictures of Shannon when he was a kid karting
with his Dad, pictures of all manner of family and friends and
heroes, admission tickets from races, pictures of random
motorcycles he liked from over the years. Old number plates
presumably from Shannon’s moto racing days of yore. Funny ads
clipped from magazines or newspapers. Industry stickers and many
different kinds of reminders of good times and interesting stories.
It was a thing of beauty to make any true gearhead sigh.

Many a party or gathering ended up in there. At least the ones I
was present for. Which was usually when other moto heads were
there, and the garage is where we naturally gravitate to. The
bikes; his Mini that usually lived in the garage. Often his Triumph
Speed Triple that I loved to stare at, sit on, or ask questions
about. Visitor bikes, loaner bikes, bikes he was helping a friend
fix, maintain or store.

I got to use the garage for its true purpose once, as well. When
I got a big brake kit for my Audi S4 wagon, he offered up his garage
to install them. Since his mechanical experience far outstrips my
own, not to mention the fact that mine wasn’t sufficient to perform
the job by myself, I quickly took him up on the offer. He also had
told me of his super-duper brake fluid sucking device that sounded
divine, so I packed up the two big boxes of the kit, Frankie — my
dog — and even the odd tool, and headed over there early one
Saturday morning.

It turned out to be a hellaciously hot day, and Shannon and I sweated
continuously the whole day working on those brakes. The original
ones were a total bitch to get off. It didn’t help that I had
roasted the shit out of them at Laguna Seca raceway a few months
before. The stock brakes of that car were definitely not up to the
rigors of even light track use. My show-the-stock-brakes-no-mercy
driving style at the track that day quite wrecked them, and so there
I was in Shannon’s garage, installing my new uber-cool BBK. I
always forget one or two things, sometimes important, sometimes
minor. This day I forgot to bring the special brake fluid I had
bought, so Shannon took me to a little parts store near his house
in the Mini and I bought some kind of crazy blue German or Austrian
“racing” brake fluid. Turned out to be a good idea because it was
so easy to discern the new fluid from the old, worn out fluid.

Many, many, sweaty hours later, after we had removed both the old
front brakes and installed the new ones, I discovered that the wheels did
not fit over the brakes! Aiee! There were many guarantees on the
web site of the place I bought the kit, and just about every page
of the lengthy instructions and other paperwork that came with the
kit assured the purchaser that no fitment problems would ever occur.
Right. I was completely flabergasted. Shannon kept his cool,
however, and prodded me to call some Audi dealerships, even looking
up the telephone numbers for me. The San Jose dealership, as well
as all the other relatively nearby ones were closed on Saturday.
This was all the more annoying because one of the reasons that my
friend Ken wasn’t involved was that he works for the nearby BMW
dealership in the service department and had to work on Saturday!
I eventually got an answer from the Burlingame Audi dealership, some 40 miles away.
No, they informed me, their service department wasn’t open. I asked
for the parts department, why, I’ll never know, and asked
them if they had any wheel spacers. They said, well, no, they
don’t, and besides they’re closed on Saturday too. But then they
said try this tuner shop down the street from them, they sometimes
work on Audis and who knows what they might have. Long story short,
I hit the odds of the lottery and yes, they did have the correct
wheel spacers (!), and they also turned out to have longer lug bolts
that would fit the new setup, as the stock bolts would be too short
with the spacer installed. Unbelievable luck, or the result of Shannon persistence? It turned out that
while I had cleverly ordered the BBK designed for the previous
generation S4 which had 17″ stock wheels and therefore a smaller and
lighter brake rotor, no one had ever tried to install that kit on the
current generation car which had 18″ stock wheels. The smaller rotor
package weighed significantly less than the larger one, but people
are so incorrectly obsessed with bigger-larger-bigger that I was the
first person to ever try this combination. The way the wheel spokes
eminate out from the center of the wheel, the huge calipers were just
a couple of millimeters too wide to fit. Just goes to show that
there’s always something, and it pays to be prepared as much as
possible.

Shannon was his usual unflagging gracious self and insisted on
driving me all the way to Burlingame and back in the Mini (the S4
sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere), helping immensly at the tuner
shop with advice and questions too. About $16 worth of gas burned
up in the Mini later (gas was still around $4/gallon in those days),
we were back at his garage, got the spacers installed, the wheels
on, and the brake pads bedded in (lots of smoke and smelliness).
By then the temperature had actually started to dip below easy-bake,
and I insisted on buying Shannon dinner, so we went and got some
gourmet pizza at his favorite pizza place.

The best part about that day (and night) was getting to hear the
stories about Shannon and his dad going kart racing when he was a
kid, and Shannon passing on to me all the mechanics advice his dad
had endowed him with over the years. That, and, oh yeah, now I had
new brakes on the wagon that actually worked and didn’t scare the
crap out of me.

I was very jealous of how well Shannon kept his garage so organized,
clean, and functionally useful. My garage should be exactly like
his, but I just watch too much TV I guess. I kept thinking to
myself that I was not a good person, for I did not have a stocked
sink in my garage where hands could be washed and dried before
coming into the house; fluids, tools, parts, rags, grease, oil,
sprays, cleaners … all so well laid out and quickly accessible
for any project. But Shannon had a gift and a desire to make you
feel like his garage was your garage, so then there was no need to
spend your time doing what he had already done. He actually had a
knack for making you feel good about borrowing his garage!

It was truly a man’s garage.

Well, perhaps necessity is the mother of invention, or at least a strong motivator. I think the death of my close friend, Shannon Criss, on June 5th, 2010, was a strong motivator in propelling me to finally get WordPress installed and start a blog, something I’ve been meaning to do for many years. So, for that and for countless other blessed things, I wish you Godspeed, Shannon.

Joseph Shannon Criss was the name he was born with, sometime back in the mid-fifties. I knew him for 15 years, give or take, and I only found out about the Joseph part 3 weeks ago, when he had to present an I.D. that matched the name on his credit card at a hotel in Red Bluff, CA. He, myself, and five other riding brothers had made the trip up to Red Bluff, about an hour north of Sacramento, from various parts of the Bay Area in the middle of May with our motorcycles to spend the weekend riding around the stunningly beautiful roads that run roughly between Red Bluff and Eureka, on the coast. Being old men who don’t need to prove anything (anymore!), we trucked our bikes to Red Bluff and based our operations out of the hotel there.

Because Shannon rode with me in my truck, our motorcycles trailer-mounted behind us, I got to talk to Shannon non-stop for a combined time of probably more than six hours. Shannon and I both tremendously enjoy philosophizing and personal introspection, so it was a fun trip, never mind the two days of world class riding with the best friends that can only be found through a deep common bond of motorcycling.

I thank God, whose existence I have my doubts about, especially now, for those hours with Shannon. Only three weeks later, he has been taken from us, and it doesn’t actually seem possible that he is no longer here. A world without Shannon? We might as well all be floating, deaf and blind, in space. Maybe we actually are.

Riding just won’t ever be the same without Shannon. Watching him wheel around his lovingly hand crafted Triumph Speed Triple, including the occasional wheelie or three ~:^) was always a beautiful sight. But much more than that, really. It was always a comforting sight. Because you always knew that Shannon was in control. So many zillions of miles under his seat. So many blistering laps on the track back in the day. Any of us could fall, but we were all too old to take big chances that might result in something terrible happening. Something terrible like what happened three days ago.

Shannon was a big fan of the Ilse of Man TT. It’s fitting then that his first name was Joseph: one of his favorite riders was Joey Dunlop, one of the greatest Ilse of Man champions, ever. Shannon’s helmet and license plate were a tribute to Joey. He also had a license plate holder that was a reference to a trip he made to the Ilse with his nephew, Kelly. The license plate holder says “Cronk-Y-Voddy”, the meaning of which perhaps I’ll blog about another day. I was cheeky enough to talk him into giving me one of these license plate holders about eight months ago and it’s been proudly holding my license plate of my KTM 950 SM ever since. I tried to pay him for it several times, but he just said that he was happy to have another convert. Perhaps it is only fitting then that Shannon would go out doing what he loved, the same way one of his most cherished heroes did: Joey Dunlop lost his life racing in Estonia in the summer of 2000.

I have second hand that Shannon’s friend and fellow riding family member Rene was with him when he faded out. Although this must have been impossibly hard on Rene, when I heard this, it was like the 500 lb. gorilla that’s been sitting on my chest since yesterday just lost 100 lbs. I’m also told that he was conscious and talking to Rene for a few minutes. I’m not even sure why, but it seems to give me some small measure of relief to know that he had a friend with him at the end. When you think about it, none of us can really hope for much more than that.

Yesterday, I tried to help relieve my confusion by writing a eulogy for Shannon. I’m not sure I’m ready to post it yet, but maybe in a few days. This may be my first blog entry about Shannon, but it won’t be the last.

Cronk-Y-Voddy Shannon, Cronk-Y-Voddy!