Maybe I need a hobby.<\/p>\n
I was thinking about this as I sat listening to my brother. He collects vintage motorcycles, restores them, loses sleep over them, caresses them lovingly like Kobe beef, says things like, \u201cyou sure have a pretty tail pipe,\u201d and then spends most of his waking hours buying parts from far-off lands so he can get them to run for all of 13 seconds. Then they stall and the engine has to be rebuilt.<\/p>\n
These are really old bikes. When I say \u201cvintage,\u201d I\u2019m not talking about 20-30 years old. I\u2019m talking about the kind of motorcycles the Hun used to invade China back in 176 B.C.<\/p>\n
Well, maybe not that old. But these British bikes certainly pre-date me. I don\u2019t typically pay attention to all these conversations with my brother about timing chains and oil gasket breaches, so I can only guess they hail from around World War II.<\/p>\n
With my brother, though, it\u2019s not enough to merely collect and restore bikes. And it\u2019s not enough just to ride them. So instead he has taken up racing \u2014 what you call \u201chobby expansion\u201d or \u201chobby extreme.\u201d That\u2019s when putting something on a shelf or in a garage simply won\u2019t do. This way you can consume more time and money on your hobby, and further infuriate your wife. (Guys who want to prove that they\u2019re really into their hobbies have steel plates holding their legs together. My brother does. That way people know you\u2019re hardcore about your hobby.)
\n
\nHe rides his vintage bikes on off-road trails \u2014 the kind that would scare off the hardiest of mountain goats \u2014 and enters vintage motorcycle races.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to run up to West Virginia for a race last weekend because our team was down in the points,\u201d he said. His team\u2019s name is something like the \u201cFestering Lugnuts\u201d or the \u201cBroken Spokes.\u201d I can\u2019t recall. But long story short, it was very important that they compete. So off they went for hobby fulfillment.<\/p>\n
As I listened to him talk about his bikes and the exploits of the \u201cHorny Handlebars,\u201d or whatever the team is called, it made me realize something: I don\u2019t have any hobbies. Not a single one. And I\u2019m not sure I ever have.<\/p>\n
My brother has had hobbies his whole life. Ever since he was a kid. For a while he collected old carbide mining lamps or built replicas of battleships and submarines that actually floated. He\u2019s collected World War I-era rifles, and some would say his day job \u2014 working as a blacksmith for an ornamental iron company \u2014 is just an extension of his hobbies. (Although, that would violate rule No. 1 of the Hobby Code: \u201cMoney shall never come in from a hobby. It may only rush out like a raging river.\u201d)<\/p>\n
My dictionary defines a hobby this way: \u201cAn activity done regularly in one\u2019s leisure time for pleasure.\u201d Most wives define them this way: \u201cThat jackass thing my husband stays up until 3 a.m. every night working on.\u201d An additional, \u201cJackass!\u201d is usually tacked on the end for added effect.<\/p>\n
I certainly have nothing like that. So am I missing out on something? Am I shorting myself?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t work on cars or make fishing lures. I don\u2019t golf or build miniature cities out of matchsticks or cat hair.<\/p>\n
Maybe you could consider my various house projects hobbies, but they clearly fail the \u201cpleasure\u201d test. I run quite a bit, but certainly that isn\u2019t leisurely. And about the only thing I do regularly is gulp air. But even that bores me and I sometimes forget to do it.<\/p>\n
Once, as a kid, I collected comic books. But was that a hobby? I would read a comic book, slide it into a plastic sleeve and throw it in a box. Rule No. 2 of the Hobby Code: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to be nonchalant about it, you\u2019re a sad sack of processed cheese, but not a hobbyist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe I don\u2019t have the patience for hobbies, or the time. Honestly, I would rather be with my wife and kid than working on some little \u201cpleasure-filled\u201d project. (Although, making beer could be cool!)<\/p>\n
Still, I worry. Aren\u2019t men supposed to have hobbies? Isn\u2019t that part of what defines them? Sets them apart? Gets them divorced? Lets them spend countless hours in smelly garages tinkering on this and that? Is it my duty as a man to find a hobby! ANY hobby.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know. Could be it\u2019s time. I\u2019ll have to think about it. In the meantime, I\u2019ll just sit and half-listen to my brother tell me about leaking gas tanks and grueling races. Just another day for an extreme hobbyist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maybe I need a hobby. I was thinking about this as I sat listening to my brother. He collects vintage motorcycles, restores them, loses sleep over them, caresses them lovingly like Kobe beef, says things like, \u201cyou sure have a pretty tail pipe,\u201d and then spends most of his waking hours buying parts from far-off lands so he can get them to run for all of 13 seconds. Then they stall and the engine has to be rebuilt. These are really old bikes. When I say \u201cvintage,\u201d I\u2019m not talking about 20-30 years old. I\u2019m talking about the kind of motorcycles the Hun used to invade China back in 176 B.C. Well, maybe not that old. But these British bikes certainly pre-date me. I don\u2019t typically pay attention to all these conversations with my brother about timing chains and oil gasket breaches, so I can only guess they hail from around World War II. With my brother, though, it\u2019s not enough to merely collect and restore bikes. And it\u2019s not enough just to ride them. So instead he has taken up racing \u2014 what you call \u201chobby expansion\u201d or \u201chobby extreme.\u201d That\u2019s when putting something on a shelf or in a garage simply won\u2019t do. This way you can consume more time and money on your hobby, and further infuriate your wife. (Guys who want to prove that they\u2019re really into their hobbies have steel plates holding their legs together. My brother does. That way people know you\u2019re hardcore about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[14,63,60,59,61,62],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-nutshells","tag-bike","tag-brother","tag-guys","tag-hobby","tag-motorcycles","tag-vintage-motorcycle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}