Well, I have so many probably more worthy possessions that are special from my children and wife and friends, but the one that came to mind is my motorcycle.  When I was in high school I bought a motorcycle, and it was the most thrilling, wonderful thing in my life at that time; and when I got married and had kids, I stopped riding.  My wife had also had a motorcycle when she was young and had been on a motorcycle all over Europe with her first husband and had wonderful experiences.  Forty years later, no motorcycles had we ever ridden again.  One day my wife came home from some errands and she said, “I was riding behind this young woman on a motorcycle, and I was hypnotized.  She was just swaying and turning, and I followed her for miles.  I don’t even know where she was going.  I just followed her, watching her ride.  We should get a motorcycle.”  And I said, “Which arm do you want to twist?”  And then we went to the BMW shop and there was a beautiful used green classic BMW motorcycle, one that I had seen at a person’s party years before that and thought, in another life, I’ll have that motorcycle.  And my wife said, “Let’s get that.”  And I was like, yeah.  And we got it, and we took the safety lessons over again and got our licenses, and then we went on a wonderful 1000-mile trip up to Bayfield and back together, riding on it together, and just had wonderful experiences through a tornado, and just had a wonderful, fun time.  She then got her own motorcycle, we still have the one that we found together, and it has transformed my life.  It’s sort of been a reset, you know, you don’t have to be 18 to have a motorcycle.  You can have a motorcycle when you’re 65.  I’m 67 and I ride that motorcycle every chance I get.  I put 30,000 miles on that thing without even trying, and it clears my mind, it makes me feel young, it thrills me to just see it.

[Was the pause in having a motorcycle because of kids being around?]

Yeah, just kind of the danger you know, you don’t want to add that extra risk to your life when you’re a responsible parent.  Then it just sort of faded out, it just didn’t seem like it fit our lifestyle.  Then one day, why not?