A few years ago I was pushing the bike pretty hard through a twisty country road when a pheasant popped out of the weeds and hit the turn signal on the lightbar. I was going about 35 mph and leaning almost to the point of scraping the footboards. The bike shook a little and I got quite a start but there was no damage to me or the bike. The bird took off before I could get her insurance information.

We all like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists. But when push comes to shove most of us are sheep who do what we are told. Worst of all, a lot of us become unpaid agents of whoever is controlling the agenda by enforcing the current dogma on the few rugged individualists who actually exist.