Excerpt from Lights on the Water/Impressions in the Sand: A Motorcycling Odyssey …

I am my father’s son. And, despite his aloofness, toughness, and streak of meanness, I know that he loved me, as I loved him. It was the expression of it that was lacking, his vulnerability and humanness seldom shown, the core of his soul unknown. But he made me tough enough to survive a war.

I end with this. A find occurred during a rock-hunting expedition on a dry streambed in Arizona, where my dad had picked up a spherical piece of limestone, whacked it in the center with his rock hammer, and then pried the two halves apart.

“Look here,” Dad said in one of his rare animated displays.

“What’d you find?” Mom asked.

He proudly displayed his treasure. “A geode.”

Inside the limestone cocoon were particles of smoky quartz, layers of crystal, and slender spikes of violet amethyst. People—excepting those truly evil—are like geodes. Open them up, and a world of depth and beauty is revealed.