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, “you sure have a pretty tail pipe,” 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 “vintage,” I’m not talking about 20-30 years old. I’m 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’t 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’s not enough to merely collect and restore bikes. And it’s not enough just to ride them. So instead he has taken up racing — what you call “hobby expansion” or “hobby extreme.” That’s when putting something on a shelf or in a garage simply won’t 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’re really into their hobbies have steel plates holding their legs together. My brother does. That way people know you’re hardcore about your hobby.)
He rides his vintage bikes on off-road trails — the kind that would scare off the hardiest of mountain goats — and enters vintage motorcycle races.
“We had to run up to West Virginia for a race last weekend because our team was down in the points,” he said. His team’s name is something like the “Festering Lugnuts” or the “Broken Spokes.” I can’t recall. But long story short, it was very important that they compete. So off they went for hobby fulfillment.
As I listened to him talk about his bikes and the exploits of the “Horny Handlebars,” or whatever the team is called, it made me realize something: I don’t have any hobbies. Not a single one. And I’m not sure I ever have.
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’s collected World War I-era rifles, and some would say his day job — working as a blacksmith for an ornamental iron company — is just an extension of his hobbies. (Although, that would violate rule No. 1 of the Hobby Code: “Money shall never come in from a hobby. It may only rush out like a raging river.”)
My dictionary defines a hobby this way: “An activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.” Most wives define them this way: “That jackass thing my husband stays up until 3 a.m. every night working on.” An additional, “Jackass!” is usually tacked on the end for added effect.
I certainly have nothing like that. So am I missing out on something? Am I shorting myself?
I don’t work on cars or make fishing lures. I don’t golf or build miniature cities out of matchsticks or cat hair.
Maybe you could consider my various house projects hobbies, but they clearly fail the “pleasure” test. I run quite a bit, but certainly that isn’t leisurely. And about the only thing I do regularly is gulp air. But even that bores me and I sometimes forget to do it.
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: “If you’re going to be nonchalant about it, you’re a sad sack of processed cheese, but not a hobbyist.”
Maybe I don’t have the patience for hobbies, or the time. Honestly, I would rather be with my wife and kid than working on some little “pleasure-filled” project. (Although, making beer could be cool!)
Still, I worry. Aren’t men supposed to have hobbies? Isn’t 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.
I don’t know. Could be it’s time. I’ll have to think about it. In the meantime, I’ll just sit and half-listen to my brother tell me about leaking gas tanks and grueling races. Just another day for an extreme hobbyist.