Say what you will about William Shatner, the guy’s setting an incredible example of how not to go gentle into that good night.

Last week, he announced his plans to ride a custom-built three-wheel motorcycle across the United States at an age — 84 — when many people aren’t astride anything more adventurous than a rocking chair. His path will more-or-less follow the 2,400 miles of old Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, with planned stops in St. Louis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, and Vegas. There will be a film crew along for the trip (naturally), and an eventual TV show chronicling the adventure, and the whole thing is being done to raise awareness for the work done by the American Legion nationwide on behalf of veterans.

As for Shatner’s new trike… man, it’s something else, a wicked-looking, V8-powered, one-of-a-kind (for now!) machine called The Rivet. The press materials claim the design was inspired by the B-17 bomber, but it looks more like something from the Mad Max movies to me:

The Rivet was built by a Chicago-area custom shop called American Wrench; they’ve set up a dedicated website for the trike here, if you’d like to know more about it… or look into getting one for yourself! (I’d kinda like to have one, but I have a hunch I couldn’t afford it. The “Reserve Your Own” page is suspiciously lacking any price indicators!)

Shatner’s cross-country trek (sorry!) is scheduled to begin June 23 at the American Wrench shop, and wrap up in LA on the 30th. I haven’t seen anything about when the television series might air, or on what network, but I imagine it’ll probably be on cable by the end of summer or early fall.

I hope I’m still dreaming of doing things like this when I’m 84, if not actually doing them… and yes, I’m perfectly aware that Shatner probably won’t really be in the saddle of The Rivet all that way at his age, that there will be some Hollywood illusion-making for the sake of the TV show. But I do believe he’ll be making the journey, one way or the other, and doing something pretty damn interesting and valuable as well (the American Legion angle), and that’s the thing that counts. He just doesn’t seem interested in slowing down, no matter what the calendar says. Captain Kirk was an inspiration to me when I was young; Bill Shatner is inspiring me as I face getting older…

Conversation between the lovely Anne and myself, just now…

ME: You take a risk every time you leave the house. You could get hit by a bus. You could be electrocuted by a random static discharge from a computer mouse.

ANNE: I’ve never heard of that happening.

ME: The government covers it up.

…

ANNE: You were pretty fast with that comeback.

ME: It’s something I’ve given a lot of thought to.

And so it goes, here at the Bennion Compound…

Fast-moving thunderstorms that dump a lot of rain in a very short time aren’t unusual during the warmer months in Utah, but the storm that hit Saturday night was exceptional even for a “summer monsoon,” as my mother has always called them. Have a look at this:

My house is just down the street from the spot where much of that footage was captured. As it happens, I wasn’t home during the storm, but my lovely Anne was, and she tells me that the lawn, sidewalk, and street all vanished within minutes beneath a small lake. She also tells me water was actually rolling up the driveway from the street. But these were only interesting natural phenomena, passing curiosities gone almost as soon as they were observed. The real problem was a blocked downspout on the edge of our roof, which caused water to overtop the brim of the rain gutters and cascade down in a four-foot wide sheet… straight into the window well of our basement bedroom.

The debris line left behind the next morning suggests the water rose to about six inches deep in the window well. I like to imagine it probably looked something like this:

Fortunately, our experience wasn’t as catastrophic as Captain Smith’s final moments in Titanic — the window did not implode in a spectacular manner — but the water got in anyhow, and, to finally get to the damn point, we’ve got to replace the carpet in our master bedroom. Our cozy, wall-to-wall, luxurious shag carpet, which my late Hannibal-cat loved to sharpen his claws in, which felt so warm and soft and cushy beneath my bare toes, just installed about two and a half years ago. Anne and I and my dad spent much of yesterday slicing it and the water-logged pad beneath into strips and hauling them upstairs in dripping, heavy bundles bound for the trash bins. To add insult to injury, I’d already spent much of Saturday hunched over in our shower, scouring away hard-water scales, so by the time I dropped into bed last night, I was so tired and sore I could barely move.

It’ll take probably a week for the concrete to dry out, and then we’ll have to source new carpet and installers… and Anne no longer works in the floor-covering industry, which was such a big help to us when we first finished that room…

Yeah, like I said… I’ve had better weekends.

It could’ve been worse, of course. I know other people in the general area who had several inches of standing water in their basements. We don’t even have any damage to the walls. But still… I find the whole situation deeply disheartening. What is it about being an adult that just about the time you feel like you’re getting ahead, paying off some bills, and finally seeing some goals coming within your reach, some bullshit thing like this knocks you back a rung or two?