Originally Posted by
Mike Mills
What I suspect we are all missing, including me, is the concept that the Holy Grail was not just any, old chalice. It was not the chalice we wish we had. It is not the chalice we wanted as a kid (this is the "Rosebud" I referred to in my post). It was THE chalice used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. It is a chalice with a history. It is a chalice with a clear, documented "provenance".
For example, it is not just any, old Cambio Corsa-equipped Legnano. It is THE Cambio Corsa-equipped Legnano that The Bambino rode to win the 1948 Tour d'France.
I think you are free to choose that which represents your "Holy Grail" but it has to be more than a grail, or it isn't "Holy".
Yeah, I have to agree with you 100% on this. But wait, there's a whole nother level to the "Holy Grail" that you're missing, if you'll pardon me.
First of all, I will stipulate that JC was a historical person who lived and died and who must, therefore, have had his last meal at some point. And that meal must have involved a drinking vessel of some kind. Therefore the Holy Grail is something that must have existed at one point.
The odds of finding it, however, are vanishingly small, for many reasons (glass is fragile, metal is recyclable, and the item was last seen in Jerusalem, which has been destroyed dozens of times since then). Even if we assume it remains undamaged today, we know nothing about its particulars (even whether it was glass or metal), so our odds of recognizing it are meager in the extreme.
So... the good news is we agree the gent (let's call him Bambino) won the 1948 TDF riding a Legnano equipped with Cambio Corsa gears, and this bike existed at one time.
Okay. IF your Holy Grail is that particular bike, and you want it, then...
--You must believe it still exists.
--No other bike will do (not Bambino's other bike, not Bambino's wife's bike, not Bambino's brother's bike).
--Your odds of finding it so small that you cannot really expect to ever find it.
--Should you happen across it, you will need faith to confirm that you have indeed found it.
--When you find it, your search concludes. You'll know you have found your Holy Grail when you close your ebay account and can drive past yard sales without turning your head. If you find yourself still questing for the Holy Grail after you thought you had found it, well, then it wasn't the Holy Grail at all.
Hey, no one said it was supposed to be easy
.