Richard Treks: BALM: Week 3 Day 3

I recall a photograph: I'm a boy, maybe three or four, dressed in a gray wool boy's suit, with a bow tie, and a fedora, with a feather in the band. I'm sitting in a toy wagon. I don't know it's color (I like to think red, like the color of my Jamis Dakar) because the picture is black and white. It's the earliest picture of me in something with wheels.

What are some things you've had for a long time, things that define you, and so are priceless? A music box that belonged to your grandmother? A high school class ring? A signet ring from your mother? A wedding ring? Maybe you have the tonsils that a doctor pulled out of you, or the tooth you lost in a fight over a girl with your best friend. Feathers that appeared on your school desk? A mark of lead in your wrist from a pencil jab?

I have memories of things with wheels. That photograph of the black and white wagon. I remember my first bike ride without training wheels, a bike with a load of neighborhood boys, baseball cards clothes-pinned to wheels, cheap bells on handlebars, plastic streamers on grips, broken chains, and flat tires.

I had time today to think about such things. After yesterday's day of riding in the rain, Gary and I were hoping for a ride in sunshine along a lush shore of lake. The day, however, was overcast, gray, foggy, a damp cloth of air, with wind in our face. Come to think of it, back in Wisconsin, we were riding north into the wind; up in the UP, we were riding east into the wind; and now, in the lower peninsula, we're riding south into the wind: just saying.

The point is that the day was almost a throw-away, with steep hills mixed in, lush orchards of cherry trees, some dark mysterious old forest, and an occasional view of the Traverse bays. The point is that such days of a long distance ride provide the opportunity for reflection, and today I found myself thinking that much of my life has been associated with wheels.

Once I was riding in the back of my Uncle Wilbur's car, watching through a rust hole in the floor board as the road passed under. Another time I was in the back seat of the family Corvair with my two brothers and Happy, our dog, and I was staring out the side opera window at a little waterfall in the woods on the side of the road. We were traveling to Little Rock for Christmas, and that night Father parked in a closed gas station for some sleep, while I stayed awake, looking at the Texaco star.

Today, while drinking coffee in Charlevoix, I recalled the summer of four bikes. The first bike was a big tire bike, which I used for riding in my first Buffalo winter. That summer I bought an Ironman Canondale, which was stolen. I bought a second Ironman Canondale, which was stolen. I bought a red Jamis Dakar, which someone tried to steal. That was almost thirty years ago, and I still have the bike. I keep the bike because it is red. I even use it to tour whenever I want to haul gear in my BOB trailer.

Outside the frame of my childhood picture, someone is ready to haul me somewhere, and the wagon is red.

Follow the BALM.