A STORY WORTH TELLING
“Havin’ fun sittin’ shotgun ‘cause I’ve come full circle.”
— Ben Kweller
“I didn’t know you rode motorcycles,” the voice behind me said.
Sunday-morning Bible class had just ended and I was marking my place on the front pew as song leader by stacking my songbook, Bible and other assorted paraphernalia. The voice behind me was one of the sweet ladies at church.
Before turning around, I thought for a fleeting second about her perception of me after learning I used to ride motorcycles, then I laughed at myself for thinking sweet little church ladies might have questionable connotations about cycle riders.
Riding was something I did for almost 50 years before contrasting my aging reflexes and vision with the noticeably increasing number of drivers who have no concept of what they are doing at 75 mph other than texting or talking on a cellphone.
“Yes,” I said as I turned in her direction. “Steve Windham asked me back around Thanksgiving last year what I was doing. I told him, ‘Just sitting home, trying to dispel the ugly rumor that I retired.’ He said he needed help in parts and service at his motorcycle dealership, so there I am.”
Her question was understandable. It’s been long enough since I sold my last bike that someone who knew me only by my mild-mannered news reporter image could easily be surprised.
Truth is, though, I wanted a motor scooter way back in the sixth grade after my friend Gary Cornett did something that kindled one of my life’s more serious love affairs.
Just as I threw a leg over my bicycle to go home for lunch, Gary rolled up on his Cushman.
“Nice scooter,” I said. Before I could start pedaling, he hit me with, “Wanna ride it to your house for lunch?”
Some questions have only one logical answer at age 12. I thanked Gary, jumped once on the kick-starter and was gone.
Arriving at home two blocks away, Mom met me with, “I don’t like those things. You could get killed. Eat your lunch and get it back to school. And I never want to hear of you getting on one again. Do you understand me, young man?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said.
Another easy answer for a 12-year-old. Scant weeks later, my grandfather invited me to go to W.R.
DeWoody’s Western Auto with him. Yet another question with only one answer because I knew what he was really thinking — we’d stop at the Piggly Wiggly parking lot to let me drive his 1957 Ford the remaining few blocks to town.
“And don’t tell your grandmother I let you drive,” he always said.
Once inside, he sought a storekeeper’s help for his needs, and I went straight to the new Cushman scooters to fantasize. I was still dreaming when he found me, took the price tag in his hand and said, “Two hundred and nineteen dollars!”
He whistled loudly, registering his opinion of the cost.
“Reckon you could ride that if I bought it?” he asked.
“I rode my friend’s,” I said as my heart raced.
Then, just as fast, it flatlined.
“I better not. If I bought that for you, your mother would have my hide,” my grandfather said.
“We can keep it at your house,” I pleaded.
“Then your grandmother would have my hide,” he said with a chuckle.
Mom still objected years later when I bought my first motorcycle at age 20. She continued to do so for the rest of her life every time I shared with her accounts of my trips traveling across the country, including riding to Florida, crossing Colorado’s Rocky Mountain passes or riding through the Smokies.
“So, you see,” I told the sweet lady at church. “Me working for a motorcycle dealership is nothing new.
It’s actually like coming full circle.”
Going in circles has been a positive and rewarding way of life for me. I started my publishing career at the newspaper in Center, returned for a short stint about 10 years ago, and came full circle to presumably finish it there last year.
Full circles cross my mind every day at the motorcycle dealership. I look longingly at the variety of twowheeled rides on the showroom floor and think, “Maybe just one more time — one more circle.”
I could even ride it to church.
Contact Aldridge at leonaldridge@gmail. com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge.com
