I’m borrowing a Beemer this weekend and heading for the twisty backroads of SW Wisconsin and NE Iowa with my friend Jim. It’s a little rerun of the first Real Joe Motorcycle Tour that I did back in early November, 2000, with this crew.
That was a memorable trip, both for the fun I had and the evening aftermath: a huge fight with my wife when I didn’t phone her to let her know we survived a big storm; and my dad’s admission to the hospital. He died a month later.
I’ve had motorcycles since I bought a 1966 Honda 250 Scrambler when I was sixteen.
I was in heaven, in part because my dad approved and my mom didn’t. It was the ideal way to deal with my mama’s boy demons. But of course, it wasn’t and I carried the mistaken idea all the way into my marriage for many years.
So I’ve tried to approach this trip carefully, checking with my wife as planning for it evolved. I’m on high alert, as family issues are bumping up against it. My daughter hurt her knee playing frisbee this week and we don’t yet know the extent of the damage, so the whole trip might be off because of that. And we’re having a birthday party for one of my son’s late on Sunday so I want to be back in plenty of time for that. So I’m prepared to scale back or even kill the trip altogether. There’ll be other opportunities.
And Dad, if you’re per chance observing from your hoped-for perch in heaven (I’m guessing you’ve got a lot more time in purgatory to serve) I’m assuming you’ll be proud of my decision to not go.
