A Quarter Century

Indulge me with a story about our town. Those who follow closely know I have resumed my paused career of cycling, in part because we have a very nice trail system here in Fayetteville.  Well, that and the need to regain a modicum of sanity.

Nevertheless, I had determined today I was going for a quarter-century around town - a 25 mile ride - that would require every trail in town, and then a little more.  Presented with a perfect mid-50s day with a steel-gray sky, I was thrilled to hit the road.  Little wheel truing and a shuffle reload, off to the trails.

There is a little bit of everything on the trails. Lake Fayetteville is like disappearing on a paved Robert Frost path through the Ozark woods. It is complete with he oldest cedar (I think) in the state of Arkansas and in what really is the middle of nowhere a National Park Service-type display to the Butterfield Trail.

A stiff wind came with the weather, gloomy to many; glorious to me. I have never been a summer; the bracing chill of approaching winter has always been my friend.

Working through downtown Fayetteville, I discover the connector on the Frisco Trail is semi-completed. An exciting descent down along the railroad tracks of the old Fayetteville station. At the southern end, I decide to make a detour to extend the ride and see something I had only visited once - the Fayetteville Veterans Cemetery.  Child of a veteran, it wasn't just to ride through, but to pay respects. The sign said no "recreational" activities like jogging or bike riding, so I could only coast along the perimeter fence, reading the names of the fallen I could view from the edges.

On the return ride through the deserted parking lots of Dickson Street, I heard a crash and looked to see a young man on the ground.  He looked a bit stunned.  Recalling my own tumble a couple of weeks earlier - no one stopped or asked - I pulled off.  Asking if he was OK, he said yes, but did I have any napkins or tissue; he had cut himself. No, sorry; sure you're OK? Yeah.

As a started off, I decided the least I could do was roll up to one of the restaurants on Dickson and get him some paper towels. The Jimmy Johns folks were accommodating, and I returned to find him semi-staggering toward the edge of the parking lot, a tee-shirt on his chin.  Hey, use the instead. Yeah, great, he said kind of groggy.  That's when he showed the cut, a complete cleaving of his chin meat, wide-open, side-to-side; the classic head first impact slice to the muscle and bone. OK, we've got to get you some stitches. Do you think? Yes, I'm sure.

I noticed his cap for the first time, Flying Burrito, and that there was a location right behind us.  Are you headed to work? Can someone take you to the hospital? He nodded with his napkins on his chin; somewhat surprisingly not as bloody as you'd expect. 

I felt really bad about leaving him to cross the street, but he insisted it was OK. I wished there was someway to have gotten him to the emergency room, but as my wife reminded me later, certainly his co-workers were able to help.

Finishing out the ride, it was hard not to think about his misfortune. Climbing the new incline off Dickson, I came across a group of four men I had passed earlier. They had seemed out of place, but as I worked up the hill one of them said encouragingly, "work the hill, you've got the prime; go man."

Did he say prime? As in "preem", the sprint or hill climb prize within a bike race. I think he did. It got me thinking about this being the longest ride I had made in almost a quarter-century, the 22-years since moving to Fayetteville.

Back in Louisiana, 25 miles was an everyday thing, and every September, the club I helped organize and run would do the League of American Wheelman century rides. Somewhere in my garage, there's an old wool jersey that fit a much younger man with a bunch of those patches.

Funny the things you will see, the people you will meet and the memories they will bring up - if you will just go out into the world a little more. Sometimes travel is right in your own back yard.