Entering into the twenty-first century, I became very good at my trade as a carpenter/builder and I was doing well financially too. I rented a large apartment in an old Victorian house and proceeded to renovate it myself. It was good for me to be in the country again. I looked at my life as if I had come “full-circle.” I was entering the ranks of the middle-aged and looking forward to finally settling down from all the world-hopping and chasing after the proverbial “brass ring”--or as wise, old King Solomon expressed it: “A chasing after the wind.”
Not too long after my return home, my ex-wife and children decided to move back here too. I did my best to help them get settled, and was looking forward to spending time with my four children. It didn’t take much time for my ex-wife to find a man that was able to supply her immediate needs and desires. He had a stable and dependable job at the local hospital; he took a liking to our children and welcomed them as if they were his own, and he gave her the assurance of being able to protect her from me, during my coming-to-terms period with the emotional stress of losing my whole family to another man. They all seemed to do well together and they all moved into his apartment. It was very uncomfortable for me during visits there, seeing them all so happy and contented. I will never forget the day that her new man gave me the gift of an expensive shotgun, and suggested: "You can buy shells for it at any K-mart store." He did this while my ex-wife stood there...approvingly. That night, in the loneliness of my rented room, in a moment of clarity; I came to understand the motive for the gift, so the next day I returned it to him, (as my way of saying): “No thanks...suicide is not an option I’d consider.” He didn’t like me and he made that clear from the start. The feeling was mutual.
Eventually they got married and bought a home on the other side of the river. During the next several years, I made a sincere effort to reestablish my relationship with my children. I was even able to acquire a college scholarship for my son, because of his talent with the French horn. However, he would have none of it and decided to join the air force, as his act of defiance towards me. Two of my daughters (the twins) were amiable with me while the older daughter was defiant and became estranged from me by replacing me with the stepfather. Two out of four isn’t bad! We had many good times together; fishing, hiking, day trips, and quiet times at my apartment. It was awkward and uncomfortable doing the “visitation rights” routine. At times it felt like a tug-of-war between me and the stepfather, vying for the children’s affections. We managed to get through the turmoil of those years together, in spite of the many conflicts the divorce caused. As time marched on, the older daughter relocated out west and got married there, and the twins followed shortly thereafter. With all this time to myself now, I found ways to fill that gap by resorting back to one of my favorite sports... motorcycles!
I have always had motorcycles in my life, even when I was stationed on Okinawa. The first bike I had was a Triumph Bonneville, when I was sixteen. I went on to own several other motorcycles. However, the bike I had dreamed of owning one day was a Harley Davidson. The cost of owning one was always out of my reach. However, the day came when I had saved enough money to own one. I spotted the bike of my dreams in a showroom at a local car dealer. It was a Harley, Springer soft-tail with half-ape handlebars, a wide rear tire, and Sampson street-sweeper side pipes. It had the deep base, rumbling sound of timpani drums. One of the first things I did was to strip it down and have it painted purple. In the summer months, I would go to rallies and shows in the area. I won several show trophies. Three were first place. I loved that bike!
I always rode alone, and liked it that way. All that changed one day when I was cruising around and ran into this attractive woman in a market place. Her name was Carol. She was around my age and well kept for her age. I was especially attracted to her because of her classic looks. She was of Italian decent, had a slender figure, wore her long brunette hair in a pony tail, and had the strong scent of woman. I made the usual advances, and she acquiesced. It didn’t take long for us to get intimate. Now I had a rider on the back of my bike. I still preferred to ride solo and did so as much as I could. I will always remember that one summer day when we were on our way back from Connecticut. It began to rain and it came down heavy as we were riding on this country road. I heard this popping sound and then a scream from Carol. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road. I looked around and there was Carol, crying hysterically while holding onto an umbrella that had turned inside out! I started to laugh so hard that I lost my breath. I said: “Why would you OPEN an umbrella on a motorcycle!” We were both standing there in the pouring rain. In her cute naive way, she said: “I...I didn’t know...” We got a lot of mileage out of that laugh for a long time afterwards. It was dangerous, but we continued to ride—-in the downpour—-until we reached a friend’s house.
She was the jealous type and did all within her power to make sure that I didn’t go anywhere without her. This jealousy was the cause of much strife between us and it caused a love/hate relationship between us. I had to find ways to get out on the motorcycle without her interfering. On one early spring day I got up early to get out on the open road. Just as I was preparing, she showed up at my doorstep. She told me that her mother wasn’t feeling well and she wanted to be with me that day. I suggested that she should be with her aging mother—-who was at that time dying of cancer. She was very adamant and insisted on going on the motorcycle with me. I repeated myself more vigorously. But, she was determined to go with me. I gave in. We went for a long ride into Connecticut. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day. We stopped at a village coffee shop and relaxed for a while, taking in the scenery and talking to other cyclists.
About the middle of the day, we decided to return home. We went down to the Hudson River for a while to watch the boats. She wanted to get back to my apartment, so we took off. It was such a wonderful clear day that I wanted to take the long way back. I took a narrow winding road through the hillside. Carol was holding onto me tightly, with her head pressed against my shoulder. She was shouting in my ear about something her sister was doing that bothered her. I kept trying to focus on the road and ignore her. I heard her say: “Watchhhhhhh!” And then, in an instant, a split second, I recall myself giving out a heavy grunt, and then...there was “darkness.” No pain, no thoughts, just silent-darkness.
The next thing I recall, within the depths of my very soul I heard myself say: “I’m not going to die!” And then in an instant, my eyes began to open slowly. I was in the kneeling position with my hands in the push-up position on the blacktop road. I was dazed and disoriented. I don’t recall any pain, only a feeling of the wonderment of being alive! I turned my head slowly to my left and there was a woman bending down beside me and asking: “Are you all right?” I looked down at my legs and said: “I don’t...know!” I wasn’t sure that I had all my body parts. I feared I didn’t. Then I looked around and saw my twenty-six thousand dollar, Harley Davidson lying on the road behind me by about twelve feet. The Springer front forks were twisted around like a pretzel, and the rest of the bike was unrecognizable. Just beyond the bike, a short distance and to the side, I saw a late model car that had a major indent between the hood and the front fender.
Still in the prone position, I turned my head back around and saw Carol laying face down on the road, and not moving. The lady beside me was in a state of shock. I began to low-crawl towards Carol’s body—-a combat technique Marines use while under fire. When I reached her, she turned her head towards me and said: “John...am I going to die?” I reassured her that she would not die. I said: “You’re not going to die Carol. You’ll be all right....!” I noticed a combination of water and blood beneath her legs. Then I put my limp arm around her and I recall intensely praying to God: “Please don’t let her die...please!” If a heart could ever bleed, that was one of those times. All this time, I was oblivious to everything else going on around us.
I began to hear all the sirens of the emergency vehicles. I rolled over on my back to release my hold on Carol. The next thing I remember is a paramedic woman looking down on me and saying: “Sir...don’t move!” Then as the other paramedics were strapping me to a board with a neck brace, I heard her say: “Take him first. He’s dying.” She apologized to me and said: “You’ll have to be patient sir. We have a dead man who needs evacuation first.” I overheard the others talking about that man who came down from his lawn to help us and had a heart attack when he got to Carol. They finally came back to me and ambulanced me to the hospital.
I was put in an emergency ward. When what seemed like an hour had passed, a doctor came to me and said: “Son, you are one lucky man. You were catapulted into the air over a car and landed on your helmet. Your girlfriend landed several feet in front of you, on her knees. Your crotch has been torn open but you still have your private parts intact; most motorcyclists who go through the handle-bars lose them! You landed on your helmet and your plastic sun-glasses saved your eyes. You have a broken wrist bone and possible damage to your groin area. You’re going to be black and blue for a while. I’ll release you for further observations and tests tomorrow.” When he left the room, I thought about the accident that actor Christopher Reeve had in falling off his horse. He landed in “mud,” twisted his neck, and was paralyzed for the rest of his life from the neck down. I landed on my head on a paved blacktop road from about eight feet in the air and had only these minor injuries.
I got myself together and asked one of the nurses to bring me to see Carol. He wheeled me over to her room and as I was going in, they were pushing a gurney out with Carol strapped to it. She spotted me on her right side and said: “John...don’t leave me.” They transported her in for immediate surgery. I asked one of the attending nurses what her chances of survival were and he said: “She is in bad shape. They don’t think she will ever walk again. Both of her knees are shattered, and she’s lost a lot of blood.” I stayed in the hospital all night while they operated on her. Early the next morning, the doctors told me that she would survive, but that she would most likely never walk again. I felt a stabbing pain to my heart.
The next day, the local newspaper ran the story. It titled the article (The Good Samaritan) and it read: (“...this man went to help two people who were lying in the road from an accident, and the stress caused him to have a heart attack there. He was revived by paramedics on the way to the hospital. Two motorcyclists were ejected from their bike and catapulted into the air, landing on the blacktop road. The operator of the motorcycle is recovering and the passenger is in critical condition with major damage to her legs....”)
For the next year, Carol went through several surgeries with local orthopedics and eventually ended up going to a noted bone-specialist in Manhattan who had to redo all the previous work by the incompetent surgeons in Poughkeepsie. Titanium pins and rods made it possible for her to eventually walk again--with a degree of pain and discomfort. My arm was put in a cast and other than a broken wrist bone and numerous abrasions; I healed well and returned to working as a carpenter. Our relationship during the healing process was contemptuous because she blamed me for all her misery and suffering. As ridiculous as it may be, I did buy a bigger and better Harley not too long afterwards, and even rode it with the arm in a cast, but because of a near-hit with a large deer; I decided to give up motorcycles for good. It was time. Our love/hate relationship continued as before the accident, only more intense. Fortunately, it was more love than hate and it remains that way to this day. I always thought of our relationship as that of two misfits trying to fit. We were too much alike, from the start.
I later found out that the driver of the car that hit us was an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua. He was sixteen and had no license, no insurance, and stole his father’s car. He was ticketed for (failure to yield the right of way)—-so I was told. A sad commentary for sure!
Ironically, on that same road, later that year, a young, engaged couple were traveling along on their motorcycle, and they struck a car that pulled out in front of them. The bike erupted in flames and the couple burned to death on the spot.
“To be or not to be (continued?). That is the question.
With each chapter, you court death. Riding motorcycles does seem to be a death sentence waiting to happen. Ironically, my cousin, at 15, while earning money running a lawn mowing service with other kids doing the work in his small town bought a Triumph Bonneville. I only rode with him once on the winding highway west of that town doing about 90 miles-per-hour, he had his left hand on the handlebar and turned right to talk to me over his shoulder as the curves came up very fast.
Like you, he ran through his nine lives quickly. In two years he had three accidents with the bike. One knocking himself out and a broken collarbone on a telephone pole on a lonely stretch of country road. And then, T-boning cars that pulled in front of him like you. On the first one he actually put the bike down and flew over the hood of the car, landing on his feet. After collecting himself, jumped on the bike and tried to catch his stupid causer that ran a stop sign. On the second, coming down a hill in town with a male college student friend, he smashed his right hand and leg into the back quarter of a car who ran a stop sign. He gave up motorcycles at 18.
Later, after he learned to fly and eventually got a commercial license, he almost, "bought the farm," when he was flying to see me from Dayton to Morgantown, West Virgnia, encountering a storm and coming out of the clouds upside down at 500 feet. He eventually quit flying as too dangerous, but a few years ago, while driving alone at night in North Dakota, died outside his Expedition window (no seatbelt, window down?) In late December at 57. I tried to write his story from my point of view, but his sisters did not want me publishing it. "He was no angel," one sister told me. Are any of us?
I really felt bad for Carol. What happened ruined what seemed to be a good relationship. There's no good way to have a motorcycle accident at speed. You are both extremely lucky.
Methinks you have more chapters in your storied life. Looking forward to them. Death wishes all?
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Startling memoir is about a woman
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Entering into the twenty-first century, I became very good at my trade as a carpenter/builder and I was doing well financially too. I rented a large apartment in an old Victorian house and proceeded to renovate it myself. It was good for me to be in the country again. I looked at my life as if I had come “full-circle.” I was entering the ranks of the middle-aged and looking forward to finally settling down from all the world-hopping and chasing after the proverbial “brass ring”--or as wise, old King Solomon expressed it: “A chasing after the wind.”
