This morning, Suzanne and I set out for Monroe, Georgia, to go buy some soap. I mapped a back-road route we’d never seen before and mounted up on the trusty Ninja. When we got there, we discovered the store where we were going to buy soap was closed, so we shot over to The Cotton Cafe for lunch.
When we got there, Suzanne went to take care of some biological business, while I stood at the counter perusing the menu. As I stood, there was an elderly gentleman standing behind me wearing motorcycle pants, and I told him to go ahead, that I was going to be a few minutes. He started to say something about not being in a rush, and I told him I was waiting on a lady, so I’d be a few minutes.
Suzanne came back to the counter, and as she approached, this guy lit up. He looked at me and said “Do you mind if I give your pretty lady a hug?” I told him to ask her, but it was okay by me.
We ordered some lunch, and were sitting at a table talking, when the elderly gentleman came up behind me again. He touched me on the shoulder, and asked me if I minded if he took a look at my motorcycle. I told him I’d been looking at his, and he was welcome to do the same. He came back a few minutes later, and asked if we minded him telling us a story or two about his bikes while we waited for lunch, and he proceeded to tell me about an FJR1200 that he has back in his garage at home that he’s had since new.
Making a longer story short, after we had finished eating, he asked if he might sit and talk with us a bit, and we welcomed him. His name is Bob, and he’s 80 years old. He rides a 1500cc Yamaha cruiser – his concession to aging. Bob has ridden in every state of the union, including Alaska and Hawaii. He’s ridden in the desert in Baja, and a few times overseas. He’s got over 800,000 miles under his belt. A few stories later Bob and I realized we both knew at least one other rider, and had been at the same funeral about 10 years ago. Bob, Suzanne, and I sat and swapped stories, eventually to be joined by another guy named Bob, for a good hour and a half.
A couple things Bob kept saying stuck with me. One, is that when he was 60, he told his doctor he was really 240 years old, because he had lived four times as much on the back of his motorcycle as anyone else. He also kept telling us to “Take care of yourself.” Not in a sense of “be careful.” That’s a given amongst our tribe. More in a sense of “Get out there and live for yourself.”
As we were getting ready to go, Bob told me he was glad we decided to sit and talk, because think what we would have missed if we hadn’t. We all geared up to mount up our respective rides, and Bob had two buttons on his yellow safety vest. One of them was a BMWMOA pin, and the other a 2-inch round button that simply said “Take care of yourself.”
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