It is now
officially springtime when old men’s hearts turn towards bikes (you can tell we
are getting old when it is not of the opposite sex) and we must begin to
attempt to shed our winter coats. A few of the band of brothers gathered
to the call of Wild, (i.e. Wood, that is) to go south.
We had a
newcomer show up, Ric Tanner. He asked “how long has your
group been together?” In
Clintonesque fashion, the response was: “that all depends on what you mean by the word “group”.”
You see Webster’s Dictionary defines “group” as “A cluster, crowd, or throng; an assemblage, either of persons or things, collected without any regular form or arrangement; as, a group of men or of trees; a group of isles.”
In a loose sense we are a group. We all ride bikes in the same city and
start at the same place. That’s as close to a group as it gets. Ever
aspiring to the leader of the heard of cats, Wood continues to demonstrate
leadership from behind in all the ways you can imagine. The “group”
was scattered from one end of the valley to the other. And true to one of his
motto’s “Every
man, woman and child for him or herself”, while Wood was leading
from way behind Ric went back to find him, only to learn Wood had taken a
different path from the “group”, a shortcut that put him in the
lead. When it came time to climb the “Jack and the Beanstalk Hill”, Wood paused before
the assent to take some pictures of some fillies. He said it was for blog
material, but all know that one of the reasons he stopped was to take a
breather. We all know he uses the roll of the team photographer resulting
in his rearguard command because he needs a break.
Lloyd
managed not to have any accidents along the way and shared a GREAT TATS, "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. - Charles Dickens - Bruner continued to
force the “group”
to keep up the pace, which is why everyone was scattered all over the
valley. And Hale whined the whole way. It was a beautiful
day. We missed our brothers who apparently cannot tolerate the cold early
morning hour of 9:00am (guys the day is half over by then).
Our hearts
especially go out to Eric, Kim and the Briggs family. We said a prayer
for them as we departed on the Odyssey. Our prayers and thoughts are with
you.
“May your dreams be larger than mountains and may you have the courage to scale their summits.”
- Harley King -
Life is a journey, NOT a destination..... Stop, Look and Listen
