Age and Beauty!!

  I leaned against the soft leather seat of my Roadstar today at the gas pump, eating a chocolate bar before hitting the road again. The sun glistened of my new wax job and I idly rubbed a smudge on the fuel tank. I watch with interest as an old Ural with a sidecar pulled up to the other side of the pump. The bike was strapped down with gear and and older couple, as well weathered as their ride, climbed of the bike and out of the sidecar and stretched. I couldn't help but admire the old bike and this of course got me talking with its riders.

   The gentleman, a man I think was well into his 70's, happily volunteered every last detail about the Ural and its sidecar. Amazingly he could tell me where every scratch and ding came from and he did so with pride. “That machine is just like me,” he said. “I ain't so pretty myself but every line tells a tale and we earned every one of them.” And those lines, on the bike and the man, did have some amazing tales to tell as I found out when I took the opportunity to join the couple for a coffee.

A WWII Ural and Side Car

   This couple had been on the road since May, taking a ride they took 30 years ago on the same bike to Alaska where they planned to stay for a while. They had been forced to sell their farm in the early spring after a lifetime of farming. The woman, told me how the bankers got most of it and what they didn't get, the neighbours bought up at cents on a dollar at auction. “Never forgive those vultures,” she said quite vehemently.

   The good nature of some people shone through in their story as well. One of their neighbours had purchased that Ural bike and sidecar at the auction. A week later this couple stepped out the door of the house they were renting to find that bike pulling into their driveway, cleaned up and obviously tuned up. The rider climbed off the bike, handed over the helmet and said “she's got a lot of romantic rides left in her and you guys should be taking them.” He was their neighbour for as long as they could remember and he wouldn't take a cent for the bike. He just hopped into the truck his son had followed him in and left.

   “I just hated that man when he got that bike for next to nothing at the auction,” the woman said. “I knew it broke my husbands heart more than loosing the farm. That act though restored our faith in people. It was that day we decided to make this trip again and set our roots somewhere else.”

   The old guy laughed and added “We ain't got much time left in us to set roots, but we're like those funny little Japanese trees that roots are exposed and they are all bent out of shape and all. All that stress and hardship makes those things beautiful.”

   I couldn't agree with him more and watched longingly as they climbed onto their bike and headed North, wishing I could join them on the trip instead of just continuing on my daily commute.  As I continued by my ride home a passage came to mind from a book I had read called Cold Mountain.
I looked up the passage I had bookmarked when I got home.

   You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell, Inman said, for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you.

   I know I have added more than a few scars to my collection recently and I can only hope that as I carry them with me that they look as good on me as they did on that couple I just enjoyed coffee with. May their ride be safe and fun, and I hope they can bring some joy and wisdom to to others as they have to me.