FREEDOM OF ROAD RIDERS AND MY BIG REGRET

In 2005 a car turned left in front of me on my 1974 Swiss Army Condor motorcycle. It seems that the college student driving the car was not able, in broad daylight, to see something as large as a man holding a headlight in the oncoming lane. Just before hitting the car, I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see the gore. Somehow, though, the angels helped me avoid a head-on, and instead I scraped along the side of the car until my bike caught on its rear fender or bumper, stopping it but not me. My body continued on, breaking the handlebars along the way, and with my eyes still closed I heard my body go ker-plop on the pavement.

I immediately jumped up, very angry, thinking: How could anyone have the gall to run into a 1974 Swiss Army Condor motorcycle?!  Then, standing there, I suddenly felt a lot of pain in my right kidney area and right shoulder, and figured it would be far better if I lay down, so I did.

People were so nice. Soon I was surrounded by helpful folks. It was beginning to rain, so someone got the tarp off the back of my bike and soon there was a circle of wonderful people getting wet as they held the tarp over me like a roof. One man offered me his phone to call someone, so while lying on the street I called home to tell them to meet me at the hospital.

The kidney pain turned out to be, I suppose, only a badly pulled muscle, but I did have a separated shoulder that kept me out my post office job for four months. Meanwhile the driver's insurance company paid me a total of $33,000, for which my family and I were very thankful.

But, besides the accident, I have one huge regret from that experience. At the time, I was a member of the Freedom of Road Riders, the local motorcycle club. While I wore foreign, olive-drab clothing and a Swiss Army helmet, the other members had long hair or shaved heads and wore patch-covered vests and looked pretty tough. Once I went on a road trip with them, in which we would often run through red lights as a group, holding up traffic, etc. The mostly Harley riders complimented me for keeping up on my 350cc Condor and were very nice and accepting.

Then I had the accident, and my bike was out of commission for several months, as was I.
Finally, back on my mail route, I talked with one of the members of the Freedom of Road Riders, who was surprised to hear what had happened to me. And he asked me why I didn't let the club know. He said that whenever something like this happens to a member, it's their custom to go en masse to the injured member's home to wish him well!  Having a large crucifix on the front of our house in the middle of the Baptist Bible Belt, we're already considered a bit different. But our neighbors never would have let us live down having a hundred tough-looking bikers come riding down Gooseberry Court and parking all over the road and driveway and yard to visit me! 

Yep, one of my greatest regrets was not telling the Freedom of Road Riders about my wreck.

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