Head Out on the Highway
Even while you are in the business world, you have to have something to look forward to in retirement. Here is a look at what you can expect. Sign up for the laughs at https://boomer2go.com.
I eyed our teal and cream #IndianChiefClassic motorcycle sitting in the garage just outside of our new #condo. I could see it whenever I was on the balcony of our two-story unit. I found myself humming to Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild, my imagination returning to the days when we hiked our legs over our motorcycles and charged onto the road as though we intended to ride along with Tim Allen and his Wild Hogs.
Yeah. We’ve still got it, I thought to myself. We arethose daredevil, fun-loving, doo-rag, motorcycle-riding beasts of our youth. Forty-seven years of marriage was not going to change that! We had a hot bike in the driveway and no place to be. Thatis what retirement did for you.
Closing my eyes, I pictured us on the open road once more, my long blonde hair tangled in the hot summer breeze as we wound our way along the #backroads of #SouthDakota headed nowhere in particular. I opted to wrap my arms around my trim-figured man and enjoy the quiet miles and endless sunshine. It was #1998 all over again.
When my eyes fluttered open, I stared at our bike once more, not even giving it a thought that it was 2018 or the fact that I’d need the Jaws of Life to get my legs that far apart.
“Honey!” I screamed through the #French door. “Let’s go for a ride.”
My husband looked at me as though I had a third eye. “Okay, but it's been awhile,” he said hesitantly, “and its 97 degrees out.” I reasoned that our riding abilities were honed as sharp as a butter knife, but knew neither of us were ready to give up creating the adventures we’d experienced on that motorcycle…even at our age.
“Don’t you remember the way we used to spontaneously jump on the bike and ride hundreds of miles not even knowing where we’d end up at night?” My voice seemed to echo a plea for the past as I pursued the dream in my head.
“Was that before arthritis settled in my shoulders?” he quipped, not even looking up from his book, “or was it after we added that eighty pounds between us to the weight of the bike?” I ignored him, but eyed the wall for the bat we kept handy for intruders.
The magic of my illusion was outweighing the reality of his words, so I pushed on.
“But don’t you remember the beauty of the Black Hills and all of the little places we used to stop and visit?”
I could see him look off into the distance as though searching the disk in his head for the many #SouthDakota moments we had enjoyed. “Sure,” he said. A smile crept onto his lips, or maybe it was a sneer.
Undeterred, I continued. “We were bad to the bone,” I said, sure he would catch the reference to George Thorogood’s top hit. “We were,” my voice sunk to a whisper.
“Here,” I said, jerking my cell phone from my pocket as I began searching for the #photos of the last trip we had taken #West. My fingers swiped the face of my #IPhone until they started to cramp. Suddenly, up popped the photos I’d been looking for. I mirrored them to the television on Apple TV, and I plopped into my recliner to relive one of our glorious #motorcycle adventures.
“Hey,” my husband said as he pointed excitedly at the first photo. “That was taken on the first day of our last trip. Remember how hot it was?”
I had to admit; the memory was flooding back. Fifteen minutes into that particular trip I had pulled off my top and rode in my sports bra for three hundred miles. He had also removed his shirt. Suddenly, my dream disappeared and the real picture of that moment flashed in my head. I wasn’t the pretty blonde haired girl. I was the wrinkled, chubby, “you’ve got to be kidding, that old lady is riding in a bra?” woman trying to pass as someone much younger and much tougher than I really was. My trim-figured man was at least thirty pounds heavier and he had only a thread or two of hair left to waffle in the breeze, even then.
Back then we had passed the point of “middle age” as quickly and silently as the pounds had settled on my backside. We were closing in on “senior,” like a baby snuggling up to big boobs. Only the drive to be seen as young and able had not waned.
As people passed us, they honked, pointed, and giggled. We waved back not realizing we must have looked like two de-feathered birds, our pure white hides pocked with fat, and our bare arms flapping like chicken skin.
I quickly moved to the next picture where the windshield of the bike was showing in the photograph, adding to the display of lightning flashing across a darkened sky.
“Remember that day?” My husband’s voice raised the slightest little bit, his eyes widened as he moved toward the edge of his recliner. “That was something!”
My mind wanted to take the same detour as his memory had obviously done. He droned on about the beauty of the lightning storm we were headed toward. “That was a real adventure!” he exclaimed, “Wasn’t it?” He twisted his head toward me too soon for me to feign a smile.
Throwing my hands in the air as though I had palsy, I couldn’t stop the words already pouring from my mouth.
“Are you kidding me?”
By now I had lurched from the chair and was standing over him, feeling like a crazed post-menopausal freak whose chocolate had been ripped from her hands.
“We were half-naked and had ridden at least 500 miles in 95-degree weather. I’d told you for the last two hundred of them that I had to pee, but you wouldn’t stop.” I poked my sausage finger into his chest. “I actually peed on the seat of the bike and was forced to let it dry before I could get off!”
Sucking in another breath and feeling my blood pressure near the blowing point, I pressed on.
“I kept asking if we needed gas because I was starving and you managed to find the only station in the West that served nothing but gas and beet juice!”
My engine was now running on full bore. My husband quickly pushed back in his chair returning to his supine position, I supposed, to be sure he had the advantage of space lest I reached for the bat.
Without missing a beat, I ranted on.
“Then, the temperature dropped like a brick off a building and there we were, goose bumps as big as the wart on your mother’s face and YOU decide we need to drive into the storm! I swear the lightning was so close it shaved all the hair off my legs!”
He jerked his head away from me like he was looking for a defense tool, but I swear I heard him say, “That’s a good thing.”
By now my finger was pressing so hard on the I-phone that thirty-two pictures had skimmed by before I passed all 6,284 pictures on my phone.
On the screen in front of me was not the robust young couple bound for glory currently imbedded in my mind. Instead, there were two old people; swooning like drunken sailors and hanging on to each other in a death grip only the Hulk could match. I couldn’t help thinking, Who are those people?
My husband looked at me and grinned.
“You remember that night, don’t you?” he said doing his best to bring me down off the ledge he saw me headed toward.
The scowl on my face was replaced by a tentative smile. I didn’t want him to see me laugh as I recalled the tiny hotel and the room that was so small we practically had to stand up in order to sleep. We’d taken showers shortly after the photo was taken and before we decided to post ourselves on two rickety rocking chairs on the porch of the Mom and Pop hotel. The place was a bit rundown, and the owners reminded us of ax murderers, but we didn’t hear any banjos playing, and the place was cheap, so we stayed.
We talked for a long time, mulling in our minds the good times we’d been blessed with. Then we listened to the sounds of the wildlife around us, the quietness allowing us each to recall and regret the foolish things we’d done. I had to admit, mad as I’d been seconds earlier, those moments were #magical…
…that was until we returned to the room and found two mice doing their thing under my pillow and a #raccoon eating my last peanut butter cracker. The night ended with us shaking out our clothes, catching a short nap on the rocking chairs, and hitting the road before #daybreak.
“But Honey,” he said, “we always had a great time, didn’t we?”
I clicked off the TV, sat down and sighed. “Guess it wasn’t as romantic as I’d made it out to be in my mind,” I said tapping the phone on my wiggling thigh. The music in my head had snapped off as #Steppenwolf was already a distant memory.
Sensing my impending depression, my husband leaped from his chair, opened the nearby closet and snatched a doo-rag off from the hook. Waving his hand for me to follow, he walked to the wall hanger that held the keys to the bike. I couldn’t help but break into a grin.
“Come on, Honey,” he said, his handsome smile as virile as I’d ever remembered. Then he bent his knees into a position I knew he’d need a crane to get out of and started playing an air guitar as he sang “Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway, looking for adventure, in whatever comes our way!”
By now I am crying down my legs.
“We can still do this,” he said as he reached for me to help him stand, “only this time let’s keep our shirts on!”
Sometimes, I just want to hug that man to death.