LIFE IS NEVER A STRAIGHT COURSE
As you read below Buddy loves horses as much as he loves his bike. The highlight of horses and bikes each year is joining the local school FFA Parade. We usually participated with Residents riding their bikes in the parade. We would take over bikes on trailers and set up at the Police Station at the corner of highway 90. The parade was down highway 90 to Wells Fargo Bank (about 2 miles). Buddy would get so excited to see the folks on horses and Buddy always wore his black cowboy hat and waved to the other cowboys.
One year I requested to the Parade Leaders that we ride next to the horses and they were happy to support. So lining us on highway 90 we got to be right behind a large group of horse riders. I put Buddy right in the middle of the road on the yellow divider line of the highway and told Buddy to just stay on the yellow line; the entire parade and I had two Community Members on both sides of the road to lead the pacing of our group. I was going to be at end of the bikes in truck/float to follow.
The parade started and everything was going great. The Residents who were not in parade would come up and be on the side of the road to watch the entire parade. About a quarter of a mile I started to observe Buddy zig zagging back and forth on the road ahead of me. It really reminded me of a drunken cowboy on a horse after being in a saloon all night, if using western terms. Buddy would not stay on the yellow line and saw Community Members were there on their straight course. Perhaps Buddy was getting tired, dizzy, what??? Then as I started up the road I found out what was happening. The horse just in front of Buddy was leaving lots of “fertilizer” and Buddy was doing his best not to run it over. Buddy continue to go back and forth and the crowd on both sides of the road saw Buddy’s situation and cheered him on to miss running over the “stuff”, and this was going on for the rest of the bikers going all over the place on the road to avoid running over and getting on their tires. It turned out to be a beautiful site watching our bikes that seemed to be doing a fun movement dance on bikes, kinda like it was planned. We came in 2nd place of awards for best group in FFA Parade.
And I learned my lesson to never follow horses in a parade. Just remember life is never a straight course and zig zagging you might learn some new lessons.
Buddy joined Brookwood the summer of 1985 and truly was the first Resident to use a bike as the main mode of transportation, riding to work and activities. Still doing this and if you did not already know he is a true Cowboy, “Cowboy Buddy”, so Buddy rides his bike as he would ride a horse in the western days. Buddy has been in the most parades in our town and most of the times riding a bike alongside horses. This will be Buddy’s second Bike to the Beach ride, ready to go 12 miles.
