Mike & Bike
This is my story of how bikes saved my life.
It may sound like I have lead a charmed life,
I believe that I have.
Mike & Bike
This is my story of how bikes saved my life.
It may sound like I have lead a charmed life,
I believe that I have.
| . There was a time in my life when lost the knowledge of who I was. Not just the normal teenage angst, but I was lost inside myself and what I was expected to be. My life had been spent with very high expectations. I grew up around the space program, My Father was a NASA Engineer. One of the army of men that put man on the moon, in my mind, still mankind's greatest achievement. During the height of the "Space Race" I got to meet more than a few of the Mercury 7 Astronauts . When you are 5, the world is full of promise. All kids want to be a Fireman or Astronaut, but when your Hero Father takes you to meet the men on the cover of Life Magazine, this seems so much more than possible, it seems certain. Once in school I was told I was a "gifted" student. I was in 4th grade and playing with my slide rule, doing trig, while the rest of the kids were struggling with arithmetic. In my young mind, I was on the fast track to being an astronaut, then I was diagnosed with near sightedness. To most kids getting to be the smart kid with "4-eyes" is bad enough, but then the realization hit me - not perfect sight meant no space - no test pilot - no chance. My mind was full of self loathing, what good was it to be doing collage grade work in elementary school, if I could not be a test pilot or be in space.
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I Found Solace in Motorcycles and Bicycles. I learned to ride a
bike at 4 years of age and a motorcycle by the time I was
5.5. I was not very sane, I was a regular at the
emergency room. Every nurse knew me by name. I was putting years on my
poor parents faces each time I broke another bone.While small for my age, I was unstoppable in my riding, broken bones would
not keep me off my bike, I would not even tell my Dad my arm was broken
until my Suzuki was back in shape. Or confess to how I was jumping my
Stingray with a broken arm, crashed and needed a new cast and about 20 stitches
in my chin.
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What to do with my life? I was
just out of High School. Now that I was
never going to be an astronaut, I looked to other choices. I was smart,
too smart for my own good but how to use this, I had not a clue. The Hostages were in Iran, I felt the call of
duty. I tested out at the very top end of the scale in my Military
Entrance Examination. I was going to be a Nuclear Engineer, I stress the was.
After extensive testing and re-testing, I was found out to be very mildly
color blind. My eyes had once again kept me from doing what I thought was
my calling. I was offered the most technical job the Navy had that my eyes
would let me do - Hospital Corpsman. I graduated 2nd in my class and got a
very prime duty assignment, Critical Care Unit at Camp Pendleton.
I tried to be what they thought I should be - It did not work. While there I learned so much. Most 19 year olds do not deal with real life, they are in college or goofing off, I was bringing dead people back to life as the youngest member of the Cardiac Arrest Team. It was a big high to win and a crushing blow to loose, for to loose meant looking into the eyes of this dead person's family. |
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| I did what I could to conform to the Navy, but I was too stubborn to conform. I got in trouble, more than a little - more than once. My professional performance was always rated at the 4.0. while great at my job, I was lousy as a sailor. Once again I had failed to live up to my expectations, I could not fit in to the path of life I thought was mine. I was respected by my patients, I was doing social good, but I was not performing at the unrealistically high goals I had set for myself. What good was having a genius I.Q. but not a lick of true wisdom.. I was looking for validation of myself from my job, I was not looking at who I was - but that would very soon change. | ||
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It was a a Friday the 13th, sunny afternoon in the early 1980's. Just off duty from my shift at the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton, California and ready to head into San Diego when I stopped at a military police (MP) sobriety check. When unexpectedly and violently a very drunk Marine Corporal driving a large late 70's Chevy Impala ran into my stationary Honda V750 Saber. (with a amazing Blood Alcohol of "point-two-six" over twice legally drunk of "point one-o") After the fastest 0 to 60 acceleration of my life, he proceeded to drag me over 200 meters up the road before coming to a stop. There I was, under the car and limp as a dish rag. Exhausted and literally cooking from the combined heat of the asphalt and the engine having held on to the bottom of the car to keep my helmet, with head inside, out of the front wheel for what seemed forever. My amazement of still being alive but wondering for just how much longer. The damage after they lifted the car off me - 17 broken bones plus the worst road rash you have ever seen. After the Ambulance trip back to work I had to endure the worst part, that is, no pain meds due to possible head trauma while they set my bones, scrubbed my road rash and stuck me with huge needles to check for leaks. But I survived and as they say "that which does not kill me - only makes me stronger." ... | |
| After about 3 months of not moving much while my bones knitted themselves back together, my doctors warned me that I may never walk right again due to crushed foot, dislocated hip, severed quads. ... I told them they could !@#$% and the horse they road in on. I did my physical therapy like a man possessed. If the Doctors had intended to use psychology on me - it worked as I took it as my personal challenge to not only walk but run and ride better than I ever did. | ||
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It was not quick, it took months to be able not to use a cane. but
then I was out of the Navy and going home. My life was back to school
and more exercise, but I could not stand another day in the gym. I
saw the neighborhood kids riding some nice looking BMX bikes and then it
began. We had a local race track and a 22 to 30 age class on 24"
wheeled single speed bikes. I did not place that day, but I was hooked.
My Schwinn Predator and I would spend hours together riding in the arid
hills surrounding Barstow all the time making me stronger and returning
the confidence I once had in my abilities. After a season of racing
I began to win some and place in most. I had dozens of trophies from our
local track as well as surrounding tracks in Southern California. I was
a contender for overall cruiser. I won the gold cup that year and riding
home with my 1st four-foot trophy I wanted to take it strait to my old
doctors and place it on their mantle. Thank You all for putting me back
together. |
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This led to many types of bicycle racing when I moved to Fort Worth Texas later in the 80's. I did well, I truly felt that, "pain was only temporary but glory was forever". Getting hurt was still there, but I would not let it slow me down, as the cast on my hand with the 2 pins sticking out in the picture on the left can attest. I then tried Road Bike Racing. I never felt truly at home with the Mercedes and Lexus crowd that were at each race. If only there was a way to combine BMX with the endurance of road bikes. |
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| Then came mountain bikes. I the 80's we rode with thumb shifters and without shocks, I raced, I wrecked, but each time I found a Zen like peace of spirit that I had never known. Places to ride were few, but this promoted riding with a crowd of friends. The atmosphere was loose- hippies and granola's mixed with motocross dudes and BMXer's. You did not have to be wearing the best custom jersey, if you could ride and keep up you were welcome to be a kid with us again. Jumping the mud holes and creek crossings, that was Zen. When you made it over the obstacle, it was not a merely a hurdle, but an opportunity. If you did not make it over, you got muddy - either way it made you grin like you were 6 again when the world did not include mortgages or taxes. |
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I did it - I quit my hospital job and ran away to a bike shop to
race and live the dream. Not the dream of riches and glory, but
the dream of living each day that I had. This glorious day that was in this bonus round of
my life. Family and co-workers could not understand. But the kid in me
was alive and well again. My life would never be easy - who's is? But I
would Never again have to look into a family members eyes when I had
just lost one again. Not that death was that bad -been there done that -
but the look of terror and loss haunted me for days after. My faith and
near death experience had taught me that Death was a transition - not an
end - nothing to be feared.
I was racing and winning some -I was a ranked intermediate in the state - a far cry from "you may never walk without a pronounced limp". I was free - free from self loathing that made me do what I thought was right rather than follow what was in my heart. If I can remember this ever day - and it is not easy my life and yours, would be simple -idyllic and happy. It is that simple. |
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| But this is what I found out in the hours I spent in the
saddle,
1. Live your life now - until you can learn to enjoy the moment you can not know what enjoyment is. The future will arrive, you must live in the here and now. 2. Life is more than collecting possessions, it is a collection of moments, moments so rare in number as when you run out of those moments each one wasted in anger or lost to inaction will burn it's loss into your soul. 3. Each extra hour spent at the office is lost forever. When the day is sunny and the world calls like a siren - do not lash yourselves to your job. Remember it is what we do to make a living - it is not who or what we are - never loose the chance to be in this moment. |
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| That's all
-nothing that will change the world but I hope it helps you understand
me.
The Wizard |
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Updated 06/05/01
Taking the bronze at the Dallas National F-1 race - 2 pins in R-Hand.
