* * I ride because I can

There’s nothing I love more than a brisk ride around our awesome backroads on my classic Honda CBX motorcycle.
It’s Sunday, and I enter the garage and nudge the CBX off its center-stand and roll it forward into the cool morning air. I dutifully don my reinforced riding boots, my armored pants and jacket, my earplugs, helmet, and gloves. I twist the choke lever, turn the key, and thumb the starter button, and the big six-cylinder engine jumps to life. I throw a leg over the saddle, disengage the clutch, snick it into first gear, feed some throttle while reengaging the clutch, and I’m underway.
Health, aging, and mortality are on my mind as I motor to the end of my street, then head into historic Merrimac.
My heart is heavy. This afternoon, I’ll be attending a memorial service for a former co-worker who died a few days ago. It is my birthday tomorrow, and he died five years younger than my 61 years. He had a rare blood disorder that gradually caused the coagulation of blood throughout his circulatory system, robbing his extremities of needed nutrients. His condition arose nearly 25 years earlier, meaning that he dealt with excruciating pain for almost half his too-short life.
I reach Prices Fork Road and turn west, and then towards Longshop and McCoy. In the fields, rows of corn are tall and vibrant. With all the rain we’ve been having, the pastures are verdant and green, and rows of white marshmallow-like pods of hay line the edges. Vegetable and flower gardens alongside the McCoy Road homes look full and fecund. The magnificent CBX engine purrs along gently.
As we all know, life is a terminal disease. Nobody gets out of it alive. And we never know what hand we’ll be dealt. Some beings never survive infancy. Some die in childhood. Some, like my friend, die in their 50s. Lucky ones live longer.
On Thursday, the speaker at my Blacksburg Rotary Club gave a program entitled, “Growing old gracefully: Good luck on that!” The speaker was a tall man who appeared to me to be in his late 70s or early 80s. He approached the podium holding a long Gandalf-like staff. Listening to him explain the various maladies that await many of us in old age, I noticed some somber expressions from the audience, many of whom had thicker eyeglasses and greyer hair than me. What could we expect? Many elderly people experience a loss of mobility and independence. Many need assistance with everyday functions, including eating, dressing, and toilet. Many lose a sense of purpose and societal usefulness. Growing old ain’t for sissies.
I reach McCoy and the New River, and ride slowly along Big Falls Road, my glances darting from the road to the River to the kayakers playing in the rapids. Trees draped limbs over the road, providing a full canopy. The natural beauty of our area always enchants me.
The speaker listed a litany of his own afflictions, spurring me to take inventory of my own:
- · Both my feet have fallen arches. Both have bunions forming, making walking in boots or dress shoes uncomfortable.
- · My right hip hurts, lingering pain from a dirt-bike accident in my teens. Carrying a backpack is increasingly painful. I can’t run any more.
- · My digestion is frequently problematic. I take medication for high cholesterol.
- · I take two pills daily to manage high blood pressure.
- · I have arthritic tendonitis in my left shoulder and lifting with that arm is painful.
- · A lifetime eyeglass wearer until I had Lasik surgery 10 years ago, my eyesight is now deteriorating again, necessitating eyeglasses for reading and night driving. And I have tinnitus in my ears.
And yet in spite of this inventory of maladies, I still feel reasonably healthy. My parents are in their late 80s, so if nothing serious happens, I have more years to look forward to.
I take Sinking Creek Road to Hoges Chapel and begin the ascent to Mountain Lake on steep Doe Creek Road. I come around a right-hand corner and the bike goes skidding sideways on me, evidently losing traction on gravel or an oil-spot. Reflexively, I get it under control, take a deep breath, and motor onward.
The ageless Mountain Lake Hotel (now the Lodge) has been a forever memory in my life. Ironically, what would seem to be geologically constant, the lake itself, is a mere morsel of its former full-pond existent. All things must pass.
My CBX was made in Japan in 1981. Given good maintenance – and provided I don’t break or crash it – it should be rideable after I’m gone. But I ride it now because I can. When I can’t any more, I’ll stop. Until then, I will savor days like this, when the asphalt roads of my beloved Appalachia pass beneath the wheels of my fine, classic motorcycle, and my heart still pumps life-giving blood throughout my veins.
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