I had come back from a business trip in Indianapolis in which four planes rides, three nights of drinking, and 4 days of no sleep caused me to come down with a double cocktail of illnesses. Pneumonia with a shot of the flu as a chaser. I stepped onto the scale at the doctor's office and was well over 220lbs. That's more then 40+ lbs overweight for someone who stands 6' tall like I do.
Standing on the scale I started having flashbacks of a few of the recent pictures taken of my fat face at various weddings and family functions. And how the vest buttons on my suits were barely holding it together, severely strained under the pressure of the small child it was trying to hide. Flashing forward to the soon to be summer months with temperatures and conditions not conducive to hiding your girth under layers. Then snapshots of Saturday February 23rd, 2013 started whirling through my head laughing at me. How fat would I be by then if I continued to pack on the pounds?
Would I have to wear one of these on my wedding day?
So along with a few other issues in my life around that time I decided that I needed to change. I have always used my spinal fusion surgery as a crutch not to exercise because I was scared. There are some limitations due to the fusion but in the grand scheme of things nothing major. I had to find something low impact so with my fiance's prodding we bought me a bicycle.
And it really has changed my life. I feel great. I have lost over 40lbs and counting and have ridden over 400 miles as of last night. I get up every morning looking forward to breaking a sweat and getting on the bike. It has forced me to change my diet as well. No more 5 course meals in the middle of the night. No more fried foods or gluttonous carb and calorie heavy meals in excess just cause I was bored or in my head. It has also brought me closer to one of my uncles as he has been accompanying me on rides about every other day.
It has made me think alot too. Some good. Some negative. But mostly it has helped to fight off some of my inner demons. My 'Stranger' so to speak for all my fellow Billy Joel fans or my 'Dark Passenger' for all the Dexterphiles out there.
Bike riding has also made me think about when I used to ride a bike as a kid. Aside from riding with my friends in the neighborhood or to the local ball field or even in our mock Olympics we used to hold every summer, the two most iconic images I have in my mind of bicycles as a child is of Miss Gulch and Mrs. Chase.
Miss Gulch of course is from The Wizard of Oz, the character in Dorothy's life she morphed into the Wicked Witch of the West in her dream. Who can forget her riding in on her bicycle and taking Toto away from Dorothy with her theme music perfectly adding to the dramatic tension in what I always felt was the scariest scene in the movie. She was so mean. And at such an early age I couldn't comprehend someone being so mean. It is an image that is forever emblazoned in my memory banks and a piece of music I will always have an affinity for.
So who is Mrs. Chase you say?
From the time I was 8 years old to about 13 or 14 I used to spend a lot of time during my summers at my grandparents house. My father's parents lived in Amityville on the South Shore of Long Island. I would hangout with my grandparents all day and night for numerous days in a row. I would go in the pool or run errands with my grandmother, try to help my grandfather in his garden, or wash the cars for $5 a pop when I wasn't playing with some of the other neighborhood kids. It was during this time my two youngest aunts introduced me to a new TV channel called MTV. They were both home from college during the summers and they would recuperate from the previous night by hanging out on the couch with me watching MTV, eating Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup (using potato chips as our spoons) and washing it down with Grandma's iced tea. At night me and Grandma would watch old TV show reruns like Batman and the Honeymooners while waiting for my aunts to come home.
It was during this time that I met Mrs. Chase. She was an elderly woman who lived up the block from my grandparents. Ironically the neighborhood kids used to make fun of her and call her Miss Gulch. She was ALWAYS riding her bicycle wherever she went. She had a car but chose the bicycle as her preferred method of transportation. I never understood why. She would ride through the neighborhood and all the kids would call her names and make fun of her. I never understood that either. I do have to admit she did look like Miss Gulch a bit on some occasions.
But I felt bad for this old woman. She never did anything to the kids that mocked her. She was just minding her own business riding her bike through the neighborhood on her way to whatever errand she had to accomplish. She always seemed like she didn't hear the other kids. But looking back, I'm sure she was just ignoring the little shits, as to not give them any satisfaction over the hurtful names they were callously throwing her way.
So one day I was outside my grandparents' house washing my aunt's maroon hatchback Mustang when she came riding her bike down the block. So I said hello. And I remember her face lighting up with a smile that I had never seen before. She stopped her bike and introduced herself to me. I remember being totally thrown off because she was nothing like the names that had been thrown at her or used to describe her. She was a sweet, caring old lady who really just wanted someone to talk to. We talked for a long time that first day. She told me how she was caring for her husband who became disabled in his old age and how she prefers riding her bike because it keeps her feeling young. And she told me she knew that I wasn't part of the name calling that she experiences from the other kids on the block. I'll never forget she said, "I know Mildred (my grandmother) would never raise a child or grandchild that would treat someone that way." I remember being really proud that she thought that highly of my grandmother.
That encounter started a unique friendship between a lonely old woman and a young child that looked through the world with rose colored glasses. Every time she drove by the house from then on she would stop and we would chat for awhile. Sometimes my grandmother would see us chatting and come out and join us. We would chat 2 or 3 times a week during those summer days I spent with my grandparents. I even went bike riding with her a few times. She was such a really nice lady and I could never wrap my head around why people were so mean to her. I'm sure she was hurt by it all although I never got around to asking her out of fear of upsetting her.
As I got older and spent less time at my grandparents during the summer they would always tell me that Mrs. Chase says hello whenever I would see them. She would always stop in front of their house to see if I was there. The last time I saw Mrs. Chase I was probably 19 or 20. I had stopped by to see my Grandparents one day and she was riding her bike down the block. I hadn't seen her in a few years and she was very surprised to see me. She gave me the biggest hug when she got off her bike and told me how much she missed our little chats and how much she appreciated them. We talked for about an hour each filling the other in on what has been going on with our lives and I promised here I would seen her again soon. Then she rode her bicycle off around the bend and I never saw her again. To this day I still do not know what happened to Mrs. Chase. I'm sure she has passed away by now as she was up in age even when I was a kid. Maybe the bicycling has kept her young and she is still out there riding her bike down Carmen's Road right now. The more likely scenario I'm sure is that she has ridden her bicycle through the Pearly Gates at some point since I last saw her.
I am sharing this story because I honestly felt compelled to put it to pixel. I couldn't shake it. Because without fail and for reasons unknown, every time I get on my bicycle I think of her. I wonder what happened to Mrs. Chase? Did she feel pain at the end? Was she still lonely? How long did she have to live on this Earth without her husband? Did she ever forget our chats? Did she find someone to take the time and talk to her after I grew up? What did her family do with her bike after she passed?
But most of all, how I should have learned from her when I was a child and picked up bike riding much earlier in life.
One of my goals in this new bike riding endevour of mine is to ride my bike in life as long as Mrs. Chase did. I hope I can make her proud. I hope that wherever she is, she is riding her bike along with me.
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