Growing Young

About a week ago, my kids and I took a ride on the Frontrunner, the new commuter rail. Because all rides were free that day, it was noisy, loud, and we were packed in like sardines. Most of the passengers were not too happy with the ride because of the conditions, my kids included, but I had a great time.

I sat across from an older retired couple who kept me in stitches the entire trip to town. The woman was in her seventies, and her husband was eighty, yet they were two of the liveliest and most active people I had ever met.

They were active Harley riders!

I was floored and amused as they shared with me some of their experiences on the road. Sometimes they traveled alone, and sometimes they rode in a pack with other retired motorcycle riders.
The wife told me about how at times a group of fifty or so of them would ride through small towns, stop at a Maverick or 7-11, and make some of the residents uncomfortable. Then they would begin taking off their helmets, exposing their very, very gray hair, and people went from being fearful to amazed.
Once, the woman and her husband went on a road trip alone and pulled into a biker bar parking lot just for fun. Her husband approached another very large biker and began to playfully talk smack to him. The biker began to get angry and the woman thought she and her husband were about to become biker history, until they took off their helmets. The white hair completely took the biker by surprise. Then he laughed and said how he admired their guts. By the time the couple left, they had made a friend.

Now I'm not suggesting that we should do something that drastic (though it would be fun,) but that husband and wife live life! They are not growing older, they are growing younger. They don't let the passing of years stop them. They laugh in the face of creaky knees and surgeries, and embrace each line and wrinkle. They are completely positive about life and face it head on, no matter what it throws at them. They are amazing.

Thought For The Week

"It is often during the worst of times that we see the best of humanity-awakening within the most ordinary of us that which is most sublime. I do not believe that it is circumstance that produces such greatness any more than it is the canvas that makes the artist. Adversity merely presents the surface on which we render our souls' most exacting likeness. It is in the darkest skies that stars are best seen."

Richard Paul Evans

The Letter