Coach Said I Had Heart Miles 9460-9505 November 10

Coach Said I Had Heart Miles 9460-9505 November 10

I go downstairs to check my email just before I plan to leave for Orrick. The phone rings. “Edgar, this is Bobby Grisham. That story you wrote about Pete was awesome. You’re a wordsmith. I made copies to end to the guys.”

Bobby was the star halfback on the Huntsville High School football team that won 15 straight and the Class AA State Championship of Texas in 1953. I was on the team. The coach said I had heart. I played on kickoffs. We scored 615 points that year. That’s a lot of kickoffs.

Bobby and I ran together for President and Vice-President of the student council. We won. High school was good to both of us. He and I both went to Sam Houston State Teacher’s College, just across town from our high school. He starred for the Sam Houston Bearcats. They went undefeated in 1956.

I was active in the Baptist Student Union on campus. Working for the BSU I met Bobbie the first day she came to campus as a freshman. We had a date to the first football game a week later. We saw Bobby play. Bobbie and I have been married for 46 years. Just two weeks ago we both saw Bobby for the first time in more than 20 years.

We all had come to the 50^th Anniversary of our team’s state championship. Now Bobby is calling to make sure that he gave me a copy of the video of that game. None of us knew until recently that a film of that game existed. Bobby called the widow of Mance Park, our head coach. She remembered that a film had been made. But there had been a fire. She thought the film had been destroyed. Then she called back. She had found the film.

It was on a big reel, the kind home-movie projectors used in the 1950s. Bobby took it to a video place and they made a video of it. Bobby had it set to music—Chariots of Fire. Bobbie and I had been living and teaching in England in the spring of 1982. Our little town had no movie theatre. We drove to a nearby town one night to see a movie. We didn’t know what was playing. It was Chariots of Fire. It won the best picture Oscar.

I’m wearing my Gore-Tex rain suit as I set out for Orrick and breakfast at Fubbler’s Cove. The regulars are gathered. I join them for some good-natured kidding. We all talk about the effect the rain will have on our day.

Light rain falls all the way back. Water gets inside my shoes. My feet are soaked by the time I get home.

Ridin’ in the Rain Miles 9505-9555 November 11

November mornings can test your mettle. Gray and overcast with a light mist and poor visibility, this morning is a ready-made excuse for keeping to the house and staying off the road. But giving in comes hard to me.

Rain comes harder as I leave 210 and turn downhill into Missouri City. To plummet down this steep and winding hill on a dry day brings a natural high. But when wet, the surface is slick and treacherous. Applying brakes to wet wheels is dicey. They can grab and stop too fast, sending the bike out of control. They can fail to work at all. I apply them softly. A car comes around the bend toward me. And pulls left. We make it past each other.

By the time I’ve come through Missouri City on old 210 and back to new 210, raindrops on my glasses distort everything I see. I turn back toward home and ride a mile with a civil war raging in my head. “You need the miles. Go the distance,” says the bolder voice. “You can make it up on a better day,” says the sensible one. “This is November. There may not be a better one,” says the first. “It’s early in the month. There will be many better,” says the second.

The bolder voice wins. I reverse and head for Orrick: 55 at 8:55—so announces the blinking sign at the bank of Orrick as I leave 210 and turn right onto Z for the last mile to Fubbler’s Cove.

I take a seat at the round table in the front window and take out my writing tablet. Over biscuits and gravy and hot chocolate, Fubbler’s morphs into HateBuster’s satellite office. I spend the next half-hour putting down on paper the words I’ll transfer to my word processor when I get home.

A Few Rounds with Mike Tyson Miles 9555-9630 November 12

Two days after JD severed a tendon in his finger with a saw his sister gave birth to a son. JD’s finger was treated and his nephew was born at Liberty Hospital. Today in the Kearney paper JD’s picture appears, announcing his status as uncle to Alexander Dean. JD’s mother, Betty, waits on me this morning at Sarah’s Table and shows me a picture of her new grandson, with his full head of black hair.

.Mel Phillips is seated at his usual table. He orders biscuits and gravy and tells me about biking up Cliff Drive over by the Kansas City Museum as a young teen with a one-speed bicycle. Janis asks if she needs to make more gravy for Saturday when we all come here for breakfast on our bikes. “I’ll call you when we leave Biscari Brothers to tell you how many are coming,” I say. I break from my usual routine this morning and order a bowl of oatmeal and a cinnamon roll.

Then out Old BB to MM and Lawson. I’m planning to pick up the canister bank that’s been sitting on the counter at Catrick’s for months. As I walk in two regulars have just arrived. “Care for company?” I ask. We sit together. And when Kenny orders Special #2—grilled tenderloin sandwich, tater tots and ice tea, so do I.

Catherine comes to cashier as I leave. “Won’t be long till you have to hang it up,” she says as she takes my money. Her mind is obviously set on the coming cold weather. My mind is seized in that instant by the Apostle James’s description of life’s impermanence. “Life is like a mist that comes in the morning and burns away by noon,” he says. “Won’t be long,” I say to Catherine.

Gusts of gale-like winds buffet my bike all the way from Lawson to Liberty. Bulging rear panniers make my back wheel a fat target, and those winds coming at me from the right now and then suddenly shove me to the left, into the path of on-coming cars. Luckily Salem Road is lightly traveled and Highway 69 has a wide shoulder. So even though the wind almost blows me over a time or two, it does not threaten my life.

Hewing to a straight line has never been my long suit. But this is ridiculous. I’m all over the road. The howling north wind came up about noon, bringing with it the 30 degree temperature plunge predicted last night on TV. By the time I get home, I’ve gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson. He bit my ear. And hit below the belt. But I survived to ride another day.

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