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It was not until the morning I ran this year that I figured out just exactly why these biker men and women wave at each other. It's 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning. The sun is barely up, as is the rest of the city. But me, I'm out running my five mile loop. I'm going along, waking up with the day, just enjoying pushing myself farther and harder. Someone else is doing the same exact thing. We wave as we pass. We wave at each other because we share something. We share the ecstasy of running. I’ve spent years telling myself I am not my father, but when I waved, I am just like him when he is on his bike.
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Obsession, determination, something pushes my Father in everything he does. After about a year I hated his Harley Davidson. I hated it like nothing I have ever hated in my life. I figured when he got the bike he would be happy, enjoy riding it, and he and my mother would be normal bikers. If normal bikers was not an oxymoron. My Father did not stop obsessing when he got the bike like I thought he would, but in fact, became even more determined to have the perfect bike. He was constantly changing it. A wide tire kit here, extra chrome there, a windshield, a new faceplate, new headlight kit, more chrome, saddlebags, fringe, even more chrome, a pipe kit. That’s a partial list. Through the years he kept adding to the bike, changing it so it didn’t even look like the original bike he bought. Or so he hinted at. I hardly noticed the changes; either I did not want too, or just all bikes pretty much look the same to me. My Father paid so much attention to that damned bike, it was his third child. I felt like it had replaced me.
Every once in a while I think about the wind in my hair when he would take me out on the bike but as I held my anger in about it, the rides got fewer. I never wanted to be near it. My Mom seemed to ignore the obsession with the bike and rode a lot with him. I noticed that it was bringing them together even. They both loved being out in the air and started to ride with other couples. I remember worrying every time they’d go out that they would come back safe. I hated that bike, but I never wanted anything to happen to it while they were on it. Maybe just for the garage to collapse while we were all inside eating popcorn and watching a nice, family movie.
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When I get an idea in my head, I don’t let anything stop me. I may not have run for a month, but if I want to run five or seven miles on a Saturday morning I will do it whether I hurt or not. My Mom always told me I was determined. My Father joked I got his genes. When I ran that morning, I began to think he was right.
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He has had that bike for eight or so years now. Even though it was top of the line, I don’t think it was brand new when he got it. But it was close. My Father lives and breathes Harley. He obsessives Harley. He doesn’t have a beer belly or a long gray beard and matching handle bar mustache. He’s never been to Sturgis or Daytona Bike Week. But he does have leathers, a plethora of Harley pins, forty-two Harley T-shirts, most from stores across the world he’s never been too, a “biker gang” he and my mother ride with, a plan to someday visit Sturgis and Daytona and to rode trip across
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I always said I never wanted anything to do with that bike after I looked at it as his third child but over the years I found myself buying him Harley T-shirts when I came across a store he’d never been too or maybe something small but with the Harley symbol on it. I even bought him a Harley Davidson Road Atlas last Christmas complete with legendary rides and markers for every Harley store in the Nation. I do all this because I realize I am my Father and I wouldn’t want to be like anyone else but him.
Some days I count my steps between cracks in the sidewalk. I count fingers of people in the room because I want to make sure they have all ten. I align everything perfect at my desk, or at the dinner table. I’m constantly straightening and I’m constantly counting. I’m a little obsessive. But when I make goals or set my mind to something, nothing stops me because I have the heart inside me to accomplish it. Just like my Dad.
I may be a runner and my Father may be a biker but we share something. Our sickly obsessive determination and passionate love for the one thing that keep us sane. His Harley is who he is. It isn’t his third child and it never was. It was something he found that he could enjoy; something he could relate to his family too. Something we could all laugh at together, ride together, even model our family picture after while we all simultaneously wore a Harley shirt. Harley is my family. My dad could bring me home a T-shirt from some Harley store, or buy me a cap while we were on vacation in
Adolescence made me see things a little differently and my resentment made me miss out on some really fun summer days we could have spent riding. But I know now why my father waves every time at a biker, and why it's a universal gesture across the world. It's because we're all a part of something, we’re all passionate about something. Whether biking or running, we acknowledge and encourage each other through a small gesture. We share our passions.
My Dad and I are passionate beings and I have his soul in me. I cannot wait for my future husband to have a motorcycle, knowing my dad it will have to be a Harley, so we can ride alongside my parents. He always joked with me about getting my own motorcycle license but I’ve never found the time to do it. I will one day, possibly in my midlife like him. My brother did, and even though he has a sport bike he still rides with the gang. Maybe when I have my first baby girl, I’ll name her Harley, because when I think about it, it’s no obsession with a motorcycle. Harley is my Dad passionate about his life, having fun, and loving. In all of his glory, living the way he knows how.
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