I was home last weekend riding, the cold air slipping into my skin, gripping my bones and letting me know I was still alive. I rode from my home in northern Virginia to New Castle Pennsylvania. I stopped in WalMart to pick something up for my mother for her birthday when my best friend from high school called me. I agreed to shoot down to his house to check things out when I was easing down the lane on my bike and I was slammed onto the hood of a mid 90s Cadillac.
Let me tell you a little about that, about the second time someone decided for me that I didnt need to ride anymore, that I didnt need to be one a bike, that I didnt need to enjoy the one thing that really heals all my pain.
So that night around 1830 the pain surged through me like an electric pulse. I heard the tire scream out, the ripples of energy sliding through the metal before it rested in its mangled state. I heard the glass shatter and the plastic bend and scare. I lay helpless on the hood of his car, I tried to sit up but I could see the tears fill my eyes as I let my head fall back before everything went black. I heard "are you ok, whats your name, I'm a paramedic" I knew at that moment that things where bad... my head pounding, my mouth filled with blood, my nose swelling and clogged with blood. The backboard was slid under me and I got one of the paramedics to take a picture of my bike for me. I coundnt see it at first but soon I understood the full depth of crash. I was on the hood and my bike was under that car.
I texted my best friend told him to meet me at the hospital. I needed someone to take me home, I took the drugs and went on my way sore as I could be... I was lucky they say, no broken bones they say, I would be back to my old ways in no time they say... The hell with what they say, I hurt every moment of the day. My bike it gone and there is no way I can get it back. The insurance company wants to give less that 1/2 of what I owe on a 2010... the hell with that. I want my bike back!
This is a day to remember, I lost my bike and my health again. My nose is a little to the right now, I breath differently and my neck once again hurts every time I move it. My chest now cramps every 5 mins and my back is worse than what the Army left me with after I left Iraq. I now have pain from the war and pain from the streets, pain that pills take care of and pain that beer subsides.
This started as a way for me to talk about how I was smashed onto the hood of a car, but I just wanted to talk about how I feel. I miss my bike, for me its a way to get away...
Ride with pride when its Red, White and Blue! US Army Combat Vets Jo White
