Today, under smoky skies, in 90-degree heat, I rode (alone) counter-clockwise around the Nicasio reservoir. Eighteen years ago today (Saturday of Labor Day weekend) a habitually drunken driver killed Cece Krone. And I won’t forget how the judge dealt with it all (very low bail). The ‘murderist’ (whose ten year old boy was with her) was sloppily overtaking the weekly hammer ride, and in so doing rode up the stone embankment, crushing Cece and her bike. She’d been standing by her bike inside the white line, waiting for the group.
I stopped riding with that bunch long before this tragic event. Each time I went out with them I’d experience their Peloton-groupthink: if a car was overtaking, someone, sometimes more than one person, would yell “CAR BACK!” and…. nothing would change. No swift re-alignment into echelon (two by two, or even single file). Just…a big blob of spandex clad roadies, owning the whole road.
If we were in Italy, the motorists would indulge. After all, it’s their national pastime, along with futbol. Here, most hills are about 3 minute climbs. Not a long time to wait until the sight line is safe.
Usually I rode on the periphery of the cluster; in the gravel and weeds on the right of the white, or clinging to the yellow double line on the left. I’d call out, “MOVE!” or conversationally suggest we try to ‘skinny up’. This was back when I could talk and climb at a good clip. My suggestions fell on wind-deafened ears. Besides, everyone loves a coach, right? The one of two women in a group of ten or twenty? Right. If I didn’t enjoy riding with them, I was welcome to stop coming, and I did.
Now and then my thoughts turn to statistics. After Cece was killed, a different cyclist lost his life (old, nearly blind motorist plowed into him at the shore of the reservoir), and I began leaving notes on the kitchen table. I’d never been the kind of person to leave notes or be predictable, findable, and expected back, but this felt really bad. A third, life-wrecking crash followed in 2007 when a motorist hit Blake Herod head-on as he rode his Triumph motorcycle on a clockwise tour of the reservoir.
I had to call his widow, Barbara, to verify that yes, there was a peloton…but she adamantly insisted that a) the bikers saved her husband’s life and b)the motorist was solely to blame. “Someone gave me the name of a bigshot lawyer in San Francisco, who advised me to sue the cyclists….because they were the ones with the money! Of course we did nothing of the sort.”
Blake, like Charlie, was a maker, and the total loss of his right arm set him back, but he took up painting and drawing with his left arm. I have not gotten Charlie to feel like doing any artwork, though his impressive drawing of a cluster of oak leaves on the branch gave me so much hope 3 months after the brain bleed.
He doesn’t care to draw, though, and his Stubbornness Chakra was unaffected by the TBI.
Back to the sadniversary… a perusal of today’s Marin paper, the Independent Urinal shows a slew of crashes, several DUIs, which, along with the hit-and-run of a UC Berkeley lawyer who was standing off the road, checking his phone as he was out on a ride. If you’re like me, you catastrophize. Never mind that you’ve never actually been in a car wreck (true!) or had a car hit you (my two accidents were cars turning right as I traveled–too fast, because I was late–on a road, and I assume they just ‘didn’t see me’. But the result was, I hit them in the passenger door, so I call that me hitting a car. Lame, but I am so gripped about having a ‘real’ car crash–the kind where you kiss the head-high grill of a Dodge Ram as it slaloms along through traffic. I have a bit of an anti-Dodge ram bias. I doubt many bikers survive when one of them connects with you.
Oh!! OTHER GRIPE!!! Police reports that use Strange Language! “The car contacted the cyclist in the intersection”….Charlie and I used to re-write news about violent incidents a la police blotter speak: “the sheriff’s bullet contacted the victim in the back”, etc..
Despite my cynicism, I have to at least pretend to believe that despite those sad news stories about the rider who was just out on a grocery run, etc etc…. Death By Inattentive Murderist isn’t how I’ll end up. Still, you’ll see on my helmet: “Future Kaiser patient # 146444325”
I need a beer. Or two. A couple days ago Cece’s ex-boyfriend Larry blew past me coming down White’s hill, and I clung to his wheel. He was going to Gestalt, and I uh…cadged a beer from him, having no gelt on me at the time (which is most of the time).
Going to go to his house RIGHT NOW with a couple of Sierra Nevada pale ales, and a note apologizing for putting him on the spot at that noisy, delightful bastion of bikers hard and soft…I must repent my Old Jacquie ways. I must always travel with a tenner in my pocket.
I am quite sure every one of the bikers that were involved in that painful, indelible incident are thinking of her. Every September. Like clockwork.
It does get easier to bear, and riding, unsurprisingly, makes that possible.
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Now that we’ve lived through a third of a year, we understand better that the healing curve is nice and Malthusian at first…Charlie went from a curled up ball with arms pressed to his heart (I think this is a sign of a really bad brain injury, according to the author of “Over My Head”) to a guy who can, with careful supervision, walk about 4 miles with small ‘balance disturbances’ and stumbles. He still doesn’t have a clue where he is–on which trail, how far, etc. Will the ‘inner compass return?
I discovered an unfortunate fact: I’ve become my sharp-tongued, overworked mother Doreen. She had six ‘accidents’*, one after the other, and we little Phelans were just so terribly inconvenient!
Mom and Dad were party animals, and we felt the sting of their resentful ‘parenting’ too often.
So I bark : “AUUGH!! WATCH your RIGHT FOOT–it’s too close to the trail’s edge” . I had chosen a single track trail up behind Deer Park School to hear all the little rills roaring down Bald Hill.
“I’ll be careful. Sorry”.
I cringe when I hear Charlie say “sorry”.
It’s ME who should be sorry for being shrill.
Yesterday we got in 90 minutes of walking, cleverly timed between rainstorms. Life is good. It’s also not-so-great. Then it turns great again.
Our friend R. M. lost two rellies this week. Our other friend Nick F. brought us a feast of roast bird, potato, brown rice and veggies…and withdrew politely to allow Charlie that Alone Moment that his royal Shyness so patiently awaits.
This is in direct conflict for my wish for MORE people to visit….my battery gets charged by visits, while his battery drains away ….Is this TMI?
I believe one of the toughest things for Mr. Do-it-Yourself-Depend-On-No-One (so you won’t have to engage socially) is the fact that now, since he’s ‘down’, he must allow his mechanically worthless wife to seek assistance around Off Hand Manor. Our 60 yr old shingled shack, like any home, requires constant vigilance…today was typical: a leak from the woodstove flue. Somehow the ‘hurricane cap’ allows rain to drip right down from the roof to the floor. It is black and creosote-pungent. It might not be doing the unpolished hardwood floor any favor.
I discovered all that, and a wet floor just when we were celebrating the first day with no doctor’s appointments in about 3 weeks….and now, partway thru making oatmeal, I had to change gears into “supplicant of support “, when I’d been such a helpful cook and housekeeper, chauffeuse and bed-warmer.
Mike Schultz came to the rescue (he and Scott Bowman are the only guys who wear as many hats , skill-wise, as Charlie).
By three this afternoon, there was enough slack in the sched that I could get out on my road bike and catch 2 hrs of fresh air, and upon return, Nick Fain was carrying a roast bird and pile of organic roast veggies, plus a bottle of rouge under his arm…so he spared me the hour’s dinner prep. We didn’t know what to do with the extra time so I had Charlie pen one of his patented thank you notes. He’s able to write, but unable to read. Must learn more about this “pure alexia” condition, where somehow part of the brain can generate legible (if badly spelled) text, but in no way can it be re-read. It’s like, as soon as it’s on the page, a mysterious substance scrambles it, and the only way Charlie can read it is to put a finger on a letter, then look it up on the 26 letter alphabet on a plastic sheet that he keeps at the dinner table to ‘decode’ the occasional word. Each word takes about ten minutes to de-cipher. It’s maddening, and he’s trying to be patient, but both of us pray that at some point, a ‘patch cord’ will allow free interplay between the writing and the ability (not yet there) to read.
And: don’t get us started about his ruined sight. There is only about 10% of his vision remaining and we don’t know if it will come back. Of course one must be cheerful but er…can we just hurry thru the next 3 yrs to see if the eyesight returns to 50 % or so? Then he could ride a bike (not on pavement but on dirt, where things don’t pull out in front of you suddenly , etc).
Ah…well, this is the day-in-the-life. Tomorrow Robbins Peek the PBP veteran tandemist will take Charlie round the county a little bit…and get him a schosh stronger.
*Irish term for “bundle of joy”