Snapshot Paper

“So, I’m riding one day, it’s my standard eighteen-mile loop, you know the one that goes out by the airport? Well, I’ve got all my gear: helmet, biking clothes, 27 speed road bike, clips, everything. Now remember this was years ago when I was young and had a chip on my shoulder, but I’m riding along and I blow right past this group of riders, and one of them was-”

“A one-armed man?”

“Yes! Have I told this story before?”

“Once or twice, dad,” I say with a smile, “But keep going.”

“Well anyway, they’re all riding crappy bikes in jeans, no clips or anything, just casual riders, and one of them only has one arm! So, I blow past them and look back and the one-armed guy is right on my wheel! I couldn’t lose him; he wouldn’t let me without first making his point. Finally, I took another route just to get away from him. That one-armed guy taught me a valuable lesson. Which was…”

 “Don’t chase your ego!” I yell enthusiastically.

“Don’t chase your ego,” my dad echoes the phrase he coined, “Or there’s going to be a one-armed guy to put you in your place.”

There aren’t any one-armed guys around, though, just the two of us and two of my dad’s friends who are somewhere behind us. It’s right around ten o’clock in the morning on the very first day of the biggest adventure of my fifteen-year-old life. I’ve got no idea what lies in front of me as I start down the California coast. My dad spent the days leading up to this moment telling me fantastical stories of fields and seaside towns, of forests and cliffs that climb for miles into the sky. Being from Illinois, I have no real grasp of these geographical features that are so characteristic of the California coastline, and I have no idea just how steep these cliffs are going to be.

But I’m not thinking of that right now. Right now, the road is flat, and my dad and I keep a good pace on our bikes by casually rotating our pedals. Somewhere above us, the sun floats in the sky, but it struggles to reach the ground under the giants that surround us and keep watch over the road. There’s a peaceful calm amidst the redwood trees that envelopes us and holds us close, and there’s an indescribable feeling that comes with being next to such immense trees. In this tightly packed environment, I struggle to imagine the view we’ll see when we hit the ocean and there’s nothing but cliffs and sea for miles. The air is chilly and damp, and since the going is easy, my dad and I have lots of time to talk.

“This one time, I was riding down this highway out East that had barely any shoulder and terrible yakity-yaks, so I’m really riding the wire…”

I smile to myself and keep pedaling. This is how we talk, with our own words and in our own language. Everywhere we go, there’s a story or a lesson, and everything my dad sees reminds him of an experience. Maybe it’s the teacher in him, but he passes these stories and customs on to me, and we add a few of our own to his repertoire. This is our culture and our legacy, and there’s nothing my dad loves to do more than tell stories. This is what we always do. We bike and we talk about biking. So, at this moment, it doesn’t really matter that we’re cutting through a redwood forest about to begin a trek down the California coastline. We might as well be back at home in Illinois riding down the Fox River Trail. No matter where we go, we’ll do the same song and dance because, for us, the place is never more important than the person you see it with.