Every Saturday morning, I drive the 45 minutes to Gettysburg, PA to ride my bike around the battlefield. It is a hauntingly beautiful place and I am drawn to it’s history. I ride at least 25 miles each time in hopes of topping 500 by summer’s end. Depending on events and demonstrations, the visitor’s center, where I park my car fills up quickly. A few Saturdays ago, I pulled into my favorite row and spotted a space. The traffic behind me was swift and visitors were quickly pulling into spaces at a rapid pace. The car to my left was way over the line of my space, which of course ticked me off, and I always wonder, usually out loud with expletives, how some drivers live in a bubble and only care about themselves. When I see these uncaring people I think that they must never hold a door open for someone or say thank you to a kind gesture. I pulled my car in carefully and shimmied out of the driver’s door. I removed my bike and was preparing myself for the ride when I started to get nervous about leaving. I thought that if this person was so uncaring maybe he or she would just back out and scrape the side of the Neil Mobile and upon returning I would be angry as a one-legged man in an ass kicking competition. I pulled out my phone to take this picture and the moment I did I heard some children talking.
Glancing to my right I spied a family of four walking in my general direction. The odds were a thousand to one with all the cars in the parking lot there was no way they owned this car. Wrong, they were one in a thousand. They all saw me take the picture and no one said a word as they walked past me. The kids jumped in their door on the driver’s side immediately and the father slid in behind the wheel. The mother, however, saw the predicament her husband created and made her way sideways like a crab to the passenger door. She opened it a fraction and painfully rubbed and molded her entire body against her car as she slowly made her way in. Once in, she scolded her husband as she lowered the window. I had finished my preparation and mounted my bike while waiting for them to pull out. With precision and extreme care, they backed out and headed for the exit. As they pulled away, the wife leaned out her window and yelled, “Sorry, enjoy your ride.” I thought it nice she greeted me and apologized on behalf of her family. As they turned I heard her say to her husband, “Stupid bikers.”
