Riding Into Yesteryear

What a day for a bike ride. The weather was absolutely beautiful and my cousins invited me along on a Sunday morning trek.  We all met together at a mom and pop eatery for some of the best food around.  Now get this.  Two eggs over easy a heaping helping of home fries, enough for two, a couple of pieces of toast and unlimited coffee, all for $3.25.  LaVerne’s Resturant hasn’t yet found that inflation has hit.  And I’m not telling them but I’ll be back there again, many times over.  We left the breakfast before nine and headed for the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania, to a place called Ohiopyle.  It was almost fifty years ago when my dad and my Uncle Ted would pack all of us into cars and head for this place.  We went almost every weekend in the summer to play ball, picnic, and brave the rapids.

Once we got there we started to reminisce about the old times and began stories of our dads, perhaps exaggerating way to much about our exploits and how life really was as a kid. You all know what I’m talking about. We tend to make life much bigger than it was but its really neat to keep it that way. Although we’ve seen each other times over the years, albeit far not enough, it has been four decades since we grouped together like this at this special place. We asked for a photo. And a park ranger obliged.  That’s cousin Frank on the far left.  Next to him is another of our cousins, Jeff.  I’m next (gypsylarry) and then Greg on the far right.  We are bound by Frank’s mom and for the rest of us……it was our father’s.  And by the way, those aren’t high foreheads.  We’re all balding.  I guess it runs in the family. After spewing stories that kept getting larger than life as time went by, we decided to move on and get a little spirits on our whistles.   We rode for another couple of hours before all of us heading home, each diverting on our own path near the end.   As I rode alone and silently the last ten miles to my own abode, I smiled.   It was great to relive a bit of childhood, see family and share laughs and good times with them.   As I passed by the cemetery where our parents lie, I took my hat off and raised it in memory to those lives that allowed us to share so much.  It was a good day.