Katie’s First Ride

She asked me if I would take her for a ride on the Harley. 

This request was not new, in fact, she asked every time she came to my house for the weekend. The answer was always the same. “You have to wait till you are tall enough so your feet touch the floor-boards.” 

So, while we were waiting for her legs to grow, my daughter and I would practice. Each time I would come home from work on the Saturdays she was with me, I would wait at the beginning of the driveway for her. She would burst out of the house on a dead run. I would help her climb on the back and we would race up the driveway for about two seconds, and into the garage. 

I would always ask her how she liked her ride. She would always make an awful face and then ask the standard question that we both already knew the answer to, “When daddy, when?”

That’s pretty much how it went weekend after weekend, until one fine Saturday this past Autumn. This particular weekend, I was off work. It was a beautiful Indian Summer day in early October. The kind of day that you get in Northeast Ohio once in a while that makes up for all the long winter days.

After lunch, the temperature climbed to nearly seventy degrees. 

With my daughter in tow, my wife came outside and suggested that, “we all go for a ride in the country”, out to the farm where we get our apples and cider. 

Unsuspecting and totally trusting, I agreed, not seeing the quick glance the two conspirators exchanged. Then the bomb dropped. My wonderful wife, the woman I trusted with my life, my best friend, said, “Why don’t you take the bike, I think Katie would enjoy the ride?”  

Then before I could recover from that shot, the little girl who also loves me chimed in, “Dad, we checked this morning while you were still sleeping, if I stretch and point my toes I can reach the floorboards, honest!” 

Looking back on that moment now, I realize that my mistake was hesitating. I just could not believe that her legs had grown so long so soon… but they had. My hesitation sealed my fate. 

She acted rather surprised when I agreed, it brought a smile to my face to catch that look. The excitement in her eyes was a wonderful thing to see. Katie looked at my wife, the “Alien Step-mother” to get the final approval. The confidence my wife imparted to my daughter in that moment spoke volumes of her personal love of riding, and her desire to share that joy with Katie.

After many minutes of fixing hair, deciding on the proper jacket, “it has to match D-A-D!”, and finding a helmet to fit, she announced that she was ready. 

Hearing those words it hit me hard,… I’m not ready! I really choked. I was scared. Very seldom am I nervous before a ride. But this time I really had the butterflies. After all, this is a very dangerous sport and people in cars are really crazy, and it’s Fall, no one is expecting to see a motorcycle out anymore, and … about this time in this quest for reasons to cancel this crazy trip, a gentle familiar hand touched my wrinkled forehead. My eyes focused on my wife. “She’ll be just fine”. 

The big twin was warmed up in no time, too soon in fact. I could delay no longer. My wife and son Tim were in the car, the day was beautiful, we were ready.

Two blocks from the house, I was recovering from my case of the jitters. Not a peep from the back. It took about five minutes to get out of town and in all this stopping and starting and turning, still no word from the back. Finally, out in the open, by the river, I began to notice just how beautiful the sky was that day. The autumn leaves were on fire with color. I was really starting to wonder how my passenger was doing. Was she afraid? After all, this was a lot different than racing up the driveway at break neck speeds. I kept listening for sound to come from behind me….nothing. Finally after several more minutes of this, the first words came from behind, from my daughter, my first born, on her very first real ride.

 “Dad! I smell stuff!” 

We talked for a while about the “stuff” she smelled and why she could smell “stuff” on the bike but not in the car. After this the dam broke, she went into sensory overload. She announced to me, and anyone else who cared to hear, every identifiable olfactory sensation, every sight and every sound. 

“Look daddy, see the deer?” 

She had to show me twice, but finally I could see the doe, fifty yards deep in the brush, watching and listening to the rumble of the Harley going down the road. The deer never moved. 

Katie was very impressed that her dad would take her to a place where she could see a deer. So was her dad.

“Daddy, do I look funny in a helmet?”  “Daddy, why don’t you wear a helmet?”  “Daddy, do you ever go FASTER?”  “Daddy, feel the air!” “Daddy, wow the road has bumps!”

Yes sweetheart, Daddy also remembers your first ride. I remember lots of other things too, like you coming home from the hospital for the first time. Wasn’t it just a few days ago? Now look, your legs are long enough to reach the floorboards.

Ride free forever Katie!

dad

post script note:

I wish I had dated this story. I believe it might have been Fall or Winter of 1989 or 1990 when I wrote it. I have “saved” it through many laptops since that day, only pulling it out once to send to Katie a few years ago after she and I had a talk that took us down memory lane. She commented that, after reading it, how she remembered the entire ride. (So do I)

I did not know she printed and saved it.

 I was – well, I was a lot of things when she died. Katie’s mother found it and handed it to me as we were going through Katie’s things. I am very glad to have it and more glad to have the printed copy Katie kept, yellowed with age, smudged and folded. It is priceless to me now.

Although my wife has also died, she was fondly referred to by Katie as her “alien step-mother”. I am thankful and grateful for every good thing she did for my daughter.

I offer this to you in the hopes that it gives you some small sense of the child I was blessed to call my daughter. Katie was amazing. I know, all dads say that so just nod and pretend you agree with me.