500 Miles

This is not the “500 Miles” Peter, Paul, and Mary sang about.

No, this is the 500 miles my high school classmate and friend, Bob O’Neal, is biking to our 50th high school reunion from Stone Mountain, Georgia, to Bedford, Indiana. When he first emailed me, he was more than half way there. He was trying to average 100 miles a day.

Bob always had a sense of adventure and he still has that spirit at age 67. He got lost on the first day, having not yet traveled ten miles. Then the weather turned sour on him.

Once back on the road he was jumped by a pack of four dogs. In his words, “They had good tactics, with two coming at me from each side.”  He eventually wore them down and they dropped back. Besides admitting that he has a pretty sore backside, Bob is persevering—and with a sense of humor. He ends a journal entry by saying, “Before I bike to my 75th reunion, I plan to move to a nursing home that is within a mile of the reunion location!”

In his last email, when he was within 100 miles of his goal, he wrote, “Would you like to buy a bike?  I’m walking home!” Always joking about something.

Bob illustrates that age is not so much a matter of chronology, but a matter of mental attitude.