Silence

I hadn’t seen Charles for a few years. We used to ride together back in the 80’s but then he got married, stopped riding and we drifted apart. Then just recently I heard through a mutual friend that Chucky was back on two wheels although his wife was not too pleased with his, as she called it, “midlife crisis”.

At any rate I gave him a call and we met for a ride for old time’s sake.

One of our favourite routes back then was highway 511 up through Calabogie (which I’ve blogged on here), so it seemed fitting we’d do that loop. After meeting up at the Timmy’s in Arnprior we headed west over to Calabogie and then across to Perth (Ontario) on the almost-world-famous highway 511. Then it was back north through Carleton Place, Almonte, and back to Arnprior where we stopped at the local pub for a bite and a pint as it was now about 2 PM. Over a late lunch we caught up on the last 20+ years, and then the conversation naturally turned to motorcycles and Charles’ new acquisition, a 2009 Fat Boy.

“So” I said, “I heard Christine wasn’t too happy about you getting another bike.”

“Aw hell, I needed to find something to get me out of the house. Alone.” he said, and then went on to explain they’d been having some marital difficulties. “I even considered divorce, but she hasn’t said a word to me in 6 months and a woman like that is hard to find. So (shrugs) I bought a motorcycle instead.”