One Rock on a Connecticut Road

Uncle Frank times his daily bike rides so he hits Long Island Sound around sunrise.

A rock in the road just ended those dawn excursions for the near future.

Stone did what a car never had. Thrown from the bike, he messes up his shoulder severely, broke his collarbone and several ribs, nearly punctured a lung. My mom’s brother just lost his sole release from living with their mother (Grandma is 84 going on 139, to say the least). Worse yet, a driver reported it to the police earlier that morning, and nothing was done. Cyclists are always the last to know.

After all my close calls in Nashville and Columbus (Munich and Chicago were pleasure rides), I could sympathize. An alert cyclist pays attention to everything motorized in his/her path, but the road is always hostile to the self-propelled.

Being half Italian (at Ellis Island, Pagliaro become Palmer, in case you wondered), I had to get in touch with my injured uncle. Blood and bicycling were the only things we had in common, and it never felt more important than now. I wrote a little note and sent a copy of Brian Wilson's latest disc to Connecticut in hopes that some new tunes from Frank's favorite band provides some solace.

Uncle Frank is the second Palmer sibling to undergo a debilitating bicycle injury.
Twenty-two years ago, my parents’ friends invited Mom for an evening bike ride.

“Mom doesn’t ride a bike, does she?” I remember asking Dad.

Three hours later, I got a better answer, as Mom was carried to the living room couch, her knee a tangle of bandages and gauze, her expression pain pained despite the medication. Riding a man’s bike, she panicked on a patch of sand in the road, wrecking both the bike and her knee.

Mom never bothered to have those frayed ligaments fixed. In the morning, she walks with a distinct hobble that the untrained eye might attribute to not being fully awake or stretched out. However, I remember when she didn’t walk that way.

Uncle Frank will probably ride again, but at 53, I bet the damage caused by a single rock lingers in his bones for the rest of his days.