[Today”s run: 3.4 miles]
40 years ago a friend from school and Boy Scouts asked me to go along with him on the 3rd ever RAGBRAI, a bicycle ride lasting a week, 450 miles, crossing the state of Iowa.
I’m not sure why he picked me. But we were friends and it sounded like a good idea to me. Somehow our parents agreed to this; we were both 13 years old and were going without any adult supervision of any kind.
It seems to me I must have worked that summer to make some money for the trip. But I didn’t have a real job until later, so I don’t remember how that worked.
We had a tent and each had a duffle bag. The Des Moines Register newspaper company provided a truck which would haul the luggage of all the riders from one overnight stop to the next. All we had to do was ride our bicycles to the next place, find our bags, set up our tent… There were about 2000 people on the ride.
It was quite an adventure. I remember David was very patient with me and my sometimes strange ideas. But, I think we got on well. And we eventually made it to Ft. Madison where his family (or was it mine?) picked us up and we went home.
The next year more of his family went, and more of my family went. It was a bigger group and the ride itself was expanding. It wasn’t quite the adventure that the first one was.
And every summer after that I have had jobs and other plans and have never made it back.
My cousin Brian went on that second year and he has done it multiple times since, including this year. It will be the 40th anniversary of his first outing next year.
I lost track of David soon after our trips. I started going to a different school and dropped out of Boy Scouts. I saw him once at a wedding, probably 8 or 9 years later. (Going to the different school cut me off from many of my boyhood friends, which was kind of a downer. But I made new friends and other benefits came my way.)
Dave Anderson, if you’re out there somewhere, thanks for inviting me to go on RAGBRAI 40 years ago.