Remembering Doug - The Ride to Remember

June 20, 2024

My friendship with Doug spanned some 48 years.  We met in Junior High School in 1976, having a common interest of ‘backyard’ astronomy.  We spent many weekends looking through my telescope (and later – he got his own), experiencing many adventures, joys and sorrows that life dealt us through nearly a half century.  Once upon a time, I rode a Moped, and eventually graduated (in my 40s) to a Harley Doug had admired that.  I had shown him my latest ride via Facetime and knew I loved to ride and the freedom and serenity I feel when I am “in my element.”  When he passed, my first reaction was that I needed to get out on the Harley and just go – accompanied by music that Doug and I used to enjoy to provide a soundtrack.  This article is about that ride, interspersed with memories as they came up (and continue to come up).

June 8, 2024 in the East San Francisco bay Area was forecasted to be a cloudy day, but as long as there was no ‘precip’ I was ‘good to go.’  I had my musical playlist carefully planned; having spent time the evening before with my iPhone, carefully choosing music that we listened to some 30-40 years ago.  It was tougher than I thought - I kept drawing a blank!  After I had about an hour and change of music on the “Doug” list, I finished up what I was doing (untangling a particularly gnarly skein of yarn) and went to bed.

As predicted, the dawn brought cool weather with cloudy skies – but all was dry.  I donned appropriate riding gear, and chose a shirt I had made that says “STAR GEEK” in gold metallic lettering – Star Wars Font – with a smattering of stars and planets, reminiscent of our nights of gazing skyward. 

We had many experiences over the years which included observing planets, and even drafting our own star atlases – mapping the skies and tracking major celestial events.   One such event was the partial solar eclipse of February 26, 1979. 

As young teens, it was such a long wait for this date.  Three years was an eternity!  We were excited about this eclipse and talked about it enthusiastically as the date approached.  When the event was upon us, rain was in the forecast. We would not be discouraged by clouds!  We put our heads together, consulted the yellow pages.  Nope – no internet back then.  We found we could charter a Cessna out of Reid-Hillview airport for about $150, so we went to our parents to ask them if we could and they said yes!  As the youngest card-carrying members of the San Jose Astronomical Association, we were equipped with aluminized mylar to take safely take photos with our 35mm SLR cameras.  The experience was wonderful, and I got some great photos.  Our teachers let us off for the morning; we just had to write reports about the eclipse – which we did.

We often held rooftop observation sessions for planet gazing.  My father strictly forbade anyone from climbing up onto the roof, but Doug’s parents allowed us to do so.  Different times, for sure…I don’t know any parents nowadays who would allow their kids to climb up on their roof!  We would go up, watch meteor showers, look at planets, star clusters, messier objects, chart constellations we hadn’t learned before, and talk about stuff that was going on in our early teenage, ever-changing, mysterious lives.  Some of our deepest conversations happened up on the roof.

Our parents really never wanted to have “The Talk” with us.  The ageless “birds and bees” or whatever it has been called – was not open for discussion in either of our homes.  We were pretty clueless, and neither of us had had a boyfriend or girlfriend or really were interested in that sort of thing – but were both curious (but definitely NOT about each other!)  One day, Doug had a surprise – he had gotten hold of his parents’ “People’s Almanac.”  It had a whole section in the back that was “Dictionary of Sexually Related Terms.”  We used to spend Sunday afternoons reading excerpts from this hallowed text out loud, gasping.  “Does that really mean that?”   We’d make horrified faces and wonder if our parents actually did such things.  Eeeew!  Would either of us ever do any of those things?  We eventually started quizzing each other by playing the board game version of Hang Man (which resembled Battleship with the two open ‘books’ with the letters and hangman in progress diagram).  Doug’s mother would pass through the living room and see us and realized what our words were and would laugh.  “Ah, you’re playing your dirty hangman again.”  To this day, I have a copy of the People’s Almanac, just to remember and to laugh about that.

These memories continued playing as I prepared to get ready to go out on my ride, and my husband asked what I was doing and where I was going.  I replied, “I told you I was doing my special ride.”  I was planning on doing this activity alone.  He asked about my route, and I described it.  Niles Canyon, into Pleasanton, Vineyard into Livermore, then Vallecitos to loop back into 84/the Canyon again, and home.  He said , “I want to go with you.”  I REALLY wanted to do this trip solo, but figured I was a woman traveling alone and it would be a safety precaution to have him there.  I reluctantly agreed, saying sternly, “KICKSTANDS UP in TEN!”  Kickstands up is a common term used when a bunch of bikers are planning on a ride – often called KSU.  It means we’re leaving at the designated time, eg KSU at 9:45. 

I had strict rules since I wanted to feel alone on my trip:

                No nagging

                No complaining

                No questions

I was not asked to explain the consequences of violating these rules(although I’m not sure that whose would have been).

As I was getting ready in the kitchen, getting my ‘60 year old me’ morning meds in, making sure the feline family members had water, etc., my phone started playing my playlist by itself.  Rickie Lee Jones “Satellites.”    One time when things were going particularly well, Doug said me “You’re walkin’ satellites” (a line from the song).  That made me smile.

I got my jacket on, and headed out to roll the bike out of the garage, and we were ready to go.  KSU came about 15 minutes later.  Not too bad…5 minutes later than I wanted but that was okay.  As I kicked my jiffy stand up underneath my beautiful, blue bike, whom I call “Mjolnir[1],” I smiled again, hoping that Doug would ‘come along for the ride.’  This flashed back to my 16^th birthday when I had just come back from the DMV with my driver’s license[2].  I picked up Doug in my mom’s ’65 Mustang, and we went to 7-11 to get slurpees to celebrate.  We were turning left, and a bus was coming, and Doug’s famous quote that we replayed for years was “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to be hit by a bus…”  No busses should be out at 6am on a Saturday morning.maybe a few, but not where I was going.

First things first, we topped off for gas, then headed east, then turned right to go through my very favorite Canyon.  Kate Bush’s “Running up that Hill” accompanied the ride then as I slalomed through the gentle curving road that I love so much.  We came to the 10 minute stop light – part of the road fell off the side of the hill a few months ago (and it looks like they never plan on fixing it).  One way traffic control was in place which was a 10 minute stop light.  This was part of the reason why I went out so early.  That and there are not many cars out that early on a Saturday morning.  I’m up anyway, so why not have this wonderful ride?  After that, we came to the crossing and turned left to go up into this really nice part of the ride that goes around a gentle curve, and then is shaded in a lot of gentle “S” turns, along the railroad tracks.  Unfortunately, a truck carrying a trailer loaded with gardening implements was in front of us, with a car in between us.  I was not too happy about this.  When the gardening truck turned right to head to the freeway, I was very happy, and pumped my fist victoriously – and the car that was in between me and the offending truck graciously pulled over and let me by.  Just at that moment – the first strains of Holst’s “Jupiter” (from The Planets Suite) filled my ears – it fit PERFECTLY in the moment – the glory – the joyful sound – and the music picking up tempo as I gave a big whoop and grabbed a handful (rolled on the throttle) and sped up about 20 miles an hour.  If it were a scene in a movie – it was the perfect piece of music edited in that moment!  A “Sountrack of life” moment!  I felt a rush of joy a remembering some of those great, fun times we had when we were growing up – and remembered the first few times we were listening to that very piece, comparing it to an “old west” soundtrack.  Listen to it – it really is. 

We listened to so much music.  All kinds!  I was a die hard classic music person – that’s all I listened to in my early teens.  I was a violinist and viola player in the orchestras at school and loved the music we played.  We got into Star Wars and that was the dawn of big orchestral scores for motion pictures.  We fell right into that and listened too the scores and then explored other music – such as Holst’s “The Planets” suite.    

Later on, we got into “Grease” and more rock music – Pat Benatar, and then Kate Bush (which came from Pat Benatar’s cover of Wuthering Heights).  Our musical taste was all over the place, and we spent a lot of time watching MTV during its early days – waiting for certain favorite videos (Fleetwood Mac’s Gypsy was a favorite).  I started singing and playing – professionally.  Music was central to us.   I still don’t know why I had a hard time deciding what should be on the playlist for my special ride!

We pulled over briefly so I could wipe my windshield – the sun was rising over the hills and my windshield was pretty grimy from I don’t know what, and then we continued.  Through Pleasanton – then out into this wonderful area on a road called “Vineyard.”  I have longed to ride on this road again since I got this bike!  It was a very peaceful ride as Dan Fogelberg’s Nether Lands came on “…and I want to do do all the things that I never have done…” and I was waving my arm with the music.  (Husband must have thought I had cracked completely). 

Needless to say, it was a beautiful ride.  “Whenever I call you friend” came on…another one we always loved except when it started going into that romantic stuff.  As mentioned briefly earlier, we were never romantic-ever.  We had a heck of a time explaining that at school; people in our class just assumed that a guy and a girl that hung around just HAD to be boyfriend and girlfriend. 

We concocted a weird story about how we were somehow step brother and step sister or some craziness.  What is so strange is how much it used to matter what everyone else thought, and how un-important that becomes later on.  Doug had always been Doug – and was like my right arm or something. 

We had our ups and downs; he struggled with his health, obviously.  I struggled with my relationships and marriages.  We had a period of a couple of years where we did not speak but we got over it.  I was a pretty crappy friend through a lot of the turmoil and very selfish, and I made amends to Doug directly about a year or maybe longer ago.  Ashamed of my old ways and what I used to be like, I told it like it was and we both wound up very moved by it – Doug by my verbalizing and me by his response.  It helped us both go on with our relationship with a new found respect.  He went through unimaginable experiences with his health and the consequences of it.  I had my own unimaginable experiences going on too, and when I was able to “escape” from something that almost cost me my life, he wasn’t ready to have me bounce back into his life, and I respected him for that later on.  I was too much.  I was a hurricane that disrupted lives back then and had no boundaries.  Doug taught me a very important lesson about boundaries that I will never be able to repay.  But he knew that. 

A few years ago, we made a pact to have lunch at least once a month, and we kept to that.  Things would get busy and do you know he would do the extra mile and come to my side of the Bay.  I said I needed to go there and he said, “No, you have to go to work – your schedule is such and mine is more open.”  I had the pleasure, the last time I saw him in person, to visit he and April in their home and play the hammered dulcimer for them in their living room.  I’ll never forget that.

Back to the present, on the ride…with so many memories, flying through my head as we approached the turn to Vallecitos, I was in my “happy place.’  I hadn’t been on Vallecitos for a couple of years – they have been tearing it up and reconstructing it, so I had avoided it.  It used to be a very nice, pleasant, meandering country road that went between Sunol and Livermore.  Connected the two.  I made the turn and we came to another intersection where you decide to go towards Fremont, and that’s where I felt the difference.  The way the road was changed.

I didn’t like it.

The unwanted buffeting, my cross body bag was flapping, it felt like I was on the freeway.  If you have ever ridden a motorcycle, you know exactly what I am talking about.  There are currents created by the fast moving traffic and it causes these “tubes” of air.  I had had my bike for about 6.5 months and have purposely stayed off the freeway as I don’t like it.  Much to my annoyance, Vallecitos was feeling like a freeway.

“Come on Eileen” came on then, to make me feel light hearted, but I was feeling anything but.  Road construction and those big ugly barricade things were everywhere and that charming country road was transformed into this ugly nightmare.  Unrecognizable!  No worries, I thought.  I’ll soon get to the place where you choose to either take the freeway or turn onto 84 which is Niles Canyon Road to head back home.

Except things were all weird and changed…barricades everywhere.

I wasn’t sure what to do – if I kept left, for sure I would end up on 680 towards Fremont…(now I’m not so sure) so I stayed right and then saw that I was going to be going NB 680, back towards Sacramento, back towards where we had come, really, and the worst part was….

I was going to be on the freeway.

Yes, I’ve been riding since 2005.  Yes I have about 40,000 miles riding my own bike, many thousands of miles on the freeway, but never on this bike as yet…until today.  With my heart in my throat, I got on 680 with nowhere else to go.

The other thing was…my husband on his bike behind me.  His Harley had been in the garage for a few years and he only recently got it running again.  The tires were old.  I mean OLD.  He had the back tire replaced last week, but the front tire is on order but he insisted it would be fine, “it’s not like we’re going to go on the freeway” and he came along.  This tire is 18 years old.

Yes.  18 years old.  That’s fine for voting, graduating high school, but not tires.

So, I’m there, with I’M NOT SURE WHAT SONG playing at this point because I was trying not to tense up because that is the worst thing you can do.  The Sunol/Castlewood exit came up soon enough and we were off again.  Whew.  Somehow I think Doug was getting a kick out of this and asking what happened, weren’t you tough enough?  Something like that.

Tail between my legs, I regained my composure and headed back into my nice, peaceful roads, without turbulence and wind tunnels.  Peaceful smooth roads beckoned again as we gently cruised through the curves of the canyon and rolling hills.  I feel like I had received a dose of reality to remind me that you never know what life might throw at you and to keep in mind that wind tunnels and turbulence might be just around the corner!

As the playlist came to its end and the ride came to a close, I drew in a deep sigh (the windshield prevented the inhalation of any bugs).  My ride was a wonderful way to remember  the times and adventures we had – I will be expanding upon this article with photos and more memories as part of my healing journey and as a tribute to a wonderful person who I was fortunate to be able to know and love for all of those decades.

Doug - You’re walking satellites…

“I’ll bear one precious scar that only you will know again”
-Secret Separation – The Fixx