‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
Kenny and I are spending one of our vacations on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I have to say I’ve never been a real News watcher, and I’m definitely not one on vacation—especially when all it seems to cover are shark attacks in our area. But even though I’ve missed a good bit of the news on the Charleston Emmanuel AME Church shooting and the controversy of the Confederate Flag, I feel like I have gotten my fill of news from Facebook. Then, in the midst of an already full news cycle, the Supreme Court rules on making same sex marriages legal in all 50 states. I saw an ECard on Facebook that recently summed up the news. It said, “My Facebook feed looks like a battle has broken out between the confederates and a Skittles factory.”
I want you to know before you read any further that this is not a blog post where I’m going to share my personal thoughts or opinions on any of the topics from the news lately. Personally, I have heard enough of people’s opinions both for and against—and frankly—I’ve heard way too much ignorance. I have to admit though, that I did choose this as my title to get people to open and read this post. Sorry, it might be false advertising on my part.
But like I said, Kenny and I are in the Outer Banks. We chose this as our vacation destination because we thought it would be a great place to ride our motorcycles. I don’t know if any of ya’ll out there have ever ridden a motorcycle. All I can say is it’s freeing and empowering. Honestly riding a motorcycle is, I think, when I’m most at peace with the world.
Today, as Kenny and I drove about thirty miles up the coast of the Outer Banks into the town of Corolla, where wild horses roam, and a lighthouse shines its beam into the night’s sky, we passed numerous other motorcycles. Each rider giving us the classic wave—the two fingers (pointer and middle) extended towards the ground using your left hand. Kenny and I haven’t passed a motorcycle yet that didn’t know, what seems to be, this universal language. We even got a wave from a moped as it meeeeeeeeeeeeeped by us.
Not only is riding freeing, and empowering, and peaceful, but you can learn so much riding a motorcycle. I don’t know if it was the scents of local BBQ and seafood restaurants or the ubiquitous fresh salty air blowing through my hair that made me delve so deep into profound thought. I don’t know what it was that made me see so clearly, but I’m glad I did. See, over the course of approximately 60 miles every motorcycle we passed gave us the wave. I haven’t done any research to determine what the wave means, I hope its nothing ugly. I don’t know if the two fingers stand for two words, “Be safe!” or “Cool Bike!” or “Ride on!” I don’t know if it is an upside down peace sign. But, what I would like to think it means—what that wave symbolizes for me is, “Howdy, neighbor!”
As I’m approaching a motorcycle I hardly ever have time to see much—Was it a male or female? Was it a Harley, or a Crouch Rocket? Were they black or white? Were they wearing leather or not.
The only thing I noticed today was that regardless of the brand, regardless of the color, regardless of the power—the wave was always the same.
Did I mention you could learn a lot on a motorcycle?
Chronicles of a Mini Pearl 