Mark Boyd and I drove down to Bamberg, SC to meet Wood Graham from Columbia, SC. After our ride I drove Mark to Ehrhardt, SC where he was to spend the night in the Ehrhardt Hall B&B. It is a really beautiful place.
On our bike ride we stopped in Ehrhardt and set it up. It’s right on the route.

     We were a comedy of errors at first. Mark left his helmet and bag with clothes, computer, toiletries, etc. The worst was leaving his shorts. I loaned him a pair of my bib shorts but the shorts pulled his landing gear up too high so he let the bibs hang down instead of over the shoulder acting as suspenders. I’m sure he bought a new pair in Savannah which is his final destination. He would ride the next day to Savannah and return to Asheville riding his bike toward the northwestern rim of SC
and eventually back to Asheville.

     Upon arriving in Bamberg we saw Woody walking and followed him to a garage where his truck was being worked on. We eventually left Woody’s credit card and rode on trying to get that ride in. A short while after finishing the bike ride “Sweet”, as he is known in Bamberg would have Woody’s relic on the road again.

     The weather was great. The roads were superb. The company was excellent. We stopped in Ehrhardt and Olar before getting back to Bamberg.

     We ate at the House of Pizza there in Bamberg. As I was walking through the front door there were Civil War re-enactors exiting. I held the door for them and said, “Veterans first”. They got a little rise out of that. There were 2 Marines in the group and we were introduced. As they were leaving, one of the group, who was not in the service, said, “I want to thank you for going to Vietnam”. In seconds they were gone and in seconds my eyes were full of tears. He was the tenth person to say it in my 37 years since returning from Vietnam.

     Since yesterday, I have wept 5 times or so. For thirty something years everybody, including me, swept Vietnam and me under the rug. There are a lot of things I suppress. I’m very good at it. The problem is- there are some things that cannot be pushed aside. Some things, I know without a doubt, I either deal with it now or it will compile with others. If you ignore that you are wounded, your wounds will collect. You will get sick or you break down. A guy runs into a wall. He seems and acts as though he didn’t. But he did. After he ran into the wall a hundred times he started acting like he ran into a wall. Suppressing is compressing.