{"id":319,"date":"2009-02-11T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=319"},"modified":"2009-02-11T05:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T09:30:00","slug":"i-rode-for-my-buddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=319","title":{"rendered":"I Rode for My Buddy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The weather was decent yesterday, with air temps in the mid-50s (13\u00b0C). This would be just like a day that Rick, my riding buddy, good friend, and fellow civic activist and a real “wonk” on a number of issues, would meet me and we would ride to our state capitol to hammer-away at the issue of the day. We did that for a number of years, and fought a number of battles. We have safer streets and better roads and cleaner government and, well, lots of good things.<\/p>\n

Six years ago in April, Rick and I were out for a pleasant Sunday afternoon ride. We weren’t planning on going anywhere. Just riding together was that day’s objective. We stopped at a local watering hole, and got some water. We sat on the restaurant’s deck on a that bright sunny afternoon, sipped our drinks, enjoyed the beautiful day, and planned our next strategy in wonking some local elected leaders on something or-other. He was telling me about his daughter’s upcoming “Sweet 16” birthday, and was making sure that I had marked the event on my calendar.<\/p>\n

We re-mounted our iron steeds, donned our helmets, and took off. Five minutes later, it was all over. Rick was hit by a cell-phone yapping yupette driving an SUV, who said (and I kid you not), “when I looked up, you were just there!” I barely avoided getting hit myself, but nothing could have been worse to see my friend killed right before my eyes.<\/p>\n

So yesterday, I rode for Rick. I rode for him one more time. I rode in his memory, and for his wife and four children. I rode to our state capitol, to have my say at yet another hearing on banning the use of hand-held wireless communications devices while driving.<\/p>\n

I will persist and continue hammering on this issue. For all fellow drivers, for bikers, for myself, but most of all, for Rick. May he rest in peace.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The weather was decent yesterday, with air temps in the mid-50s (13\u00b0C). This would be just like a day that Rick, my riding buddy, good friend, and fellow civic activist and a real “wonk” on a number of issues, would … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-friends","category-motorcycle-ride"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}