A little late on this post....but.....
How do you measure the impact that someone has on your life? Good or bad, people can set themselves firmly in your memory. Some have bigger memories, some have distinct stories, some made you laugh, some were teachers, some were family, some were friends, some would piss you off, and others were good examples of "what not to do".
Tim was all of these. He was taken away way too soon. But I am left with these memories that pop into my mind from time to time. There was a long time in my life that this man was my best friend. We did everything together. We built computers (well, I watched), we laughed, we did projects for Candy. We built a lot of my house. We went on family camping trips. He cooked his concoctions, I ate them. It was a good time.
Most importantly though, was the sport he got me into. Without Tim, there is a high probability that I wouldn't ride bikes like I do now. We were camping one weekend at Pioneer Park and there were kids out in the woods riding bikes. They were taking little jumps and having a riot. It looked like fun, so we went and got bikes from Wal-Mart. By the end of the weekend we had 2 bikes that were nearly un-rideable and we were hooked. Within a few months we both had our first real mountain bikes and we were off and running. Then one day this crazy idiot comes home with a flyer for Iceman.
Having never heard of it, we started to look into it. We decided it would be a good family weekend getaway for both families and we headed up. Iceman...ha. It was 50 degrees that first year. I was wearing a cutoff t-shirt and basketball shorts. Eye opening to say the least. The next year, true to form, Iceman was in the 20's. We were better prepared with real riding clothes. That was a long long time ago.
As the years progressed Tim had a few major crashes. The one that was the worst was also closest to home. There was a cross country running trail behind the middle school here in town. We would go out and rip around just to ride. This day, there was a small tree down across the trail. For some reason, Tim planned to bunny hop it. Unfortunately for him, he didn't make it. This was before the days of gopro, or I would have some stellar crash footage. His rear wheel hooked, and he went around so fast that he couldn't get his hands off his bars. His front 180 was promptly stopped with his face. He was knocked out cold. The way his helmet was sitting had me worried he may have broken his neck. Thankfully it was just twisted from impact. (his helmet, not his neck). I could see blood dripping from his eye and he wasn't moving. After getting his 6'3" body untangled from the bike, I started to process his situation. We are a mile from home. He is knocked out. No phone. I decided I would stabilize him. Being that I had not had real training yet, I was going to roll him. I unbuckled his helmet (which I now know would have been bad if his neck was broken) and his eyes popped open.
He sat up and looked around. Then he stated "guess I didn't make it" and smiled. We started walking out of the wood and he decided riding would be faster. Mind you, we are less than a mile from our houses. We lived next door to each other. But, by the time we got home he couldn't remember what happened. I had told him around 3 times by the time we rolled into the driveway. Our wives (at the time) were there and were like...uh oh. I went to the ER with them because I was the only one that knew what happened. The doc came out after examining him and sat next to me in the waiting room. He looks me up and down and says "well you don't have a scratch on you....what the heck happened". So I explained and he just smiled and went back to stitch Tim's eye up. His glasses has gashed open his eyebrow. Oh, when he came back to consciousness in the woods and I told him his eye was bleeding, Tim proceeded to take his glove full of dirt to check.....thus filling the cut full of dirt. In hindsight, that probably slowed the bleeding. lol. What a mess.
Tim was never really ever much of a rider after that. He tried. He wanted to. He was just nervous and hesitant in his riding. That made it rough because riding tense can cause more crashes. Eventually he stopped fully and sold off all his gear. We did many "remember big timmy" rides after he passed. Those ended up turning into something other than what I had imagined and those too ceased. But I still remember them. I still remember Tim. I will never forget all the stories and laughs we had. I cannot believe it has been 14 years since you passed. Seems crazy to me. But here we are. Keep holding things down up there. Keep pushing those limits with the jokes. Keep the level of inappropriate right at the line where the fear of you crossing it is real. Keep watching over us all.
Thank you Brother, you know I couldn't have done it without you.
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