Riders On a Storm

I had just purchased my very first bike when my parents finally decided I was old enough to stray off on my own around town. My heart was racing with excitement when I heard this. I was the first of all my friends to be allowed to ride across Main Street. After my mom had told my friends mom she also allowed him to cross if he was with me. This was the beginning of an adventurous and memory filled summer.

Our first trip across Main Street led us a mile out of town to the Cass River. The river had a bike trail along it with trails leading to fishing holes. As we rode down the trail we ran into the "Simpson Boys." These were the kids in town who never had to check in with there parents, and there parents weren't worried where they were. We joined up with them and they showed us all the sweet jumps to hit with our bikes and the good spots to fish. We made plans for the next day to leave early in the morning to go fishing!

My friend and I rode our bikes to there house at 7 in the morning. It was trash day and the boys wanted to look around for some new bikes before we left. We rode around for about a half hour until we hit a pot of gold! Two bikes with baskets and a "Lance Armstrong" type bike sat on the side of the road along with a portable radio. We took all of it and threw the radio in the basket and hit play. It was a a light purple radio with one cassette inside it. The cassette only played one song, yet it was the perfect song. The radio crackled and struggled to come on. Then it played. Riders on a storm by the Doors. Looking back at it this had to look hilarious, a almost a picture perfect scene from a movie six kids riding around town with this song playing. We took off toward the river for our day of fishing, jamming the whole way there.

We did this for the rest of the summer everyday. Riders on a storm over and over. We could sing the song by heart by the end of the first week. We fished everyday, finding every fishing whole we could find on that river. Catching crawfish and boiling them in pop cans when we got hungry, so we did not have to leave to get food. Those days will stay in my memory forever. I can just picture us riding our bikes down that old dirt trail as the that song plays and we all sing it. The Simpson boys were not the best kids to hang out with, yet they are part of a great summer filled with life lessons and laughs.