Living Lurleen: Eddie's Lane

Eddie's Lane

Well, I suppose it’s done. After carrying a small vial of Eddie’s ashes around in the fairing of the sidecar since the summer of 2009, Hootis and I finally spread his ashes. It was a bit odd though. Eddie was no fan of sidecars. I was always a bit surprised that he never simply banned them from TeamStrange events..

This was all the more reason for us to pile into the sidecar rig and make it a part of our journey.

Eddie was, however, a big fan of having fun and bowling. Heck, TeamStrange started out as a bowling team. So after the riders had headed out for their day of bonus hunting during the 2011 Glacial Lakes MC Harvest Road Rally, Hootis and I loaded up the Flying Breadpan and spent the day enjoying the fall day. Hootis at the helm and I hunkered down in the hack, enjoying the beautiful Minnesota fall scenery. Combines cutting corn, leaves of orange and brown, and a canopy of trees over the small back roads that Hootis took us down.

We arrived back in Albany a few hours later after a nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant in St. Cloud. The Albany bowling alley was open and we were their only customers. We picked out a couple of lane-balls, ordered a couple of cans of Dr. Pepper and headed to lanes 7 and 8 to bowl a few frames. Since my ankle injury I had not tried bowling and did not know how well I would be able to throw. Turns out I’m no better or worse now than I ever was. Hootis was working on a wicked hook that resulted in either a gutter ball or a strike with not much in between. I was attempting a slightly off center straight delivery with moderate success.

Hootis ended the first game with a score of 75 and I ended with 141. By the second game Hootis had worked the bugs out of his hook. My game however remained the same. By game two Hootis had his delivery worked out and cranked his score up to 164 while mine wallowed at 140 again. We laughed and joked around, enjoying the game. There were no tears shed for Eddie that day, only laughing, story-telling, and the crash of pins.

Then we headed to the parking lot to complete our assignment. We went to the side of the building, under a sign that said “Welcome Hikers and Bikers”. With a light breeze blowing I poured out the ashes into a stream of Dr. Pepper. The breeze blew some of the ashes around before they settled. Hootis and I hung there for a while talking and discussing the finality and injustice of it all. We shared a few memories and snapped a few photos.

Ripples in a pond, I suppose. The rings remain long after the splash. Thankfully we don’t have to live in a world without Eddie James. He set things in motion and affected thousands of lives, his influence will never end. He will always be here.