Winter overstayed its welcome this year, and one of the biggest prices we’ve paid is not riding in months. Well, at least I haven’t ridden. Can’t say the same for my husband, who is a bona fide cheater.

Since at least November, when we stole our last late autumn tour through the crisp Ozark countryside, I’ve walked past, around and beside my beautiful red bike leaning on its stand in our garage. Riding weather’s just around the corner, I’ve told myself on numerous occasions. Not really, but my optimistic tendencies kept me going through the depressing gray weeks of January and February particularly. At one point, Raye and I got so down about the inhospitable conditions we spent a week or two planning and eventually booking our next big European riding trip this fall – 10 days touring the Pyrenees in Southern France and the coast of Spain.

Within the past few weeks, however, the weather has started warming up, I am sure the bulbs in our front yard will eventually find a way to bloom, and I find myself thinking about riding nearly every day. I called home from the office late one afternoon this week and asked my son where his dad was – “he’s on motorcycle rides” he told me. Rides? Yes, he’s taking out one bike after another, returning long enough to hop another one of his bikes and disappear again. This is a man who believes you can’t have enough bikes – some of which are theoretically in our garage only because they are beautiful to look at.

Cheater, I told my husband when I got home. What was he doing sneaking out for “rides” when I was glued to a keyboard with a cell phone sticking out of one ear? Just making sure everything was in good working order, came the reply. Cheater, I repeated, acting a little ruffled. But he wasn’t fooled. He knew I’d be interested in the details, so he pressed on, telling me how each bike performed, how the roads felt, how long the afternoon light had held up.

I got up this morning and saw daffodils blooming everywhere in our front yard. Riding weather has arrived, indeed. Good bye winter. Hello warm wind, soft leather, endless road.

Or perhaps I should title this post, Labor Day Redux.  Last Labor Day, we had a grand ride through Newton County, Arkansas.  Back then, I wouldn’t have imagined the same time next year not only would we have a grand ride again, but this time I would be caption of my own ship.  This was my first ride on my new bike, a Kawasaki Ninja 250.

My inaugural trip was a shorter loop than last year, but we still rode for a few hours. Heading out at early morning, I rode with my husband in front and my father-in-law in back.  My son rode on the back of the bike (my normal spot) of my husband’s bike.  For a beginner, having a lead and a back bike was most comfortable for me.

First we rode east out of Fayetteville on Highway 45 and north nearly to Eureka Springs, then south through Withrow Springs State Park, on to Huntsville, where we ate breakfast at Granny’s.  Then back west again toward Fayetteville through Elkins.  Each time we stopped for a breather, I got encouraging critiques from my felllow riders.  And when putting some of their suggestions into place, I felt a little more confident and a little more comfortable.

Best parts of the ride: smelling the smoky breakfast campfires burning in Withrow Springs, biscuits and gravy at Granny’s, maneuvering corners, accelerating, time with my family.

Tonight we brought home a new addition to our family: a 2007 red Kawasaki Ninja 250.

It’s my bike. I walked around it in the garage several times, kneeled down next to it appreciating all the chrome, curves and shine of the new purchase. I straddled the seat and grabbed the handlebars. A perfect fit in every way. It was really mine.

“Think it likes me?” I said out loud. This rhetorical question would only mean something to me who was always convinced that my husband’s Porsche 928 had it in for me. Every time I turned that car on, the alarm went off. Kinda ruined that sexy feeling you would have expected from sitting in such a beautiful and powerful machine.

My husband has already tried out our new bike. It’s fast, he says, and it handles well. I can tell he’s pleased with himself for having found it and brought it home. The purchase is a result of our search for a motorcycle for me.

Since I took the Motorcycle Safety Course a few weeks ago, we had both decided I liked riding to get my own ride. We considered many different makes and models and settled on the Kawasaki as a perfect starter bike. One salesman warns us I’ll probably get tired of it pretty quickly, but he will be happy to sell us what I have my eye on for a second bike: a red, Yamaha FZ6. Quite a bit more powerful bike and I am determined to genuinely graduate up to it at some point.

We decide I will take it out on my own in the morning. Sure enough, early Sunday just after coffee but before reading the paper and getting ready for church, we head for the garage. I review in my mind all the basics – how to turn it on, clutch, hand brake, foot brake, neutral, kill switch. “Just like riding a bike,” my husband says confidently to me and patting me on the bike. He knows I am a little nervous to ride again. It’s been since my safety course, and I am afraid I’ll forget something important. Worse yet, run off the road, miss a turn or run into something. “It’ll all come back to you.” I hope.

Taking off out of our driveway was a little jerky as I try to find the friction zone, where the clutch engages the rear wheel to power the bike forward. I remember how hard it was to learn how to get off a ski lift without falling down – and taking others with you in the process. I think learning to take off on your motorcycle without jerking or killing the motor is sort of the same. You have to expect to have at least one embarrassing moment.

But very quickly, it gets better. I shift into second, third, and increase my speed to the fastest I’ve ever gone – upwards of 30 mph – since our safety course top speed was only about 15 mph. It’s easy, and fun. Yet I slow down considerably when I approach my first right turn. A near miss, I have to grab the hand brake and cut my speed to keep from heading into a neighbor’s yard. My confidence a little shaken, I drift toward the end of a cul de sac, but I tell myself it was only a little rusty. I can do better. So I make the turn around and head back, this time handling both left and right hand curves with no trouble in several places.

As I glide back into the driveway, I agree, it is coming back. In fact, I spend several minutes brushing up on my slow riding skills in our drive, which was my favorite part of the safety riding course. My husband walks out of the garage to watch me turn figure eights and then pull the bike back into its spot beside our others – all without putting my foot down. He has a big grin on his face. She likes it, I know he is thinking.

Yes, she does.

I’ve always thought Labor Day was misnamed.  The last thing I want to do that time of year is celebrate my labor.  I’m tired by early September – and the heat just makes things worse.  So this Labor Day Weekend, leaving our toils behind, we set out for an all-day trip to nowhere.  As long as we made it back for the Razorback football game that night, I was good.

We met up with my husband’s father, another good friend and another couple just as the sun was  coming up, determined to get going before the heat might force us off the road.  Our self-appointed navigator is a born-and-raised Northwest Arkansan, so we fell in line behind his Harley and started out from Fayetteville.

The general idea was a trip through Newton County to do some highways quite popular among cyclists. Highway 7 and Highway 123 were our destination.  The first hour or two of our ride took us through small towns, some beautiful rural areas with tree-covered hillsides, sprawling farms and tiny churches with interesting signs like “We use duct tape to fix everything.  God used nails.”  A quick biscuit and a fill-up in Huntsville got us on our way.

By mid-morning, we decided to stop at a bend in the road called Fallsville.  The small gravel lot had a lone white building with a single glass door, and three old-timey gas pumps.  No credit card swiping here.  You’re gonna have to go in, which was our intention anyway.  We needed a stretch.

We discovered the only available bathroom didn’t require a key – outhouses apparently don’t need that much protection.

As we laughed about this, I noticed an old pick-up truck sitting under a tree.  An overall-clad gentleman was perched on the edge of the passenger’s seat with the door standing open.  Sprawling around the truck were piles of plump green-striped watermelons.  I didn’t need a cutting to know they’d been picked at the height of their juicy glory.  I decided to wander over.

Gentleman Gene, as I think of him now, broke into a smile at the prospect of a buyer approaching.  “How’s business,” I said, curious if he had – or if he really expected – to sell any melons that day.  “They’re beauties, and better than anything you’ve ever put in your mouth.”  No doubt a convincing argument to anyone other than a motorcyclist.  “You raise pretty melons,” I told him.

He got up out of his seat and leaned on the side of the truck.  The entire bed of the truck was filled with dozens more. “I’m just trying to get whatever I can for them today,” he went on.  “They’re not mine, they’re my neighbor’s.”

As I was to learn, Gene was a proud farmer himself who just couldn’t stand the thought of letting perfectly good watermelons rot in the field.  That morning he had driven over to his neighbor’s house and convinced him to let him load up his truck and come down to the gas station to try to find a home for as many as possible.

Why wouldn’t your neighbor bring them himself, I asked him.  Seemed like a strange thing to do, loading up your neighbor’s bounty and hauling it off.  Was his neighbor lazy, tired of eating melons, tired of giving them away?  His answer caught me off guard.  “He’s just not up to it this year.  He’s got cancer pretty bad.  He’ll never make another harvest.  This is his last crop.”

A new appreciation for the melons flooded over me, and their natural beauty just shone.  Gorgeous shades of green, smooth round skin, plump centers.  Just the way they were at rest on top of each other looked as if someone had carefully placed each one in a certain spot to catch the morning’s light through the trees.

Gentleman Gene went on to tell me about his neighbor.  An interesting guy who had lived off the land his whole life.  A farmer, he reaped what he sowed and scraped together enough along the way to feed and clothe 14 children.  An experienced chef after a fashion, he had taught all the women in the area to make homemade sorghum molasses, Gene grinned.  “I think the most he ever made in a year was $1,200.  Some of it from his melons.”

No doubt.

Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a motorcycle engine starting up.  I looked past him to our group.  They were putting helmets back on and folding up maps.  Time to get going again.

I thanked Gene for his story and apologized again for not being able to take anything with me.  They don’t make saddle bags big enough for melons, I explained.  “But I want you to do something for me,” I said.  “Tell your neighbor someone thought his melons were beautiful, and that he does good work.”

Gene laughed.  That will make him smile, he said, “and I haven’t seen him smile in a long time.”

As we rode away, I thought about fall, but not with the welcome anticipation I’d felt that morning.  Harvest is a time of plenty but it’s also a time of endings.  Maybe it’s because I’m in my 40s now, but only recently have I begun to think about things winding down in life.  I’ve always been wound up.  But of course there is a time of harvest that comes for us all.  The real question is what are you harvesting?

Gentleman Gene had done his neighbor a favor, but he’d done one for me too. It may be a last crop, but it won’t be one that’s forgotten.