A flicker of amusement lights up my face as I stand here watching my father's casket get lowered into the ground. Wait, I guess that sounds pretty strange. Happy? No. Not at all. I really miss my father. It’s just that a pod of bikes crosses the street on the far end of the cemetery, decked out in full gear, helmets and all those multicolored tights. He probably would have cringed or something. I never really quite understood what his fear was. I knew the man was tough; served all four years of World War II. He would never let me forget that. Not like I could with all of the tattoos he had. Hell, the man had even been born in a snow drift. But bikes, well, got him, sort of like sunlight gets a vampire. He could jump out of a plane into combat, but he couldn't stay upright on two wheels. He told me about trying to ride a bike when he was seven years old out on the hard dirt of Southern Kansas. It wasn't even his own bike. He had snuck out in the middle of the night to a neighbor's house and "borrowed" his friend’s bike. He quickly fell and gave up. Never learned. Never, ever learned. Sometimes I wish that he would have. I think that I would have learned much faster when it came my time to ride a bike if he had cared to help. No, mother had to teach me. It was several years before the other kids on the block would forget about those days. The fear of bikes sometimes seemed like an aggression. When he was 39, he hit a biker when he was making a right turn down town near the Opera House. The biker was alright, according to the news, but father never stopped. Those two wheels unnerved him. No problem with motorcycles though. Nope he was perfectly fine when my wife bought me one for my 25th birthday. Bikes. It figures that they would be the end of him, given the history they had. I don't think Sam is ever going to get over it. Not that we let him see or anything. Sam was riding the bike on his first day, down the hill. Father, I, I don't think he expected him to pick it up so quickly. And neither of us could have expected him to. Well, he was old. 70. I wish that he could have been around though longer. For Sam. He hasn't touched his bike since.