One September weekend (grade 5, 1960), after I got my 3-speed bike, my mother (on her old clunky single speed) and I travelled from St. James to East Selkirk (where my cousins lived) about 60 kms. away. About 20 of that distance was through the back streets of Winnipeg via the North End, then another 30 on the gravel shoulder of the highway between Winnipeg and (West) Selkirk, followed by a bridge crossing, and the rest of the way up a dusty gravel road to my cousins’ place.
We left after school, after 4 pm, and travelled in the dark from Selkirk on, arriving about 11 pm. My Dad was shocked when we phoned him; he didn’t think we’d make it or could do it. He thought we were still in Winnipeg! Later, we left for home starting out Sunday morning, arriving home in time for supper. 120 kms. in all on hardly the best road conditions except for the city streets.
After my father died in 1998, my mother, in her early 70s (early 2000s), took it into her head to do another long bike journey, this time alone, and headed out for Portage la Prairie one morning from her Portage Ave. walkup in St. James, some 85 kms. away. She arrived back very late in the evening, having travelled some 170 kms. on the shoulders of a divided highway.
My mother had great energy when the spirit moved her or once she got a wild notion in her head. No doubt she was reliving our 1960 trip. Never alerted me that she was going to do it, and only notified me afterward. Some kind of proof that she could still ‘cut the mustard’, even without me or my Dad around to look after her. Stubborn, focused, and quite independent. Yet another special Moment of Being 40 years later–one of her very own, all by herself in typical Rose fashion.