Winnie, the Welder

Now that it’s September, more and more people are asking us why we aren’t in school. It used to bother me, but now I tell them we are in school — the best kind of school. I say:

America is our classroom,

Our bikes are our textbooks,

And the people we meet are our teachers.

— from Jimmy’s journal featured on the back cover of my book: Hey Mom, Can I Ride My Bike Across America?

People always ask me why I ride.

Why I ride by myself . . .

Why I ride with my wife . . . my kids . . . my students . . .

And now,

Why I ride with partners whose pedal pushers have worn out.

Jimmy’s answer came to mind as I rode with Lucinda “Lucy” and her friend Nathalie last week. Lucy hadn’t been allowed out the gates of her assisted living community in over a year until she went for a bike ride with me.

Make that, until I went on a bike ride with her.

Nathalie is only 95, but Lucy will be 98 on the 1st of July.

Lucy says she only sees out of one eye and hears out of one ear, but I think she may do both better than me.

As a younger girl, Lucy hitchhiked through Europe with a girlfriend.

“Did you have some cool cardboard signs?”

“Heck no! We just stood on the side of the road and people gave us rides.”

Lucy came home to America to weld submarines in Portsmouth, New Hampshire during the Second World War.

“You’ve heard of Rosie the Riveter, I bet,” she grinned.

“Well, I was ‘Winnie, the Welder.’”

And with those words Lucinda — Lucy — Winnie, the Welder — took me to school.

Take a look. Take a listen. Come to school with Lucy me.

The pictures aren’t Lucy’s because those burned with one of her houses.

And that’s a lesson for another ride.