a man and his bike

After he retired, my father, Frank Bahlert, dreamt about his work in the steel factory for a long time. After he retired, he spent part of each day reading. And in those years, before his death from colon cancer in 1986, he enjoyed time with my mother. He loved to talk, and she was a listener. So in its own way, it worked.

When the weather is warm in Wisconsin, the people are outside! Long, cold, grey winters give way to a late spring and then hot, humid summer days, the humidity often broken by a thunderstorm. The best time to be out on those hot, humid days is early in the morning. And so, Mom and Dad would go out for a walk and ride in the mornings. Mom would walk, and Dad would ride his bicycle. “He follows me everywhere,” she joked at one point.

Dad had fun in retirement. One summer day in August, when the Wisconsin State Fair was on in West Allis, a suburb to the south of the city, Mom and Dad went to the Fair on Senior Citizens’ Day. They enjoyed the free entry to the Fair that day, and I can picture them, eating fresh-made cream-puffs – a Wisconsin State Fair specialty – skirting the midway to look at the animals in the rows of barns, talking to the children from towns and country-side outside the city who lived with their animals in the stalls during Fair Week. On Senior Citizen Day during Fair week in the late 70’s, the “Who’s Legs Are the Best?” contest was held at State Fair. Retired Men stood behind a curtain, their legs lined up in a row.

When I came home from work that day, I opened the evening paper, “The Milwaukee Journal”. Centered on the front page was a photo of 5 pairs of legs – men’s legs – bare below their bermuda shorts, in white socks and black shoes. The headline: “Whose Legs Win the Best Legs Contest?”

I took one look at that line of legs and saw Dad’s! He hadn’t won the contest – who cares? – but he’d had a bit of fun that day. I called my parents’ number immediately, and we had a good laugh together, the kind of fun Dad liked to have.

***

A few years later, Dad would lie in St. Joseph’s Hospital, Milwaukee, for many weeks, dying of the cancer that had struck him ten years earlier. He was grateful for those years, years he hadn’t expected after the heart attack and cancer diagnosis. But one day when I visited him that early spring of 1986, he looked at me, grief in his eyes. “I wish I could be out riding my bike,” he said.

Indeed.

Mom and Dad, circa 1980