Biker Mom

The place where I grew up was a fairly large small town. It was big enough to have a Northside and a Southside, three high schools, two hospitals, and two or three drive-in movies. But it was small enough that, like the weather, everybody's business was a favorite topic of discussion.
There were also lots of churches. The ones downtown were big and imposing with four sets of double doors to greet you at the entrances, and large sanctuaries warmed by filtered light beckoning you inside. And though the hallways were rather dreary and the ceilings so high they disappeared into dark shadows, they were friendly places on Sunday mornings because almost everyone knew everybody's name.
My scant memories of our church would fill only a small collection plate. I sang in the children's choir until it wasn't cool to do so, I went to a few youth group meetings, and about the time I was twelve or thirteen I began attending classes taught by our minister preparing us for something called "baptism." I distinctly remember following the minister into the darkened sanctuary with five or six other kids and politely listening to him explain the symbols hidden like Easter eggs in the ceiling plaster, in the wall hangings and even in designs on the carpet.
"And so, when you enter church, before the organist begins to play, take time to consider these symbols and what they mean," he said quietly, as if we had just joined an exclusive club, and he'd shared the secrets behind the password.
I went home thinking about what he said, and I was puzzled. I'd never seen the adults praying or quietly contemplating anything before church began. Most grown-ups
at our church occupied the time before the organist's crescendos by whispering hellos to each other. There were also compliments on new outfits, acknowledgements of awards won by a son or daughter, and questions about the previous day's golf game. Sometimes, slipped in between these warm and gracious exchanges, there were other whispered offerings, usually accompanied by a raised eyebrow, about the hat that no-one-in-their-right-mind-should-wear, the couple recently divorced, the kid who got kicked off the football team for drinking, or a girl who had dropped out of school because she was...you know.... No, no one who sat around me contemplated the meaning of the lily design in the rug or the crown on the plastered pillar near the altar. Before the minister walked down the aisle to raise his arms towards heaven signaling us all to stand and sing the invitation to worship, the weekly news had to be disseminated.
Each Sunday morning, while gossip and rumors buzzed above our heads in that hallowed space, one family sat silently and apart from the rest. They arrived early and, if my memory serves me right, sat in the third pew on the main floor. Even the kids seem to be pondering the meaning of that large cream-colored room, and the two-paged Sunday morning's agenda. I remember them distinctly because one time in the unday morning buzz I'd heard that they'd arrived on a motorcycle. Motorcycle? They must be very poor, I'd deduced. While the dad always drove, the mother and kids piled into a side car, whatever that was. This deemed them a little weird. And, according to that buzz, the mother didn't shave her legs. Maybe, I thought, she couldn't afford a Lady Schick, like my mother's which was kept under the bathroom sink. The pink one that I wasn't allowed to use as yet.
I sure felt sorry for those kids to have parents that stood out and were different from the rest. I was glad that my family was fairly normal. My mother was very pretty, and she always dressed sharp. I was proud of her except when she talked too loud to her friends before church. Of course Dad had stopped coming to church with us when the grocery store he managed began staying open on Sundays, so he couldn't embarrass me. That didn't come until a few years later, when he'd come home from work after having a few too many beers. But the kids in that motorcycle family never seemed self conscious, even if they were too poor to have a car.
I recently learned that the mother, the one who never shaved her legs, had died. She was 90 years old. I also learned that they weren't poor; the dad, who had died ten years before, had owned a small Harley Davidson store in my hometown. Though not rich, they lived comfortably although they were years before their time. I wished the Dad could see the size and popularity of a Harley store these days.
And I've thought alot about their oldest kid, the one who was in my high school class, who went to Viet Nam and got shot in the face. At a class reunion a few years ago, everyone was talking about him, saying how cool he was. At first, I thought it was because of his injury and the fact that he had seen a lot of action in Nam. But after talking to him for a short time I realized it wasn't that. He possessed a calmness, an authenticity that people noticed. He still flew helicopters, for a hospital critical care unit. He loved sailing, and when describing the feel of the boat in full sail as it raced over water, his voice got soft and wavy.
His mother's obituary said that she'd never stopped questioning theology. It said that she went to that church faithfully every Sunday yet was always checking out books from the church library, especially ones on the topic of the sermon.
I've been wondering what it was she found in those books that gave her enough answers to come back each Sunday. I never found any answers, and once I'd started questioning, I just stopped going.