I use to love to ride my bike.  I have not enjoyed that for a long time.  But there was a time.  Century rides (100 miles) in Colorado… Denver to Colorado Springs.  The Springs to the Royal Gorge.  Long, grueling rides.  And the very best part… coasting at some ridiculously dangerous speed heading down the mountain.  Tuck down low and let it all out.  It was like flying for me.

The climb was a GRIND.  But, I love going downhill.  I won’t lie to you.  I feel the wind in what little hair I have when I head downhill.  And unexpected small stings on my forehead and cheeks.  It reminds me of an old joke my Mom told me once… or several times.  “How do you tell you are talking with a happy motorcyclist?”   How?  “By the bugs in his teeth?”  I love going downhill.

I am now an urban dweller.. I don’t really ride anymore.  My life on 2 wheels has been traded in for romps around the park with 4-legged companions.  But every once in a while I return to the hills.

I arrived in front of the school this morning.  Fridays are the days I teach/advise at a high school work study program.  I am always the first to arrive on Friday.  I open the school, prepare for the student arrival… enjoy a cup of coffee.   It is coasting at a slow pace.  I nice time of the day.  Today was different.

I park my car as always,  at the curb by the front door.  Coffee in hand, I retreat to the rear of my car and pop the trunk.  I have a few items to carry in this morning.  While bending oer and head inside the trunk… there is a voice.  I look at me phone… did I butt dial someone.  Nope.  Screen is blank.  I return to retrieving my trunk treasure.  The voice from nowhere… again I check my phone.  NADA, nothing.  And again the voice.  And I do a 180 to discover a woman in a wheel chair.

“Good Morning” say I.

“Good Morning, do you know where the library is?”  I am asked.

I do, and we chat for just a moment.  I know where I am.  I know without looking, as I face her, what is now to my back for the next three blocks.  She is facing it.  I am remembering it. It is a gentle walk for someone on foot.  But it is all uphill.

“How can I help you?”  She responded, “Can you help me up this hill?”  And so it began.  Our 3 block relationship.  We did not converse, other than for me to share with here the location of the Tulsa Downtown Library.  One block, two blocks, Three blocks, FREE.

It’s all downhill from here, farewell.

Enjoy the wind in your face.  And the bugs in your teeth.

I saw a quote last week that I must paraphrase.  “How important must a person be to elevate their murder to being an assassination”  You get the drift.

“As Charleston gradually lays to rest nine shooting victims from last week’s church massacre” The report on the AP wire read.  And I say, Truly this is/was a planned act of randomly targeted hate and cowardice.

I was at one of those hotels this morning.  You know the ones that have rooms and also include a free breakfast in the little dining area.  This morning I was at one of those places. So I grab a biscuit, a glass of juice, and a cup of coffee..  and I sit to watch the morning news.  Most folks watch some sort of TV in the morning, The Today Show, Fox and friends, CBS whatever…….   I am not one of those watchers except in unique circumstances.  I sold my TV over 2 years ago.  This morning was a unique circumstance for me.

This morning’s television topic.  The Charleston massacre and the recent burning of 3 Black churches in the South.  And I began to cry.  This all makes me so sad.  This is a continuation and it is just the beginning of the atrocities I believe.  People hating people for no good reason.  I do not expect it to get better.  Cowards are everywhere.  If they were brave, like soldiers, they would put their names on their actions… and face the consequences.  Cowards take lighter fluid to ant hills.

When I was growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, I use to burn ant hills.  As a prepubescent, I would go to our garage, find the charcoal lighter fluid, find an ant hill, spray it with fluid, drop a lit match…. the ants never knew what hit them.  They would writhe in pain and die.  It was fun to do this.. until is was fun no longer.  I couldn’t stand the action.  What was I doing?  Why did I do it?  It made no sense to me.  It was planned act of randomly targeted hate and cowardice.  I walked away from my foolishness, my ignorance, my cowardice.

So I am enjoying my biscuit and juice and coffee.  I am not enjoying the news of the morning.  People killed by a coward.  Assassinated.  I am getting sadder.  I am in public.  My eyes are tearing up.  I am disgusted.  I am appalled.  I am filled with rage.  And suddenly I remember, I am not alone.  I look over to see the couple at the next table.  My God, it is THEM.  THEY are right fricken next to me, and they have seen my tears and sadness.

Should I run.  Should I hide.  Should I pretend I just had something in my eye.  Get up and leave?  What the f@#K should I do.  They are BLACK people, a Black couple, right next to me.

So I look them directly in the eyes… I put my name on it.  I look at them, and I know that they know that I know that they are Black people.  I say, “I am so sorry.”

And they say. “thank you.”

And in this moment, I walked away from my fear.  I am NOT a coward in the moment.  I am Bob Fulton, Man of God, lover of people, griever for those who suffer.

And we talk.  And we never ask each other’s names… we are hotel lobby friends.  Passers by and passers through.  But we talk from the heart.

He is a barber at a “black barber shop”  — his words

Since the church shooting he mentioned that a white guy had come to the shop last week and needed to use the restroom.  Very odd for a white guy to be in this neighborhood.  They said yes.  However they could not help but wonder if this stranger might be assembling a gun while in the restroom and come out shooting.  Copycat, copycat.  Nothing happened.  But he could not help but wonder.

He could not help but wonder if he would be in the room when the next coward came to visit a group of Black folks.  I was saddened that though he and his wife were absolutely at peace in the skin they lived…. there are people who hated them for skin pigmentation.

We spoke for about 15 minutes.

And I shook both their hands.  It was NOT a particularly brave moment for me.  But in that moment I was a coward no more.

Three people brave enough to be who we were suppose to be.

Today I lived…. A step away from my cowardice.