Free-wheeling Hughes

“Free-wheeling Hughes.” (That’s their caption.)

Last night I went through my old college yearbooks looking for the “Free-wheeling Hughes” picture posted above.
I’m doing a blog on bicycles I have owned, and it depicts one of those bicycles.
I found myself thinking “My, how my life has changed since then.”
The picture is 50 years old; it’s in my 1965 college yearbook.
My college class graduated in 1966; our 50th reunion comes next year.
I’ve never regretted attending Houghton (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), an evangelical Christian college.
That’s despite my being a ne’er-do-well who graduated without their approval, who almost got kicked out three times.
Houghton is the first place I found adult authority-figures who valued my opinions. Prior to Houghton I was told I was despicable and of-the-Devil.
I found myself wondering who of my classmates died.
I know of at least three:
-1) is Jim Francis, who I think was killed long ago in a car-accident.
-2) is Sharon Heritage, long-time wife of Johnny Angell, also in my class. Sharon died recently.
-3) is my wife of 44+ years, previously Linda Button, who died in 2012 of cancer. She also was a graduate of the Class of ’66.
I was in my Woody Allen phase at the time of this picture, which explains the glasses.
I left that behind long ago. I no longer wear glasses.
And of course a lot has happened since that picture. I was 21 in that picture; now I’m 71.
That hair is now silver, and I now have a beard — also silver.
For seven years I was unemployed, although I was trying to establish myself as a freelancer, first as a photographer, then as a word-slinger (writer).
I had been so screwed-up by my childhood I needed time to make sense of myself.
Then in 1977, 11 years after graduating, I went with bus-driving, a supposedly temporary job that lasted 16&1/2 years.
Bus-driving ended with my stroke, but I recovered well enough to begin employ with the Daily Messenger newspaper in nearby Canandaigua, the best job I ever had, mainly because they encouraged my being a word-geek.
I might still be there, but I began having dizzy-spells, a side-effect of the blood-pressure medication I was taking at that time.
So I retired from the Messenger, but early enough to beat when it changed owners, and I would have been laid off.
A lot of water has gone over the dam since that picture. I count 11 cars; and my taste in cars fell back from wanting a Ferrari to just wanting my car to start, and not need maintenance to run.
I got my motorcycle-license maybe 30 years ago, and have owned six motorcycles. I even got back to riding motorcycle after my stroke.
We also got a dog, and now I am on dog number-six. All have been Irish-Setters, and three died of cancer. The one I still have is almost 11, and still very spry.
I look at this ancient picture, and do I see all that coming?
Especially 44+ years of marriage to a the best friend I ever had.

• “Hughes” is of course me, Bob Hughes, “BobbaLew.”
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.