My Big Sis

“You don’t mind if my little brother comes, do you?” That was not a question any teenage boy wanted to hear, especially when picking up a beautiful girl for a drive-in movie date. Not in 1960, not in decades since. There was only one polite response, probably spoken with a disappointing stammer.  “Uh.., well…, no, of course not.” 

I don’t remember what movie we saw but do recall one or two trips to the snack bar. Sharon’s date was either generous with his hard-earned cash or assumed the way to a girl’s heart was through her little brother.

Stocked with popcorn, candy and soda, we made our way back to his car. I was one happy four-year-old. This was kid paradise. I had the backseat to myself while I peered through the windshield at the movie screen and overdosed on sugary treats.

Bringing a little brother along on a date might have been a simple act of kindness.  If viewed cynically, it may have been a teenage girl dealing with a boy she didn’t like. In my eyes, it was neither.  It was my big sister showing uncommon love - love I’ve enjoyed my entire life.

                                                         

I was the caboose, the last of eight kids. Before poverty level was even a phrase, our family defined it. By the time I arrived in the world, dad was an alcoholic, unable to hold a job for long. By necessity, our mother became the breadwinner and worked outside the home. Sharon was at the difficult age of 13 when her after-school responsibility was watching her baby brother.  We bonded. Sometimes she spoiled me.

As a kindergartner, I attended school in the afternoon. I was playing with the neighbor kid one morning when my big sis called me to get ready for school.  I didn’t want to go.  Sharon shrugged.  With a simple, “Okay,” she let me stay home. Whooohooo!  Later when our mother found out, we both caught her wrath. But as the responsible older sibling, Sharon took most of the heat.  Ha ha! My big sister rocked!

Even when I did her wrong, Sharon loved me without reservation. I was about seven when she asked to take the family station wagon to go meet a friend. In the darkness of evening, I stowed away in the back seat without her knowing.  While Sharon and her girlfriend drove around town and engaged in girl-talk, l laid low.  Finally, I tired and sat up in the back seat. Sharon’s friend was shocked. “I didn’t know your brother was in the car.”  Sharon wasn’t happy and threatened trouble when we got home. I worried, but nothing became of her threats. She let me off the hook.

After marriage, my dear sister continued to dote on her little brother.  Bill Cox was very tolerant of his wife’s deep affection for me.  As a youngster, we were too poor for Disneyland vacations.  Sharon offered something better, summer-time visits to her house. Some of my fondest memories are hanging out with my big sister and her family.  Since Bill was a move-around construction worker, the location varied across the state of Arizona, from Camp Verde to Black Canyon City to Flagstaff, to Page, to Holbrook.  I loved them all.

In the movie, A Christmas Story, nine-year-old Ralphie  desperately wanted an “official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle.”  As a nine-year-old, I too dreamed of a BB gun for Christmas. Given my mother’s finances, it probably wouldn’t happen.  But thanks to a big sister and her supporting husband, there was one under the tree Christmas morning. I loved that BB gun.  I may have unintentionally plinked a few windows with it but didn’t shoot my eye out.

Aside from spoiling me, Sharon always made me feel special, expressed confidence in me and made me believe in myself. This was never more obvious when I was a college freshman.  I was a long way from home, a bit homesick, and too broke to buy all of my textbooks. How grateful I was when $200 came in the mail. Sharon and Bill were not rich. It was a sizeable sum.  But it was also a sure indication that my sister loved me and was willing to invest in my future.

A year later when I left on a two-year mission to share my faith with others, Sharon joined other family members who generously offered financial support. This experience was life changing and provided a foundation for my entire adult life.

In a few years I’ll retire from a successful career.  I’ve made a name for myself in my industry niche. I feel respected by my peers.  It’s been a career that has enabled my wife and I to provide a stable home to five wonderful kids. They’re all grown now, most with families of their own.  Without knowing it, they’re indirectly indebted to their Aunt Sharon.  She nurtured their dad, loved him, invested in him, was there for him from infant to adult,

As I look back on life, my heart is full.  How blessed I have been. Thank you, Sharon Fuller Cox for your unconditional love.  Thank you for so many contributions to my life.  Thank you for being the best biggest sister a little brother could hope for.

Doris Mae Hartman

The blessings of service to others are not always obvious, sometimes not what we hope for or expect. Such was the case on a sunny Sunday afternoon when church let out.  I was hungry, tired of a three-hour block, eager to get home.  Then the question came, “Brother Fuller, could you drive the young men to administer the sacrament to shut-ins?” On the inside I groaned.  On the outside, I smiled and said, “Sure.” Three years later, I give thanks for that opportunity and the “tender mercy of the Lord” that it was. 

I drove the young men to several homes that day. I only remember one, the one where I met Doris Hartman.  She was elderly, 89 years old, the caregiver of her dear husband who suffered from dementia. After the sacrament, we sat and talked. I was privileged to learn about this dear sister, a devout follower of Christ, a wife, a mother of four wonderful children, grandmother and great grandmother. In the months that followed, I returned with the young men to Doris’ house  and got to know her a little better each time.

When Doris’ husband passed, she was able attend church more often.  When I would pass her in the chapel, she always greeted me with a handshake and the greeting, “Hello Brother Fuller.” She more than smiled.  She glowed.  She radiated. She warmed my soul.

My wife and I were blessed during the Christmas season when Doris presented us with a gift. We used it to enjoy an evening out together to a good restaurant. We were very appreciative. We enjoyed the meal, but the real blessing was knowing that Doris counted us as friends. We were honored!

When I visited Doris a few weeks ago in a convalescent home, she was struggling with health issues brought on by 92 years of life. It was the last time I would see her in mortality.  When I got word that she passed, it was cause for a lump in my throat and reflection.

I thank God that life’s path crossed that of Doris Hartman. The world has lost an exceptional soul.  The world’s loss is Heaven’s gain.

..

Global Trek

We the Parents

My wife and I unintentionally raised a wanderer, a risk taker, an adventurous knucklehead. Not a knucklehead in the boneheaded-nitwit sense.  Quite the contrary.  But a knucklehead in way of being a nonconformist, one bold enough to do what most only dream of. That is our son Jace.

Pennsylvania Goodbye

On a May morning we stood in front of our Pennsylvania home. There was no indication that this was more than a hope-to-see-you-soon goodbye, no indication except a mountain bike strapped to the back of Jace’s car and his mother crying like a baby.

This wasn’t a new experience. Three years earlier, our knucklehead made an east-to-west-coast bicycle crossing of the United States.  The year before that it was an attempted cross-country hitch-hiking trip. Those adventures stressed us, but nothing compared to our angst over his upcoming two-continent international journey.  

Prudhoe Bay Alaska lies nearly 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle.  Ushuaia, Argentina might be the most southern tip of civilization.  The land route between the two will send shivers up the spines of any loving parent who hopes to see their offspring experience a 24^th birthday. South of the US border, Mexican poverty might make a bike-peddling gringo a prime target. Columbia conjures up visions of gun-toting drug lords. Nicaragua? Honduras?  Yikes!

What if you’re mugged in a Central American jungle?  What are you going to do without a bike, no cash, no bank card and no passport?  His flippant response hardly soothed our nerves.  We grasped what comfort we could from knowing he had studied the routes and read blogs of other cyclists who made the trip.  He understood the risks.

In the Beginning, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska

Two weeks after we said our Pennsylvania goodbye, Jace flew to Prudhoe Bay.  June 9^th might be associated with the beginning of summer, but the wind and snow of the arctic circle gave no indication.  Anxious to get underway, he left town almost immediately. A bitter head wind and snails-pace progress forced him back a few hours later.  The next day he left again.  This began one of many stretches of radio silence. Over the months that followed, when he had cellphone service, he filled us in on his adventures.

Five-Star Outhouse Resort

“Highway” is an exaggeration for the Alaskan Dalton Highway. More commonly referred to as the “Haul Road”, this 400-mile stretch of gravel and potholes is possibly the most isolated road in the United States.  Other than an occasional truck or car, there is no civilization, no cell service, no gas stations.  There are arctic winds and plenty of misery for an unfortunate soul out in elements.  Sleeping on the smelly floor of a roadside outhouse is hardly appealing, unless the alternative is a night outside in a cold howling wind.  Jace never appreciated the kindness of strangers more when he flagged down a passing car.  The plastic bags they provided made a makeshift windscreen for his shoes, and who knows, maybe saved his numb feet from frost bite.

A long-distant cyclist understands the term, roughing it. Stealth camping is finding an inconspicuous place where one won’t be noticed or bothered by locals.  A change of clothes, regardless of how dirty and smelly, is a luxury. Light-weight gear for backpacking offers survival essentials for bike-packers too. A small gas burner can cook a warm meal that might prompt a gag reflex in one’s kitchen but taste delicious after an 80-mile day in the saddle.

There was no need to be stealthy in the uninhabited region north of Fairbanks, Alaska.  Stopped for the day, Jace set up camp.  From inside his tent, he took note of the “pitter patter” of rain, but then realized it wasn’t rain, but huge blood-sucking Alaskan mosquitoes making kamikaze attacks on the tent fabric.

Perhaps more than the location and scenery, a bike packer’s journey is marked by people they meet, strangers one minute and friends the next.  Such was the case with Shane and Ian, two like-minded bike packers.  Jace rode with them for a day or two and then met them again in Fairbanks.  The trio bonded over all-you-can-eat buffets and tales of the road.

  

Welcome to Canada

Partially-healed Canadian Road Rash

Canada seemed like a fairly safe haven.  But it was here that a phone call from an unknown number sent my wife into a worried frenzy.  It seems a canyon near Lillooet, Canada offered the thrill of victory on one down-hill stretch and the agony of defeat on the next.  When the asphalt road turned to gravel, when wind-in-your-face exhilaration overshadowed braking, life turned into a bloody mess.  A short time later Jace showed up at Brad and Bobbi’s front door. These two kind-hearted strangers tended to his wounds and gave him a ride to a medical clinic for stitches.   Afterward they fed him and let him stay a couple of nights to convalesce.  Brad was even kind enough to fix his trusted ukulele, which suffered a broken tuning peg in the crash.  In today’s world, there truly are good Samaritans! 

Warm Showers  is an awesome program which connects long-distant cyclists with kindhearted hosts.  They offer a place to sleep, a warm shower and sometimes a home-cooked meal. Felicity and Gordan regularly host in Vanderhoof, BC, Canada.  Jace stayed with them for nearly a week, helping out on their farm in exchange for room and board.  Milking a cow might not have been the high point, but a jazz musical jam session with Gordan on guitar and Jace on ukulele was.

Eric was a Warm Showers host in Prince George, BC.  He had been hosting for years and entertained Jace with tales of others he’s hosted, including a Spanish couple who have been cycle-touring for the past ten years.

The Cassiar highway in British Columbia brought Kathrin, Hally, and Hauna, three young ladies from Bellingham, WA.  They offered Jace a place to stay when he passed through their neck of the woods.  A few weeks later at their home, one of their friends, a complete stranger with no medical training, removed stitches from Jace’s arm. Thankfully they had the wits to disinfectant before pulling them out. (sigh of relief)

Andre Kajlich

A stretch of “rails to trails” in picturesque Washington state, brought a chance encounter with a celebrity of sorts. Encountering a fellow cyclist was not uncommon, but one without legs riding a hand-cranked “trike” was.  It was a double surprise when the gentleman caught up to Jace and engaged in conversation. 

Andre Kajlich lost both legs in a train accident in 2004.  It didn’t slow him down much. In 2018, only a few months before encountering Jace, he completed the Race Across America (RAAM).  Many able-bodied cyclists fail to complete this 3000-mile marathon in the 12-day limit to be recognized as official finishers. Andre became the first to do it on a hand-cranked bike.  The feat didn’t go to his head.  “Dude was super cool. There can be some real attitude in the cycling world and he was just a really nice, humble guy.”

Yosemite

California brought the Sierra Nevada mountains. Nico was a memorable individual in Yosemite National Park, “a dude was kind enough to let me pitch my tent at his campsite.” The alternative was to hide from the Nazi-like rangers who were quick to fine unauthorized campers.  Beyond Yosemite, Jace crossed the east-west divide four times.  The Tioga pass at 9,943 feet was no easy feat, but it paled in comparison to the Coyote Flat Traverse. This gut-busting ascent up a jeep trail to 10,200 feet was worth the fantastic views offered of North Palaside. 

On October 17^th, Jace pedaled into San Diego, California and arrived at his brother’s home.  Through an act of God, his parents arrived three days later.  Some might call his dad’s business trip to the area coincidence. Others recognize it as one of God’s tender mercies.  We were blessed to spend a few days with Jace, his brother, his wonderful sister-in-law and his niece and nephew. We took note of his months-old beard, his lean physique, and sculpted iron-man legs. When the visit was over, not knowing when we would see him again, it was difficult to say goodbye.

Farewell to USA and Nephew & Niece.  Hello Mexico

Two weeks later, with more than 5,000 miles under his belt and more than 10,000 to go, Jace crossed into Tecate, Mexico.  We would have felt better if he was Spanish speaking.   With him south of the border, our worries began in earnest. At the same time, we were proud of our son.  Not many dreamed of doing what he dared to do.

---