Buckskin Rides Again

[Dispatch #24] The Re-Entry Zone (and the final dispatch)

When I got home, everyone said the same thing: You must’ve had the time of your life! And yes, I did. But the tone in their voice tells me they picture my experience through the lens of leisure. No one imagines the reality: a woman on a motorcycle, sweating through her gear, scanning mirrors, reading crosswinds, and burning 175 to 200 calories an hour just to stay upright—about the same as an hour of circuit training, rowing, or a moderate hike in the woods. It looks fun—and it is fun—but it’s also work: physical, mental, emotional. The road asks something of me every minute. I’m not complaining; I love the demand. To the world it’s an escape. To me, it’s deep engagement. There’s a gender dynamic at play, too. When women go away—especially middle-aged women (and older)—we’re assumed to be taking a (likely self-indulgent) break. A break that isn’t entirely copacetic. People wonder whether Matt and Tristan will eat properly, and don’t I feel a little guilty? If Matt went fly-fishing in Montana for a couple of weeks, no one would wonder whether I’d be malnourished when he got back. Truth is, both Matt and Tristan are good cooks and know how to sort colors from darks and whites in the laundry room. I do not criticize the house when I return, and they don’t apologize—they have nothing to apologize for. Life goes on, and I’ll eventually find the drawer where that top ended up after coming out of the dishwasher. As I always do after a long trip, I’d scheduled a post-trip service appointment for my bike and timed my dealership arrival to miss the worst of rush hour. This allows me to avoid an extra trip to the dealership, since it’s on my way to the condo. I planned to ride-share home with my detachable luggage but Matt insisted on picking me up—which was lovely in theory, but the route from his office to the dealership is one of the city’s busiest. Sometimes we can’t do right by someone else without doing wrong by ourselves. He was late in picking me up, but I gave him grace—which, in fairness, was easy; my system always needs a few days to relearn how to belong inside a shared life, and I suspect his system feels the same. Once we pulled into the parking garage of our condo, I went on autopilot, offloading my bags and gear onto a shopping cart while Matt parked. My across-the-hall neighbor, Judy, joined us in the elevator and said how happy everyone would be to know I was home safe and sound. “Did you help your parents find a new place?” I laughed. “Long story, but the short answer is no.” The elevator stopped at our floor. “Let me catch up with myself and I’ll tell you all about it.” Judy, ever the patient one, smiled. “I’ll be right here when the time is right.” I never expected to love multifamily living, but my floormates are like sorority sisters—pitching in with an extra COVID test or a referral to a good electrician whenever the need arises. As a writer and editor, I’m very good at hunkering down, and I think I’d lose my social skills entirely if I lived in a single-family house where it would be so easy to disappear. Matt opened the door wide as I rolled the cart into the foyer. I called out,“Hey, Lovie—I’m home.” Tristan was up from the couch before I could set the brake, all grown man now but still calling me Mama. He wrapped me in his signature bear hug and held it long enough to let me know he meant it. Hard to believe I let him live to adulthood—I wouldn’t have guessed it during the tantrum years. “Let me take that back down for you,” he said, nodding toward the cart. Matt said, “I’ve got it. I know you want to check on your plants.” Matt and Tristan are gracious in the re-entry, not clingy. We’ve learned this rhythm over fifteen years—letting one another come and go. The living room, all glass and light, opens onto a balcony, where ferns, annuals and succulents spill over the railing. At first it was my garden, my place to settle when the day’s noise got too loud. But somewhere along the way it became Tristan’s too. When I travel, he keeps it alive—watering, pruning, sending me photos so we can revel in our cultivated beauty. We experienced some flora casualties in earlier trips, but I give him credit for staying the course. He had texted a picture just last week, so I wasn’t surprised to see that the giant taro—Colocasia gigantea—had thrown up three new “flowers,” the kind that look like peace lilies only supersized. We bent close to study the spadix, and a tiny anole darted between the leaves. “Ahhh,” we said in harmony. We live in a no-pet building, so we take our animal joys where we can find them. Anoles, for one. After I hauled my cargo into the proper rooms and tossed my clothes in the laundry hamper, I finally took that long-awaited shower with my own soaps and conditioner. The smell of homecoming. Years ago I decided hotel amenities were “good enough” for “helmet hair” and stopped packing my own, but standing there under familiar water pressure, I felt the small luxury of being known by my own things again. On the road, I never have to clean a tub or fold a towel—just rinse the bugs off my visor and go. Home has its comforts, but the road gives me one priceless thing: freedom from daily housekeeping. Matt and I found our way back as a couple and even slipped away for a few quiet beach days before the next family chapter began—his shark’s-tooth hunts and surf casting, my naps and wandering, both of us in sync in our own ways. Out in the world, I choose to be the unseen observer; back home, I’m a main character. In that role, I’ve worked to be less the glue that holds us together than the strand of raffia that keeps us aligned—a loose tie that allows for movement and growth without forcing the plant upright. There’s a difference between connection and control, between love as presence and love as management. These days, I practice the quieter art of letting go with love, as the saying goes. Back in Arizona, Dad was still prepping for the wedding trip east. He and Mom were sure they’d make the drive, and I believed them—mostly. We texted a few times about routes and hotel chains, and I realized I’d need to play more of a daily, on-call role once they hit the road. But first, Dad needed tech support. I didn’t want him pulling over every twenty miles to double-check the road atlas and make sure he hadn’t missed a turn. JJ and I came up with a plan. I’d text Dad a Google Map each evening with the next day’s turn directions. We looped in Bebe, who has taken a few road trips with them in a tech support role. She got him practicing with the app and reassured him: yes, the minivan’s screen would sync with his phone even without cell service, and no, he didn’t need to print out MapQuest directions “just in case.” Stagecoach was still in. Still bright-eyed. Still ready. And for now, it was the next generation carrying him forward. Once Matt and I got home from the seashore, we ate at Carter’s restaurant, a French café where he’s the lead bartender. The moment we walked in, the staff called out their greetings. The hostess smiled wide and said, “Welcome back, Mrs. Rich! How was your trip?” I hadn’t realized they’d been following the journey all along—Carter had been carrying pieces of my story into his world, and I was touched to find traces of it waiting for me there. He spotted us from behind the bar and broke into a grin. “Mom! That tan is gorgeous!” he said, coming around to give me a hug that smelled faintly of citrus peel; his cheek tasted of salt. “That’s Carter’s parents,” one of the bar patrons whispered, noting our status as minor local celebrities. For a second I saw myself through their eyes—sun-touched, self-possessed, and wholly at ease in my son’s world. The truth is, when Carter was in high school, I used to wonder what the other parents thought of us. We weren’t stellar—just determined, doing our best to stay upright through the storms. I wish I could tell that younger mother she’d make it here—that love, even imperfect, would outlast the years. Later in the evening, when the rush slowed, Carter slipped away from the bar and joined us for a few minutes. That’s when I noticed he was already wearing his wedding band. It choked me up a bit, the love he has for Katie. While I was still on the road, Carter had told me that their best-laid plans for a simple courthouse ceremony had been thwarted when they learned only two witnesses would be permitted in the judge’s chambers. They wanted intimate, but two was minuscule. Matt and I quickly offered them our condo’s garden gazebo and community room, and they took us up on it. We offered space; they kept the ceremony small. Everyone stayed in their lane. At about that point, Carter had had enough of decisions—locations, clothes, shoes, officiant costs. “Hell, I’d marry Katie by the side of the road,” he said. “Nothing else matters.” And they say romance is dead. In one of our late-night phone calls while I was on the road Matt asked what we should be doing besides offering our home. There was a time I’d have had a list: seating chart, color palette, garlands for the gazebo, maybe even a photographer to capture what I thought they’d want to remember. I came by that instinct honestly. At my own wedding, Mom orchestrated something she believed my brother and I would both cherish—JJ singing during the ceremony. She told each of us the other wanted it. Neither of us did. It was her way of pre-arranging meaning, making sure the day would carry emotional weight. We unraveled the plan in time, but the lesson lingered: sometimes love overreaches. I can’t remember how it resolved. Maybe that’s because I’ve put it in a lockbox. I’m good at that. Sitting in the café’s low lighting, admiring my handsome son, I treaded gently. “Have you picked out what you’re wearing for the wedding?” He rolled his eyes, good-natured but weary of all the talk. “Mom,” he said, drawing the word out just enough to make me laugh. “I’m sick of thinking about it, but yes, I’ve picked it all out.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket and flipped through the pictures to show me his choices—trousers, a vest, crisp white shirt, and a tie to match the pink of Katie’s dress. It was everything I’d once hoped for both of my sons: that love wouldn’t feel like a performance, just a quiet alignment between two people who already understand each other. I smiled, knowing the road had brought me home to this—to a son already sure of his direction, even as the map ahead of me kept changing. I just didn’t know the next turn would be the real test. Thanks for going along for the ride and for every comment, like, and share. I’ve loved every minute. This post is public so feel free to share it. And I have an announcement: “the next turn” I mentioned will be part of the book Buckskin Rides Again [http://tamelarich.com/buckskin]. I’m finalizing the final edits and will tell you more about it in a couple of weeks. Get full access to Narrative Mileage with Tamela Rich at tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe [https://tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

[Dispatch #23] Warning Signs and Warbonnets

I left Mississippi with my grin intact. By the time I crossed into Alabama, my edges were fraying. I’d logged 1,500 miles since my last real rest in Santa Fe, continuously battling the wind. I managed to dodge the rain until the last five minutes when I turned left into the Hampton Inn on the edge of town, where I fell easily into sleep after dinner. By morning, I thought I’d found my balance again. I hadn’t. Fatigue lingers in disguise. Down in the guest lounge, the buffet attendant was overfunctioning in his attempts to connect with the bleary-eyed guests. He couldn’t read the room, and I found myself both annoyed and sorry for him. It wasn’t just his lack of confidence—it was something else. Like the volume of his friendliness was turned up too high to hear what anyone else was saying, or in my case, thinking. My family—salespeople—prized extroversion, same as American culture. Quick with a story, wired for rapport. Sure, I inherited the family charm, and I can turn it on in the right company—as I did with the nuclear engineer in Santa Fe—but it’s not my fuel. What refuels me is quieter: a good sentence, a long ride, a day where I don’t have to answer to anyone. I’ve gotten pretty savvy navigating this strain of social terrain: I started my hot tea at the table I’d chosen but didn’t sit down—that’s a trap. So is eye contact—interpreted as willingness to listen to the attendant’s story about his daughter finishing nursing school (which is exactly what happened to the feckless guest who gave off open vibes). As soon as he locked in on his mark, I made my break for the reconstituted eggs and bacon. Look, I know that feeling—the reach, the trying too hard—but I didn’t have the kindness or the time to spare that morning. Back in my room, the silence felt heavy after all that forced cheer. That’s when JJ called. My brother doesn’t sleep much, so I wasn’t surprised to get a call at seven o’clock his time. His tone was soft, but I could feel something loading behind it. This wasn’t just a check-in. “Well, I have to tell you what happened last night,” he said. JJ was waiting for Mom and Dad to come over for a family dinner, but they didn’t arrive. He kept trying to hail Dad on his phone, then Mom, to no avail. He can usually find them using Apple’s tracker, so he figured out they were at Lowe’s. An errand. (She loves squeezing in an errand). But this one took much too long. What was going on? Finally, Mom called from home to say they weren’t coming. She said she‘d just needed something for the patio garden—just a quick in-and-out at Lowe’s while Dad waited in the car. But she took his phone by mistake, disappeared into the store, lost track of time, and never found what she’d come shopping for. “She left him sitting there with no way to reach her,” he hissed. “Dad didn’t know what to do—just waited, hoping she hadn’t gotten lost or fallen or…”. JJ trailed off. “She finally came back.” That’s when his voice cracked. “Tam, she was scared. She said, ‘I don’t recognize myself sometimes.’” I don’t recognize myself sometimes. The words landed with the weight of both truth and prophecy—what she feared now, what I’d feared for years. I didn’t know what to say to that, and for a moment the whine of emotional static scrambled my thoughts. It was a dagger in my heart, clean and quiet. In my predictable avoidance pattern, I mounted up, trusting the road to work its old magic—or at least to nudge something brighter to the surface. But the thoughts clung, hovering around me like Pigpen’s dust cloud in Peanuts. By the time I rolled into Scottsboro, Alabama, early that afternoon, they were still swirling. I was running on fumes and looking for lunch, a second wind, and maybe a little mercy under the overcast sky with its (blessedly) light breezes. I’d long wanted to visit Unclaimed Baggage—the country’s only thrift store that sells the contents of lost airline luggage—but I didn’t have it in me. Not that day. I passed the corridor of chain restaurants along State Highway 79 looking for local fare--there had to be some near downtown, since Scottsboro is Jackson County’s seat, and every county courthouse I’ve ever seen has a local diner within walking distance. Where else are lawyers supposed to argue over pie before they argue in court? Three blocks later, I nearly blew through a stop sign. A big red one. Clear as day. And somehow, I didn’t see it until the last second. That’s how it starts—the slow fade between alert and autopilot. You run the same systems for too long, start cutting corners without realizing it. You tell yourself you’re fine, you’ve done this before, you’ve got muscle memory. But fatigue’s a shape-shifter. It slips in sideways and settles behind your eyes. Maybe that’s how Mom experiences it too. I stopped, barely. Pulled into a parking space just beyond the sign, hit the kill switch, and just sat there, staring at the faded white perimeters of my safe spot. By some unknown grace, the driver crossing my path had seen me coming and didn’t try to gun it. I once lost a friend to that very scenario. That’s when it hit me: the road high was gone. Not a giddy high—just that steady hum of purpose and forward motion that had carried me west, then north, then south again. What remained was the long slide down the other side: the final push east, and the re-entry zone waiting for me. In time, I forgave myself. Shook out my hands and shoulders. Coasted the few blocks into downtown, where I found what I’d been looking for: a proper local joint with an old-school Coca-Cola mural blazing across the side of a brick building. Payne’s Sandwich Shop and Soda Fountain didn’t dabble in branding—it mainlined it. The interior was a Coke-themed shrine: every square inch decked out in red-and-white kitsch from the farthest reaches of the company’s marketing imagination. I have a soft spot for anyone willing to triple-down on what matters in life—even if what matters is carbonated nostalgia and a bottle opener screwed into the counter. Places like Payne’s don’t just sell lunch and a heroic array of ice cream flavors. They sell a feeling—one bite of Americana at a time. Have a Coke and a smile. Tell yourself the myth still holds. And just for grins—why is it that Pepsi can’t hold a candle to Coke when it comes to cornering the American spirit? It apparently wins all the blind taste tests, but people still prefer Coke. My fling with chile rellenos was behind me now, and I ordered a proper Reuben—corned beef, not the pastrami pretender or, God forbid, turkey. Why restaurants think they can get away with calling something with turkey a Reuben is beyond me. That’s false advertising. Do I make myself clear? The guys to my right were business associates whose conversation had dipped into the personal. The younger one was shaky about his relationship, and the elder had thoughts. My writerly instincts usually compel me to tune in—I’m a sucker for an unexpected turn of phrase or a glimpse of vulnerability at the edge of a meal—but there was nothing here worth tuning into. The hum of my own thoughts was louder anyway. I’d had enough secondhand doubt for one day—plenty of my own to sort. I paid the bill, stepped back into the heat, and swung a leg over the bike. Time to ride. The land began to rise—an ascent that echoed the shift happening inside me. The lowland stretch of my journey, both literal and emotional, was giving way to something else: elevation. I’m not sure if the rising road lifted my spirits or just gave them permission to rise—but it felt like alignment, either way. Any rider knows that shift in elevation—not just in the road, but in the body. You get the chance to lean. A quick series of twisties here becomes switchbacks at higher elevation, then a mountain valley where Black Angus raise their heads to follow the sound of your engine. Somewhere between the ridgelines and the filtered light, the mountains were mine again. The climb is always my favorite part. Second or third gear, right in the power band, where even a slight roll of the throttle changes everything. No shifting needed—just that sweet, responsive zone where engine and intention move as one. When I hit the angles just right, the ride becomes a sentence—each curve a clause feeding the next. The exit of one flows clean into the entry of another. No corrections. No overthinking. Just lean, throttle, trust. The engine growls low and steady. The scent of the mountains drifts in and out. Nothing exists beyond the next turn—and that’s the point. When the curves finally straightened, the world returned in slow motion: traffic lights, shopfronts, the smell of barbecue smoke. Just ahead of the golden hour—which comes a little earlier in the shadow-casting mountains—I pulled into the temporary parking space at the Hampton Inn in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and there it was: just five feet in front of me, a gleaming passenger railcar bearing the warbonnet of the old Santa Fe Super Chief. The emblem belonged out west, not here in the Southern Appalachians. And yet, it fit. It wasn’t entirely out of place. My hotel sat beside a historic rail corridor known as the Hook & Eye Line—famous for sharp curves and switchbacks that once moved timber, tourists, and textiles through the Appalachians. These days, it’s a scenic rail route using vintage cars like this transplanted Super Chief. The hotel leaned into the theme with historic maps in the lobby and a rooftop bar named after the line. I took a photo without thinking—instinctively. Not because it was rare (though it was), but because it reminded me of Dad. Stagecoach had been different since I set out a month earlier. Brighter. Lighter. Maybe it was just the novelty of riding shotgun with Buckskin from afar. But I think it was more than that. Dad isn’t a train guy. Not in the memorabilia sense. The Super Chief emblem reminded me of him because the railroad was part of the story he came from. After high school, his dad and uncles got him in at the Barstow yard doing undercarriage work. Not his calling, exactly, but it came with union possibilities and the kind of physical work he’d been raised to respect. Dad didn’t have much in the way of guidance growing up. His own father—my grandfather—wasn’t much of a model, but a man named Charlie Fontaine filled part of that space. Mid-fifties, lean and muscled, Charlie was what people called a health nut. He believed in clean living, vitamin C, and the medicinal properties of fruits and vegetables. Dad has a way of telling a story that makes it unfold like a scene from a film. He becomes the other guy—jutting his chin like Grandpa—with just enough exaggeration to be funny, never cruel. He never mocks. But he has a comic’s eye for detail, the physicality of someone who’s watched the world closely and remembered how men moved—how they grumbled or swaggered or dragged cigarette smoke down to their toenails. That’s his gift—the kind that doesn’t seek a stage but finds one anyway. He doesn’t perform so much as channel, as if the stories passed through him on their way to somewhere else. Suddenly I wasn’t just hearing about a guy named Charlie—I was in the break room with him, watching grease-stained hands slice an orange like it held the meaning of life.The light doesn’t shine on Dad because he asked for it. It beams because he knows how to hold it without breaking the spell. Dad still tells the story of how Charlie took him to one of those proto health food stores, where everything cost three times as much as it should. Dad spent a week’s wages on two bags of groceries because Charlie said pure food was “pure fuel.” One of the items was beans. Charlie gave careful instructions: soak them overnight, pour off the water, rinse, then cook with salt, pepper, and onions for a couple of hours until tender. But Mom, ever resourceful—and unwilling to waste a single drop of anything she’d paid so dearly for—used the soaking water to cook the beans. She figured there had to be nutrients in it. But the beans came out tasting like regret. Even a toothbrush couldn’t remove the grit. That was them in a nutshell: Dad, the starry-eyed believer. Mom, the one left to salvage the plan. Every time he brings up the railroad—“Back when I was working under railcars”—Mom chimes in, deadpan: “That’s where all the body parts fell out.” She means it literally. When someone was hit by a train, the remains got caught up in the undercarriage and axles, then dropped into the inspection pit where the mechanics worked. The gore was real, but Dad never talks about that part. What he remembers is Charlie Fontaine. Dad didn’t stay in the yard. Said he wanted to be in business, so he got a job in collections for Pacific Finance—apparently repossessing muscle cars felt more promising than working his way up to union shop boss. But when he talks about finding his way in the world, it’s Charlie who comes up—the blue-collar philosopher, the strongman with a jar of vitamin C in his lunch box. Not because he preached anything, but because he was his own man. In a shop full of hangovers and hard luck, Charlie had clarity—a quality Dad still admires and sometimes borrows when he tells those stories. Later that evening, I texted him the photo of the warbonnet and it didn’t take five minutes for the phone to ring. “Hey, where’d you find that beauty?” A beauty it was, a western echo in Appalachian pines. He was proud of me for taking this trip—this solo trip. Said he and Mom had been praying for my safety every day. Our nightly check-ins gave him something to look forward to. He was excited about their own trip back east and had already scheduled the minivan for service. Said he wanted me to help plan their route and overnights once I got home. But I could tell there was a restlessness under the surface. Retirement suits him—and it doesn’t. He’s not bored, exactly, but he’s never been a man with a five-year plan beyond what work and family required. Mom has always set their pace. He grumbles about her endless to-do lists, but he doesn’t have a competing one of his own. Her drive pulled him along for decades. And now, it’s love that keeps him moving, even when he’d rather coast. My trip was something different. A jolt of forward motion, minus the weight of responsibility. I was giving him a vicarious thrill—an undemanding spark he could tap into from a distance. He could still feel the thrill of motion in my joy. That’s the kind of man he is—soft-footed, generous with his attention, and quick with a laugh. The light finds him, even when he’s not asking for it. Mom used to say—half joke, half truth—that we all loved him best. “I did all the work,” she’d mutter, “and he got all the love.” It was said with a wink, but sometimes it had teeth. She carried the weight of all she’d done—unseen, unpraised—and Dad, with his natural buoyancy, always seemed to float above it. She wasn’t wrong about the workload. But Dad has always had a way of making things lighter. He still does. Download Craft Tips and Memoir Prompts here [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CWYCcDyZ5V-tBGcRfRBkk9_Hice0UeQOLnF7HWZXa8c/view] Get full access to Narrative Mileage with Tamela Rich at tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe [https://tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

A Rest Stop with Buckskin

This isn’t a full dispatch—just a pause at the rest stop. The holidays are a time when everyone’s attention scatters, including mine, and I want the final miles of Buckskin Rides Again to land when you’re actually able to take them in. The last two dispatches arrive on January 4 and January 11. Before I pull off the road, I want to show you something I didn’t have when I first wrote about it. Visiting my parents after Thanksgiving, I finally took a photograph of the Victorian sleigh that lives in their home—the one Dad had restored for Mom and she has carried with her from home to home since the early eighties. Seeing it again in person reminded me how much our family stories are carried in objects we keep trying to make whole. During my visit, my nephews came for dinner and I suggested getting a few family pictures in it. Their eyes lit up, “Great idea! It’s been years since we did that.” If you’d like to revisit the scenes where the sleigh appears, here are the two dispatches: Buckskin returns January 4 and 11 for the final two dispatches. I’ll also be sharing a few behind-the-scenes surprises—including something I’ve been sitting on for months. Wishing you warmth… Tamela Get full access to Narrative Mileage with Tamela Rich at tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe [https://tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

[Dispatch #22] The Shoo-Fly Wave

I crossed the Arkansas–Mississippi line on a long, hot stretch of two-lane and stopped at a four-pump gas station in the middle of nowhere—a place where the snack aisle leans hard toward pork rinds and Little Debbies. Three men, well past seventy-five, had hauled their aluminum lawn chairs outside the store to watch the traffic go by. A couple of younger guys—grandsons?—stood behind them in a kind of social solidarity. I pulled in under the canopy, gave them a wave, and fueled up, checked my chain lube, and grabbed a couple of dollars for a snack. As I came out, the youngest codger—flannel shirt, John Deere cap—called out, “Where ya headed?” “Ultimately home to North Carolina. But tonight, Alabama.” The men erupted in knee slaps and laughter as the youngest elbowed the oldest. “See! I told you she was headed for Alabama!” I looked at the oldest man and lowered my voice like we were in on something. “What’d you lose on that bet?” His face made it clear—he was not a betting man. So I added, “Ah. An honor bet.” He smiled with his whole face, and gave me a nod. I rolled out of the station smiling, thinking about those lawn chairs and that honor bet. It was the kind of exchange that sits right—easy, good-natured, the kind of moment that stays with you longer than you’d expect. Road magic. Not every stop goes down that easily. Later that afternoon, I pulled into a busy Exxon in Walnut, Mississippi—93 miles west of Florence, Alabama. A few Harley riders were fueling up, clearly on a group ride. I nodded, and they nodded back, as per the two-wheeled custom. The man leaning against the ice machine had plenty to say about my choice of marque. He was all warmth from the start—camouflage shirt, MAGA hat, a wire-wrapped cross on a thong around his neck. Missing a few teeth, sure, but his smile was genuine. He lit up at the sight of a woman on a motorcycle—especially one riding something unexpected. He struck me as the sort who’d rather see me on a big V-twin, but could appreciate the anomaly. “Well now,” he said, admiring the bike. “That’s a real nice Beemer. Didn’t expect to see a lady out here on one of those.” After a few friendly words I started toward the store. He added, almost like a benediction: “Well, I sure hope you got a gun somewhere on you. You need to carry.” I didn’t stop walking. Gave his shoulder a light punch—friendly enough, but firm. “No, no. We’re not talking about guns today.” He blinked, caught off guard. “What? You need a gun!” I kept it light, kept moving, waved from the glass door as I stepped inside. “It’s crazy out there,” he called after me. “You need a gun.” My refusal to talk about guns probably gave him whiplash. People assume that because I’m a woman on a motorcycle—even one in riding gear that makes me look more like an astronaut than a cowboy—I must still fit the biker-chick stereotype: tough, rebellious, dangerous, full of masculine energy that naturally includes firearms. Even on a wimpy European model instead of a big American twin, the assumption sticks. When I retell this story, people ask, “Weren’t you afraid?” No, I wasn’t. He was a man of conviction—certain that safety is a personal responsibility. And that certainty felt familiar to me. I was raised by a mother who was always attuned to the current of danger. Her parents made sure of it. They’d each learned to read danger in their own way—the hard way. Her mother, Mamaw, didn’t finish high school—hardly anyone in the coal camp did—but she had a head for numbers and a nose for when someone was getting cheated. Neighbors brought her their pay stubs and bank statements to see if the math lined up. It often didn’t. While Mamaw’s mind was her weapon, Papaw leaned on physical readiness. He trained himself to write with his left hand, just in case he needed his right to protect one of us. The penmanship drills were sweet, a little dramatic, and everyone understood the good intentions behind them. It’s no surprise Mom took that instinct of protecting one’s own and ran with it. When I was in high school, Mom trained to become a police officer. She enrolled at the community college, bought a gun before it was fashionable, and turned out to be a crack shot from the start. To hear her tell it, she even out-shot a deputy sheriff on the range. Dad tried talking her out of a career in law enforcement, but Papaw was the big gun. She gave his opinion the final say, and when he warned her about bad guys coming after cops’ families she stepped back. I think that decision left a crack she never fully sealed. It’s probably why she went civilian vigilante. Eventually—in her late forties or early fifties—she turned her passion to karate and earned a black belt. Before long, she was teaching self-defense classes to women. When my boys were little and stayed at Grammyland, she made sure they took lessons too. Somewhere along the way, her self-defense training made her an evangelist for the square-handled ice pick—not the round kind, mind you; too slippery if you meet your mark. She explained, “You want one with edges, so it doesn’t spin loose if it gets… messy.” There’s one of them in every room of her house. Just in case. Her readiness always felt theatrical—like she was preparing for a scene that hadn’t started yet. It was Mom’s way of claiming control in a world that rarely handed it over freely—especially to women. She wasn’t waiting to be rescued. She was ready to do the rescuing, and one time she even did so at a big box store. From out in the parking lot, Mom saw a shoplifter shove past the teenage security guards. Then in her sixties, she dropped her bags, hustled Mamaw into the car, and sprinted back to the entry apron behind the bollards—where the rent-a-cop was flailing. She pinned the thief to the tarmac with a knee to his shoulders—and used what I’ve always called the Vulcan Death Grip near his neck. She had a real name for the move, but I never remembered it. “Death Grip” fits her style. That might be why she never corrects me when I tell the story. Nothing lights her up like the chance to go full vigilante. The older I get, the more I recognize the logic in her intensity. It was her version of safety. Her version of love. What she did was about staying ready—safe, in control. She moved through the world ready for it to turn on her. I admire her decisiveness—how instinct took over, how fast she moved. But we trained our instincts in different directions. What I do is about staying open. Present. Connected. I move through it hoping it will change me. But what about that ponytail holder I picked up back in Amarillo, the one with tiny plastic guns sitting in little tooled-leather holsters? I wasn’t drawn to it as a weapon; I was drawn to the contradiction of being a young girl with guns in her hair. Even then, safety and danger were braided together in ways I didn’t fully understand. Now, this might surprise you, but I actually agree with the gun guy on one point: it is a shitshow out there. But that word means different things depending on who’s saying it—and what they fear. These days, we’re all using the same vocabulary to describe completely different realities. That’s the real danger: thinking we’re talking about the same thing. I stay wary too—just not about what he’s worried about. Maybe that’s why today I ride alert—aware of the energy in a room, along a roadside, in a man. I don’t say what I’m carrying. Let them wonder. People call us both badass—my mother for her martial arts, me for riding solo cross-country. But what we do—and why we do it—comes from different places. She stays ready. I stay open. And if anything edges too close—including weaponry—I give it the shoo-fly-wave with a breezy grin. Get full access to Narrative Mileage with Tamela Rich at tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe [https://tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

[Dispatch #21] Pretty Disreputable, Apparently

Become a free subscriber and you’ll never miss a thing. Two hours after I left the person I’ve come to call “Jaguar man,” I outran the storm that had chased me all day and rolled into Norman, Oklahoma. The sky had cleared, but the unease lingered—what I’d shaken off in weather still clung in thought. Pulling under the hotel canopy as the light shifted to gold, I could see at least three decent restaurants within walking distance. After days of eating what Mom always called “starch bloat,” I was ready for real food—hard-core greens, no cheese, no fryer oil. The lobby’s air-conditioning hit me first—sharp and sterile after the plains. As I took off my helmet, the young woman behind the front desk, braid swinging, face lighting up like she’d spotted a long-lost friend cried out: “Oh! You’re a fellow motorcyclist.” I smiled at her phrasing and gave her her due. “Yes, I am. What do you ride?” Without hesitation, she pulled out her phone and flipped open the photo app. Beaming, she held up a picture of a Kawasaki Ninja. “My boyfriend’s bringing it home for me tonight. It was his brother-in-law’s and he just got a bigger bike. I can’t wait!” Her excitement was contagious, even after a long day on the road. Instead of lamenting high winds, drivers who texted at 75 mph, and road grime, I leaned into her joy. “Is this your first?” She nodded, practically bouncing. “Yes! I just passed my motorcycle endorsement and I’ve been riding his around in parking lots. I can’t wait to ride my own!” Another guest came through the sliding doors, snapping her back into employee mode. But in between key-charging and data entry, she asked where I’d been and where I was headed. “Oh, someday I’d love to take a trip like that,” she said wistfully. “Then promise yourself you will,” I told her. “Make it happen.” Upstairs, I took a hot shower, rinsing off the grit of the plains, and opened my email. There was a long, thoughtful note from Stephanie waiting—updates on her latest draft. I told her I’d look at the pages after dinner and we scheduled a call for the next morning. Then my brother called. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “Mom and Dad decided they’re driving to Carter’s wedding.” “What? I thought they were flying.” “Nope. The way they put it was—hang on—‘This will be our last big road trip.’ And they want to follow your route back east. Your exact route. Even La Posada in Santa Fe.” There was a kind of poetry in that—and perhaps a kind of peril, too. Part of me was moved—Dad had been so engaged, tracking my progress, asking about the roads and the weather. And Mom, well, she wanted to bring a box of family mementos along so she could watch us unwrap it like kids on our birthdays. JJ said they were happy, even energized, by the idea of being back on the road. But another part of me hesitated. My mind flashed to that moment near Panhandle, Texas—when the U-Haul brakes failed to disengage the cruise control on the exit ramp. Would their past catch up to them on the open road? And would I know—really know—when it was time to take the keys away? We had talked about that one day in Phoenix, JJ, Dad, Mom, and I on their spacious patio with the overhead fan whirring. Between the two of us, JJ and I called it the “omnibus aging conversation,” where we gently brought up everything from medical power of attorney to long-term driving plans. We’d been calm, collaborative, full of love. JJ was the one who brought up driving. Dad volunteered: “Oh yes, someday we won’t be able to drive. We know that.” Mom nodded along—it was that kind of afternoon for her. But “someday” is a slippery word. It lives safely in theory—until it doesn’t. I could almost hear the word surface, like a buoy rising through water. Alongside the warmth I felt—the sweetness of their reversal from “We’re done road-tripping” to a two-week trek east—came a ripple of dread. My body registered it before my brain did: a clench behind the ribs, a subtle tilt toward caution. I didn’t want to be the killjoy, so I stayed quiet. Someday had just arrived. And in the back of my mind, the Greek chorus began again—soft but insistent:Sometimes, something tragic happens. The next day on the road was uneventful, other than passing through Johnny Bench’s hometown of Binger, Oklahoma. I didn’t stop to tour the museum. I rolled into Hot Springs in the late afternoon, grateful that the boring part of the trip was behind me. I should mention that I rarely make room reservations in advance and with few exceptions, this has worked perfectly. It gives me the flexibility to duck in early for weather or extend the day. But I never even considered that Hot Springs had a casino and a racetrack, so imagine my shock when, on a Saturday night, every brand-name chain was full, and even the motor lodges’ neon signs glowed “No Vacancy.” I wasn’t about to take my chances on the sketchy ones—flickering fluorescent lights, curtains that didn’t close, parking lots with too many loiterers and too few lights. Not tonight. I had plenty of options to the east, so I rode on. The moment reminded me of a night years ago in North Dakota, when I didn’t have an option. I’d planned to reach Montana before nightfall, but a storm was building west of Dickinson. I pulled into a gas station to check the skies and figure out my next move. A local man inside—one of those guys with real-time radar access and an easy authority—told me I should stay put. “There’s nowhere to stay,” I said, staring. He shrugged. “I know a place.” He called to a 12-room motel up the road and told them a solo rider might need a room—or a patch of grass for her tent. In those days I always carried a tent. The place was across from a row of silos and a grain elevator, and my first instinct was suspicion. Meth lab? I told myself to settle down. Don’t be such a city slicker, Tam. The woman who ran the place was funny and warm. She brought ice cubes from her own kitchen and sat with me outside while the sky settled. As we talked, she told stories about trying to keep hunters from cleaning game in their rooms—said she finally had to put up a sign that read, “No cleaning game in your room!” I should’ve taken a picture of it. But I was too busy feeling grateful. The room was newly redone, the mattress soft, and the storm passed without a drop. I slept like a baby. So why didn’t I take a chance on one of the more colorful joints in Hot Springs? The honest answer? I still had options in Arkansas, where I didn’t in North Dakota. And maybe there’s a deeper answer, too—something reptilian. I trust the dodginess of a 12-room motel in the middle of grain country more than the same setup in a city with a vice economy. I’d like to think I’m above that kind of bias. I’m not. An hour later, I found a Holiday Inn Suites within a bustling shopping center and had already identified my restaurant before I checked in. For the second time in a few days, after asking if they had a vacancy for one night, the desk clerk looked me over and said,“Yes, but we’re expensive.” Twice in one week—that was new. In all my years on the road, no one had ever felt the need to warn me I might not belong. How disreputable can an old broad like me really be? Pretty disreputable, apparently. And deeply reputable in other ways—reliable, watchful, practiced in the art of showing up. I’ve earned my reputation through miles and weather, through work done well and people cared for. It’s not always visible at first glance—but then again, most durable things aren’t. The desk clerk, it turned out, was a doll. Once she realized I could swing the rate, she took me under her wing and did her best to retrieve my not-so-frequently-used rewards number. I couldn’t hold a thing against her. I took the room, ate another salad, and felt the fatigue set in. Later, after returning from the restaurant, I called down to let her know there was a big puddle of water in the elevator. She sighed. “Those little league families…” Get full access to Narrative Mileage with Tamela Rich at tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe [https://tamelarich.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]