"Do you want to ride to the Snowball Stand?" Sherlyn asked, one beautiful summer night in the hills of southern Mississippi.
We had been riding bicycles for weeks and daily tried to get in a few miles between mowing the yard, feeding the pigs, quail, turkeys, or other fowls they raised, milking the cow, canning or freezing fruit or vegetables, working in her garden, or the million other chores she had to do. We generally rode from one to five miles a day, and one day we even rode thirty-two miles. Frequently our riding time was at night.
You seriously could not see your hand in front of your face at night on the hilly, winding, country roads near Jayess, Mississippi. So Sherlyn hooked a flashlight on her handlebars to give us light.
Not having lights on the bicycles was actually the least of our problems. We also had no brakes. But we thought, "Who needs brakes when they have tennis shoes?"
It was about two or three miles to the Snowball Stand and we were enjoying our ride as usual. With Sherlyn having the light I learned that if I rode beside her I could see the road.
When we first started riding I would ride behind her, until one night Sherlyn said something to me that I didn't understand. I sped up and pulled alongside to ask what she had said. She said, "I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to that fox hunter in the road."
Sherlyn said a man had a lawn chair in the middle of the road with his gun on his lap, and was watching for foxes, as was a common practice in their area. But I had ridden up between Sherlyn and the man and never saw him. After that we decided it would be safer for me and any random hunter if I rode beside her instead of behind
Anyway, this particular night as we rode along to the Snowball Stand we talked and laughed, with an occasional pause where you could hear tennis shoes dragging to slow our bikes for a curve or when going down a hill.
I started dragging my feet as we left the top of the last hill. At the bottom was an intersection and we had to make a sharp left turn. Sherlyn excitedly said, "I'm gonna go for it!" as away she flew.
The small, speedily moving patch of light was visible to me as the whirr of the wheels got farther away. Then suddenly the sounds changed, as sparks flew and the light went out.
Sherlyn had not thought about the loose gravel in the intersection. But she recalled it quickly when she started skidding, fish tailing, and finally as she slid down the road on her face, though that was the final memory she would have for a while.
The last Thing I saw was the light flashing around crazily, as sparks were flying. The last thing I heard was the sound of metal crashing and skidding on pavement and gravel spraying, and then everything was silent and dark.
When I got my bicycle stopped there was nothing visible except a light from the Snowball Stand a quarter of a mile up the road.
When I called Sherlyn's name there was no answer. So I lay my bike down, while calling her name over and over, and started cautiously feeling around where the sparks had flown last. Finally, as I found her, there was a moan and Sherlyn said, "What happened?" That was a question we would hear frequently throughout the night.
Sherlyn said she could push her bike and we walked to the Snowball Stand. When the light hit her face I was shocked at how bad it was messed up. She had gashes and road rash over most of it. Some areas of her face actually looked like hamburger meat.
We left the bikes at the Snowball Stand and got a ride to the church where Bro. Bobby and Sis. Shirley Lambert were. Sherlyn said he could fix her face, which he did.
All night, as we played Skipbo to keep her awake, Sherlyn kept asking, "What happened?" When one of us would tell her, "You had a wreck." She questioned whether Joey and the kids were ok. To which we informed her that she was riding her bike. Then she would look in the mirror and say, "Joey's going to kill me!" Then the same questions started again....
Finally near morning Sister Loretta Burnette, Sherlyn's mother-in-law said it would be safe to let her sleep. Sister Burnette sat beside the bed and watched her. After she had slept a while Sherlyn moaned, sat up and asked, "What happened?"
Sister Burnette said she moaned then and said, "Oh no! Not again! You had a bicycle wreck!" And Sherlyn asked, "Did I already ask you that?" To which Sister Burnette replied, "Only a million times!"
Sherlyn still has no memories of that night past us starting our ride.
