So Glad

Ace's uncle used to tell him, "You can get mad or you can get glad boy. What's it gonna be?" Today Ace was glad. He took off on his hawg before the heat of the day got too hot. After a rainy week, the sun was a welcome reprieve and the theme of the day was lawn mowers, and brother there was no shortage of them. The smell of the fresh cut grass made him feel like a kid again as it always does. As he made his way through town to the edge where the buildings get further apart and the fields get longer and wider he poured on the gas. After spending far too many weeks working in the crowded Northeast he appreciated that he lives in a place where he can ride and be the only vehicle on the road for a couple miles. As he hit the two lane highway that rolls over the countryside he cranked the throttle and the roaring beast under his seat came alive; he felt the wind pull hard at his shirt as he leaned forward into it. He thought that there was nothing so great as dropping over a decline and seeing the backs of cattle off in the high grass of a pasture. Then he roared by a corral of chestnut horses near a green slime covered pond. White egrets stood knee deep in the water. Over another rise past some round hay bales and a very old, abandoned, dark brown cracker house buried in a stand of trees; lost in time and the hay field. He sped across the countryside, squinting as the sunshine glinted off of his shimmering chrome. He traveled through the pine forest were the scent felt thick in his nostrils and as the warm pine filtered into his lungs he considered how it felt oddly good and incarnate and yet stifling. Then the road rose and curved and he rode up and down the serpent's back rolling to a stop at an intersection. As he looked for oncoming traffic he sat in the shade of large oaks draped in Spanish moss. A herd of cows were bunched up under the trees beyond the barbwire to escape the sun's heat. They stared at him with gaping eyes and methodically chewed. He popped the clutch and roared on, down along the river under the canopy of trees and felt the temperature drop to a cool refreshing sensation on his skin; ever thankful that he lived in such a wonderful place to ride.