Today, just after the sunrise, a group of motorcycle riders met at a truck stop in West Monroe, La., to ride our Harley Davidson bikes down to New Roads, La., a historic district just outside of Baton Rouge, about three and a half hours away. Across the bridge in Monroe, a group of ladies gathered to play bridge from morning to night. You might be wondering what these two seemingly unrelated events have to do with each other.
It all started with an unexpected phone call I received two months ago from Martha Young. She is from the Bridge Club in Monroe, La., and she was calling me because I’m the director of the Bleu Bayou Harley Owners Group, which is our local chapter of Harley Davidson motorcycle enthusiasts. Now, there’s a bridge that connects the town of Monroe to West Monroe, where I live, so I thought Martha was saying that she belonged to another motorcycle club in Monroe. Turns out, she is with the Monroe Duplicate Bridge Club, which is a group of women and men who actually play bridge.
I’m thinking, why is this lady from the bridge club calling me? Martha said the ladies in her bridge club wanted to challenge the members of my motorcycle club to participate in The Longest Day. Now, before I got this call, I had never heard of The Longest Day and didn’t even know about the Alzheimer’s Association. But I felt like this call happened for a reason.
You see, my mother had multi-infarct dementia, which is dementia brought on by a series of mini-strokes. She suffered from this condition for 11 years before she died from complications of the disease in 2008.
So when Martha called to ask us to participate in The Longest Day to help raise awareness and money for the Alzheimer’s Association, it wasn’t hard for me to say yes.
We carefully mapped out the route, avoiding the interstate highways and taking the back roads so that we could make a successful ride for a good cause. And we did just that! The ride down here today, although hot with temperatures approaching the 90s, was very nice. We had the bayous on one side of us and the cedar and cypress trees with Spanish moss hanging from them on the other side. This is what we in the South like to call true country living, with the good smells of the trees and grass with the occasional bad smells of the chicken houses.
My wife, Teresa, and I are both wearing our purple Alzheimer’s Association T-shirts today that the bridge ladies gave us. I hope their all-day bridge marathon is just as enjoyable as this charity ride has been for us. Martha is already talking about getting many more groups of people involved from the Twin Cities in The Longest Day next year.
Who knows? Maybe if we make this event big enough in the years to come, West Monroe will be known for being more than the home of Willie Robertson and his A&E reality TV show “Duck Dynasty”!
About the Author: Chuck Adams, 54, is the owner of Tempco Insulation Inc., a commercial and residential insulation company in West Monroe, La. He is participating in Alzheimer’s Association The Longest Day® for the first time.