Frankie Andreu called me about an hour ago. He said, “Hey, did Pierre’s house burn down?”
I jumped in the car and went over to my buddy Pierre’s house and I’ll be damned- the thing pretty much is destroyed. His three dogs didn;t make it. Pierre has had a rough way to go: Vietnam, tough times at work, etc. etc. Then this.
The irony is- who was over at Pierre’s house when I got there? All our riding buddies. Who called while I was there? All the guys we ride with. Who let me know about it? One of our riding buddies.
Cycling and athletics builds this bond of community that extends well beyond the road and the bike seat. I’ve seen it before, and I saw it again tonight.
Frankie called your house?? Cool (or not…given the circumstances)…no idea who Pierre but in keeping with the cycling community thing…if he needs anything…post it here…we’ll take care of him. My condolences on the loss of his dogs (I’d die before I lef t the house without my pets)
The house in not a total loss but very, very severly damaged. Thanks for your kind words.
Sharing a common interest is what draws your group together and makes you good friends. Several years ago a friend’s boat sunk. Who were the first guys there offering to help - our scuba diving group.
It’s funny. It is like the group is tighter than family, and a lot less disfunctional.
Despite my anti-social, iconoclastic and Malthusian tendencies, it’s still nice to belong … a little over a year ago, I suffered a serious shoulder injury at work (ended up being off the job for almost 4 months … and the docs originally predicted 6-12 months before I was back to work).
Immediately after it happened, co-workers visited me at the hospital, called me at home, offered to walk my dogs. Some of these people I didn’t even particularly like. But, we were both part of something and it was the right thing to do.