Uneasy Rider

It's an image that comes to mind with some regularity: I'm sitting at the light at Folsom and Iris, when I look across and see an old guy pedaling in my direction. His bike has a basket on the front and side-view mirrors that he is ignoring as he blows on through the red light. This is my Uncle Duane. Or was, at any rate.
In the later years of his life, he was prone to paranoid fits of delusion that featured young girls hopping out in front of him while he was taking one of his lengthy bike rides. I give him credit, even though he was delusional, he sure got around on that old one-speed cruiser. The young girls were a figment of his imagination, dreamed up to explain his periodic lapse of concentration on the road and subsequent tumbles into various ditches and shrubbery around suburban Boulder.
Uncle Duane, or "Way-Wee" as we used to call him, was not always a basket case. He was always bitter and disillusioned, but not always completely nuts. He was the first person I was aware of speaking to me as a child - specifically he called cheese "cheeb," and was happy to have us refer to him as "Way-Wee" when we were well into junior high. By the time I was in college, the only contact I had with Way-Wee was the occasional sightings on the streets of Boulder.
I have other memories of the man. Like the time he got real drunk at a family reunion and proceeded to pick a fight with my dad (his brother-in-law). He was jealous of all the things my father was and had, and thought he deserved the same. My dad listened to him for a good long while, and then he went inside while Way-Wee went on ranting. I also remember the amazing tatoos Duane had on both of his forearms, the product of a youth spent in the navy. I watched them wiggle and flex as he pulled a knife through a slab of cheddar and asked me if I wanted some cheeb.
I'm trying to get all my bike riding out of my system before my son is old enough to spot me from across the intersection. I just hope I can avoid those flirtatious young women who are seeking to distract me from my appointed rounds.