The Wayne Bryan Memorial on Highway 30, on the northeast
side of the road, just northwest of the intersection with Bird Pond Road
Ask me to head out for a ride and we'll talk of the day, of the many times on the bike, of the tempestuous winds that have blown and the countless roads we have traveled. Many friends have joined me in this cycling camaraderie as we spend our hours together in the pursuit of recreation and fitness and competition and sanity. We go out on our bikes because it is the way we spend our hours. It's what we do and who we are. It is the context in which we find similar souls who grace our rides and propel us further down the roads.
But if you happen to be out on 30, heading back toward town, about a 1/2 mile past Bird Pond Road, you'll see the marker. Each time I pass the marker, I raise a bottle in honor, and praise and salutation. Wayne's shattered Cannondale is mounted in the cross that reads "Wayne's High" and "Deb".
There were five of us out there on that piece of road on August 10, 1997. Joe Todaro was a few yards ahead. Julius Gribou and Diane Wells were just ahead. I was right next to Wayne, perhaps a few feet off his front wheel. This was our casual Sunday early ride. Wayne was going to get back early for church. We had just come across on Bird Pond and were heading back to town on 30.
What could be more normal than going out for an early morning ride in August, getting out before the broiling sun had risen too far in the sky, and talking about the chores and responsibilities that would claim the rest of our days. The worst calamity that one could expect on a morning like that is a flat followed by a defective tube.
Wayne didn't make it home that morning. Debbie went out looking for him in the neighborhood as it was getting late. She hoped that perhaps she might find him delayed with some small mechanical. But when she got home and looked out her window, a trooper was going down to the end of the street and then turning around and pulling into her driveway.
Wayne owned two bike shops, never had an unkind word to say of any soul and claimed that his small chain ring was only for Colorado, or other destinations with mountains. He would ride his own speed, which sometimes coincided with ours, but after riding away with a burst of speed, he would wait and ride with us again. Any hill in the Brazos Valley he would tacitly claim for his own, but only if you chose to challenge him. He hung those Oakleys from his neck until the sun was high in the sky, but by then it was usually time for him to open the shop, go to church, or attend to other responsibilities.
But on that Sunday morning, on that lonely piece of asphalt coming back to town, a car whose driver fell asleep at the wheel came across the shoulder, striking Wayne from behind and throwing him hundreds of feet.
In your life, you don't often plan for atrocities. But on this day, our bike ride was interrupted in this ghastly way.
For the dreadful details, ask me if you've got to know. I'll share them with you, but only if you understand that sharing such pain may create bonds that are not broken very easily.
The driver of the car had just worked a night shift down at the prison in Huntsville and he was headed to another shift as a security guard at St Joes. The 911 operator told us to roll Wayne onto his back and administer mouth to mouth. The driver of the car, whose name I now forget, performed this deed. And then the ambulance arrived, and the DPS trooper, and the volunteer fire department.
Sometime along there, Wayne departed us. It really doesn't matter when. If you knew Wayne, you knew he was immediately welcome where he was headed.
And then it was time for us to get on with our lives. Joe called his wife and got a ride home as soon as possible. Ward, Diane's husband, gave the rest of us a ride home. My family was expecting me as I had called ahead. Dillon, my son, who was seven at the time, tells me of how I cried all that long and terrible day. No trooper came to my house to give news to my family. I am still reverberating with the simple, thankful fact that I got to go home on that day, that death passed so close by as I struggled to calm my poor fractured spirit with the love of my family and the routines of my life.
I felt that I had to make phone calls that afternoon, to inform some of our cycling brethren. Folks that had ridden with us just the day before. The local cycling pack. Our cycling peers. I had the unfortunate duty of interrupting their Sunday afternoon with the shocking news of the death of our dear compatriot, so that they could hear about it from a friend and not read about it in the paper.
At work on Monday, many of my friends came up to me to see me and were shocked to hear of my role in this tragedy as I recited my litany of horror and loss. One of my friends downstairs had seen us huddled on the side of the road as the troopers were controlling traffic and getting our statements. I felt changed, altered, and different and was compelled to tell people of this great tear in the fabric of my days.
I testified in front of the Grand Jury. They didn't ask me to, but I felt like I wanted to share with this panel what I knew of Wayne, our cycling friend. A friend of Diane's came up to me as I was waiting to speak for the Grand Jury. She explained to me some of the legal factors involving this case. Regardless of what you might think you have learned about the law from your experience with Perry Mason, LA Law or John Grisham, I learned that a prosecutor will have a difficult time convincing a jury that the driver of that car was guilty of homicide. He was negligent, in that he fell asleep at the wheel, but it was just a moment of inattention, and who among us could say that we have not been guilty of the same thing, but luckily without the same dreadful results. The driver of the car was no billed by the Grand Jury.
After the Grand Jury, the trooper returned Wayne's shattered Cannondale to Debbie. Bob Van Brundt, aka Hot Dog Bob, put together the memorial. He spoke to the property owner on the stretch of 30 down the road from where the accident occurred and obtained permission to place the marker just off the road right of way and on private property.
Diane Wells had the wonderful idea to have a ride to Wayne's marker each August, to talk about a dear friend, to honor his memory and to form once again a cycling camaraderie. Cycling souls who speak with such humor, conviction and respect of an old friend who got up another hill, ahead of us, again.
Ask me to head out for a ride, we'll talk of the day; the many rides we've shared; the impetuous winds that blow; our sanctified roads; and the friends among us, or long gone but still well remembered. As we ride past the hallowed ground on 30, perhaps I will sprint ahead, raising a bottle and taking a drink. To honor. In praise. A greeting. Listen closely. Hear me say. "Miss you, Wayne." "Ride with us, Wayne." "God Bless you, Wayne."
