I never had a bicycle growing up. My older brothers had one they shared it between the two of them, and they had ridden it until the tires came off. Literally. By the time I was big enough for a bike it was just a hunk of metal framework with two bare rims.

However, I did have a horse. At least my father told me the mare was mine. He used her to raise colts and sold them to make a little extra money. I liked horses too, but they were a lot of work. They always required feeding or brushing or riding or something. If you owned a horse you had to put your hands on it every single day.

I wanted a bicycle.

One quail season a well to do lawyer in town asked my father if he would lease out my horse for him to use during quail season. She had been broken for hunting, thankfully.

Daddy asked me if I would like to lease Lady out to the man for the duration of the hunting season.

I asked, “How much?”

He said, “Enough to buy a brand-new bicycle.”

“Done!”

At the end of quail season I had $32.50. Enough to order a new bike from the Sears and Roebuck mail-order store in town. I was so excited I could barely contain myself.

When that bike arrived I was in love. That thing looked way better than the little girls on the bus and they were cute.

I rode it everywhere around the farm. I could park it and it wouldn’t wander off. I’d come back and it would be right where I had left it. It didn’t require feeding, watering, brushing or anything! All I had to do was keep air in its tires.

There had always been somewhere I wanted to go, that I was afraid to ask my parents about, and the first nice day they left me at home alone I hopped on my bike and took off up the highway.

I wanted to visit the grave of my long-lost playmate, Mattie Laura.

My folks had pointed up Pearson Road when we were on our way to church one Sunday and told me she was buried up that road a couple hundred yards to the right in the woods.

That was my mission that day. I had to find Mattie Laura. I felt like a prisoner breaking free as I peddled up the highway and turned onto Pearson Road. Were little boys actually allowed to be that far from home alone? I didn’t know, but I was.

After I traveled as far as I thought 200 yards might be I pushed my bike off into the woods and began to search for the abandoned cemetery. The pines were tall and the wind was picking up. Beneath the trees was a lot of undergrowth, weeds and briars. But I pushed through somehow.

Finally, I found a headstone lying flat in the pine needles. Then another one and another one. I knew I had found the right area.

One of the graves had seashells scattered over it. Another had broken plates and cups on it. Occasionally I came across a few with rusty funeral home markers, but the name cards had long ago weathered away and there was no telling who was buried in those graves.

I marched back and forth through those pines and weeds for most of an hour trying desperately to find her. But I couldn’t.

In all likelihood she may have never had a headstone or a funeral home marker. Someone probably just put a large rock at the head of her grave to mark it, but there were several graves marked by large rocks scattered throughout the woods.

I was overwhelmed when I realized that they may have just carried her and her baby out into the woods and put them into an unmarked hole. It was at that moment I realized she was gone forever. Gone only to live on in my memories. I was heartbroken.

I whispered to the wind, “Mattie Laura, I’m here! I’m right here and I can’t find you!

“I miss you and I’ll never forget you.”

I stood there in the silence of the pines, tears running down my face.

The tops of the trees began to bend a little in the wind and I could have sworn she was telling me that she knew I was there.

I rode away that day vowing to never forget. Sixty-five years have passed since she died and I haven’t.

That bicycle took me miles and miles away from home as I grew older. I went through several sets of tires riding into town, to the hangout at the lake, to my friends homes up the road and everywhere in-between.

I even took it to college with me, but I’ll never forget my first solo trip to find my friend.

(To be continued)

Mavis Foster, Me, Alice Foster, Annie Mae Cooper, Rochelle Algood.	Coulter Cemetery, now abandoned in the woods.
Coulter Cemetery, now abandoned in the woods.	Coulter Cemetery, now abandoned in the woods.
Photo by Walter Bennett.	Photo by Walter Bennett.
Photo by Walter Bennett. D.L. Fair speaking to a crowd.	The Old Boss pine tree.
Photo by Harold Algood. This car had a head-on collision with a wagon and the tongue of the wagon impelled the car.	Downtown Louisville. 19th anniversary of The Fair Company mercantile store.
Building the old post office.	Louisville's Concert Band. My grandfather is standing behind the large bass drum.
Cotton field on our farm.	Sulphur Springs in Winston County.
Fair Lumber Company.	The birth of Taylor Machine Works. The sign seen in this picture has recently been resurrected and is now back hanging on the original building.

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Rick Algood
September 8, 2021