The early afternoon was hotter than blazes and I was tired and drained. I saw the roadhouse sign from the highway, but I was traveling too fast to make the cutoff so I grabbed handfuls of clutch and brake, downshifted, and burned a u-turn in the opposite direction.

The place looked new. Obviously not the typical biker hangout with dirty windows, or no windows at all. I parked by the door and went in. Biker posters, juke box, video surveillance, slot machines. Air conditioning. My eyes took their own sweet time to adjust to the lack of light. Ah yes, there was the bar, over there against the back wall.

I idled up to the bar through a maze of empty tables and chairs and asked for a beer and a burger, then found a seat at a table in a dark corner.

The waitress who brought the burger had a bib-apron on, so I wasn’t immediately able to tell, but when she turned to walk away after I paid her, I knew right away she was special: she had long, shapely legs that ran all the way up into a pair of tight cutoffs.

I did have good intentions. Really, I did. I had planned on only a couple of beers to wash down the burger, and then I would be back on the road, headed home. And no, no more than two.

I sat for a couple of hours — after all, it was air-conditioned heaven in there — kibbitzing with the waitress, buying her an occasional drink which she tipped back, and generally getting shitfaced. Hell, how could I resist, since the waitress was buying me drinks too?

When her shift was over she came and sat down across from me. I had stopped just past noon, looking for respite from the heat, and now it was four in the afternoon. I wasn’t riding anywhere soon! Besides, I had just spent over three weeks in the saddle, and I was on my last leg home.

Conversation wasn’t all that memorable, but I do recall her telling me that she was spending her tips on me. I’m not sure if I was supposed to be grateful for that or not, since she was spending my tip money. But of course, being the gentleman that I am, I’m sure I thanked her profusely.

I ran out of money around 11 p.m., just about the time the conversation got real interesting, I’m sure. Since there was no way I was going to a cash machine in my condition, I found myself unceremoniously dumped for a table of guys three-over.

I slept on the patio table that night.

In the morning I found out that my waitress had driven herself home. Now, I don’t know about you, but driving and drinking is a disaster waiting to happen for anyone in her condition: she had matched me drink-for-drink all evening.

Oh yes, the bib apron. Well, it had covered up one word written boldly across her chest: Bitch.

I wanted to go. I really did. It had been exactly half of my lifetime, and I hadn’t seen any of them for at least that long. So I rode past the cemetery where friends rest, past the factory where I worked for one restless summer, and along the riverbank and into the past.

The warm-up parties were in full swing in the hotel in which I’d registered. I could hear them all as I checked in and found my room: women and men, voices too loud, trying to have too much fun.

She had seen too much sun. Wrinkled. Sun-damaged skin. Still pretty. But immensely aged. I used to chase after her when I was drunk. That was back in my drinking days, of course, when I lived here. Now she was just – different. A lifetime different.

And if I hadn’t been introduced to her, I’d not have known who she was.

I’m sure she wouldn’t have known me either.

During Friday night’s warm-up for out-of-towners I watched a friend greet a former girlfriend – both married to others now: the way each looked at the other for far too long; the hug that lasted too long. And all this in front of his wife. Had I not been temporarily dumbfounded I’d surely have made a feeble joke, tried to draw the wife away from the embarrassment of the moment. But I couldn’t.

So much for the evening’s warm-up for out-of-towners.

About a thousand were scheduled to attend Saturday’s event. I walked into that morass of humanity, looked around for a couple of minutes, and then turned around and walked out and away from the past. I never looked back.

So, here’s to all the hometown girls, to all of you who broke my heart, to some of you who didn’t, to the ones whose hearts I broke:

You’re in my memories, to remain forever young.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t bring myself to see you all, but I know you’re just as beautiful now as you were back then.

And I adore you all to this very day.