“Cajun Burgers, Memories and Outer Space“, was originally published in RoadRUNNER Motorcycle Touring & Travel.

Occasionally when I sit down to write, I stop and think, What would I like to come across in these pages that would make me stop and spend a few minutes reading" Today I thought I would recount a ride I took one Memorial Day, the kind of ride where the universe sneaks up on you and gives you something you hadn?t counted on or expected.
My day started glumly. My girlfriend was away on a girls-only weekend, and I found myself dwelling, as I am wont to do at times, on what was missing rather than what was present. It was a beautiful day, the start of summer. I had no particular place to be and no schedule to keep. I decided to just ride to the hardware store for some supplies for a bike project I had been putting off. Supplies procured, I headed toward home but inexplicably kept going. My sights were set on a burger at Moo, a local joint up the road. As fate would have it, Moo only takes cash and the ATM was out of order. I?ll just head down along the river until I find someplace to eat, I thought. An hour later, I was in Frenchtown, NJ, at an outside table enjoying a Cajun cheeseburger and watching the bikes and people go by. I saw an artist carving a tree stump and helped another shopkeeper close up for the day. Mostly I wandered around thinking about my father (who had served in the Navy) and about my friend Jack who had seen combat in WWII....