A Ride in the Moonlight
I believe it was the Fall of 1970. In any case, it was the early days of my lifelong friendship with Bruce. We had been spinning rock n roll records at the campus radio station in the basement of the student union at Williams College. The radio show was over, and even though is was past midnight, we still had plenty of late night energy and a sense of adventure. So Bruce proposed we take a ride out to Petersburg Pass on his motorcycle.
Williams is in a small town in a very rural area of western Massachusetts. And only a few miles from the campus is the Taconic Range, a very old mountain range that runs along the border between New York and Massachusetts (and further north between New York and Vermont). So we roared off and soon found ourselves at Petersburg Pass, high on the Taconic ridge line. It was a bright moonlit night, with a profusion of stars. To the east lay the Berkshires with Mt. Greylock clearly in view. To the west, the upper reaches of the Hudson River valley lay before us, and just north of us were the Green Mountains of Vermont. We hung out there on that quiet roadway for a while, breathing in the night air and taking it all in. No other people or vehicles were anywhere to be seen.
Our eyes were well adjusted to the moonlight when we hopped on the bike and headed back down the winding road into the valley. No need to spoil the beauty and quietude of the night: we coasted down the mountain with the engine and headlamp off. We started off slowly picking up speed as we descended, leaning to the left for a turn, then leaning to the right for the next one, the shadows of the trees flickering by. No sound but the wind, no light but the light of the moon and stars. A magnificent ride I can still feel in my bones as I write this today.
I have so many memories with Bruce in the decades that followed. Joanie and my visits to Seattle, joining Bruce and Jan on Galatea and then Legendary for boat trips up the wild British Columbia coastline, visits to Turtle Beach in Mexico, and a string of fun visits at our place in the Berkshires where Bruce and Jan would come and hang out for a few days here and there. Lots and lots of wonderful memories of time shared together.
But that ride down from Petersburg Pass sticks in my mind as a special kind of starting point. Like so many adventures that followed, Bruce was in the driver's seat, his characteristic love of life leading the way. Ours was (and somehow will always be} a true friendship of heart and soul. It's a friendship that grew and deepened immeasurably with the years. But it always managed to remain as natural, free and effortless as that ride down a mountain road on a moonlit night so many years ago.