we are making this a benefit ride for connorwatch.org
we will be selling ride t shirts and green mohawks for this event with all the proceeds going to texx and his family to help offset medical expenses. the green mohawk story is below. anyone who would like to support this cause let me know by pm what size shirt(s) you would like. they are long sleeve white shirts priced at 30 dollars including the green mohawk. i would like to see everyone in attendance wear the mohawk as a show of support.
here is texx's post on zzrbikes.com concerning the green mohawk story
If I've gotten the chance to ride with you lately, or you've seen the photos, you may be wondering what's up with this
I mean, what's a 47-year-old dude doing wearing such a thing, anyway?
Well, assuming I haven't told you in person, and because XXXL mentioned something about it on the 2West 2010 thread, it seems like the right time to tell the story, so here goes...
Back in June 2008, I was prepping for the ride from NorCal to Colorado that I was scheduled to take with moto and sacowan to attend the Anarchy Rally. While at Cycle Gear, I saw a green, stick-on mohawk which matched my gear fairly well, and I thought it would be funny to stick it in my tankbag and put it on my helmet just outside the rally site. I could roll into the rally with this green thing sticking off my helmet and everyone could get a good laugh out of it. So I bought the thing and threw it on the pile of stuff I had to pack onto the bike.
Well, I never got to take the trip - the afternoon before we were to launch for Colorado, we got a phone call from the camp my teenaged son was attending, telling us he'd been in a swimming accident. We dropped everything and headed to Fresno, where he had been medivaced. Naively, we thought we'd be there a day or two while he got fixed, and then be back home, so we didn't take much in the way of gear. Well, most of you know that we got to Fresno to find he had broken his neck and was paralyzed from the neck down, and the doctors didn't give him much hope for either survival or recovery.
I of course had bailed out of the ride to Colorado, and after about 2 weeks living in the ICU waiting room, he was stable enough that I could come back to the house to grab my bike (for the quickest possible transits between Fresno and work/home) and clothes and stuff for the family. When I got to the house and was throwing stuff together, I saw the green mohawk sitting on the pile of bike stuff, and I thought "Connor will get a kick out of seeing this". So, I stuck it on my helmet and headed back to Fresno. When I got there, I took the bug-encrusted helmet up to the ICU to show the boy, and indeed did get the smile I was looking for.
He asked me "what's up with the mohawk?".
And I opened my mouth and these words popped out - I didn't think them beforehand, they just came out -
"I'm gonna wear this on my helmet until the day I take it off and put it on yours, and we'll go riding together, OK?"
Today marks the 608th day since the accident. Connor remains paralyzed from the neck down, and dependent on a ventilator to breathe. And I still wear the green mohawk as a public and visible testimony to my confidence that God is going to heal my son, and to my belief that one day he is going to throw his leg over his motorcycle, fire it up, and go for a ride. And on that day, I'll be right next to him, and I'll look over and think "so, that's what that green mohawk looks like in motion!"
So that's what the green mohawk is about. Hope the story encourages you a bit in whatever you're facing these days.
God bless,
Tex
