Hey Don, well that was the longest funeral procession I was ever in. The police actually closed the Beltline to all traffic and that’s a busy road. One of the cops told me that the line stretched back almost 3 miles. There were large numbers of police and Dane County deputies there, if fact they did the honor guard when they bought Joshua out. We lined up behind them. I had the only big US bike flag so I ended up at the front of the PGR people with another bike that was flying Joshua’s airborne unit flag. His father asked us to fly it during the procession. We went down the beltline and then south to a village called McFarland, that’s where they buried him.

It was a cold and windy day but better than Monday night when they had snow in Madison, luckily that stopped. I was debating whether to ride or not and I was checking our local weather channel on cable until I went to bed, they said no snow but very windy. Usually I would make it to the south side of Madison in about 1 hour and 50 minutes but I decided to allow a lot of extra time because of the wind. In the end it took me two and a half hours, I left Racine at 4.30 am as we had to be there at 7am.

It was mostly Wisconsin guys but Mark was there with his wife (Cindy?) he drove though. About the time I got to Fort Atkinson I was wishing I had too, my electric vest was working well but my legs were freezing (Electric chaps next?) I had ordered some heated gloves but didn’t have them yet so I used a couple of those chemical heat packs. I occupied my mind trying to do the math for the chemical reaction that makes them work in my head, well it diverted me from thinking about how cold I was. Mostly it just convinced me that I’ve forgotten an awful lot about chemistry.

Well, I arrived ok and we lined up at the church entrance when they bought him in, then we moved over to the entrance the mourners would use and stood there until the service started. We stood down and some friendly people invited us in to warm up, they made us some coffee which was nice.

The service was quite long, a number of his army friends spoke about him. Finally they bought him out and then the procession. There were hundreds of people lining the main street of McFarland when we arrived, it was very moving.

After I left the cemetery I rode to the McDonalds on Main to roll up my flag and get some food, it was 2.35 and I wanted to get home before dark so I just wanted a quick snack. Some people actually came out and thanked me for being there, which I wasn’t expecting. An old gentleman inside came over and thanked me too as I ate.

I got home a lot quicker than I came, the wind was calming down and I was able to go faster. Not much warmer but quicker.

I was thinking about what you said in Chicago about Photoshopping out my cane. Now if you really want to do something for me, take a picture of me without a hat and Photoshop in some hair!

Now that would be cool  J J

David

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