Tour de Hills, Tour de Brew, and Mother's Day

Captions: 1. From left, Sarah Conzemius and Matt A. Quinn. 2. Jesse Conzemius and Rachel Hileman. 3. MelonHeads Maria and Jim Conzemius in front of the Big Axe somewhere in Louisa County. 4. MelonHead Tom Hammer, retired vice president of Hon Industries, Muscatine, IA.

What a fun-packed Mother’s Day weekend I had! Having agreed to a bicycle ride on Friday from Odie’s Bar in Ely to Czech Village in Cedar Rapids (it was my turn to pick!), Jim smoothly broke his promise by announcing that the wind was from the south, we had Jesse, our son, coming over that night for Mother’s Day, and we had to ride to Hills instead in order to get back home in time.

I knew that his excuses for going to Hills instead of Ely were all hooey, so I got out paper and pen and made him sign a statement that on the next two Fridays I get to choose our bike routes. He wrote, “Maria gets to choose,” and signed it.

“Maria gets to choose what and when?” I asked.

He filled in what and when and the dates. I put his written promise on the refrigerator door.

The head wind to Hills and back, as well as the male dominance involved, prepared me for the ride, complete with a headwind and more than a little male dominance on the next day with the MelonHeads, a funny, fast-talking, overtalking, fun-loving, misogynistic mansplaining mix of captains of industry, a former football player and engineer, a couple of single men looking for women, and a couple of newbies, Kelly Murphy, a sweet young woman, and Bill, who knows one of Jim's sisters.

Saturday morning Jim and I drove to the Rock Island Brewing Company in Rock Island, Illinois for the Tour de Brew cancer charity ride at 10:00 a.m. On the way down, we made a pit stop at a convenience store in Walcott.

I no sooner got out of the van with our bikes on the back when a loud crash of thunder stopped me in my tracks. At first I thought it was semis rumbling into the gas station, but it was so loud I realized it was thunder. When I came back outside it was still thundering and the lightning kept me under the eaves of the store all the way back to the van.

The rain let up fairly quickly. We registered at the RIBC before the last call. Two of the MelonHeads had paid in advance ($27 apiece), but registration had already closed down and they didn’t get their bag of goodies. My favorite piece was a sturdy metal beer bottle opener provided by Traveller’s beer company. Each of us got a full complement of black mustaches of various sizes and shapes to put on for that pirate or Hitler look, depending on your druthers. I went for the mustache won by the evil actor in early American movies who ties the blond girl down to the tracks as a train approaches, full steam ahead.

Bendar, the engineer and former football player who responded on the trip to Wapello when I interrupted a constant flow of male voices to ask, “Can I talk?”

“You can talk, but no one will listen."

He wore a Hitler mustache.

Tom Hammer, a captain of industry, led the pack and objected to my riding so close behind him. He and two other MelonHeads blocked both lanes of the Mississippi River Trail on the Illinois side leading to the Edge Bar in some little town along the river. After figuring out what the problem was, I said, “Then move to the right, Tom, so I can pass you.” He moved over and I passed him.

It ended up being a 38-mile ride, though billed as a 35-mile ride. Since I’d done a 22.4 mile ride into a headwind both ways the day before, Jim and I put in a 60-mile weekend, which made us proud.

Mother’s Day was the best part. We stayed at the Radisson Hotel in Davenport Saturday night and met our daughter Sarah and her fiancé Matt the next morning at the Radisson for Mother’s Day brunch. They paid for all of us, and Sarah gave me the sweetest card and a pair of beautiful gold earrings. Then she put her arm around me as we went to the buffet. I was so happy and felt so loved.

Matt has beautiful manners and is funny and knowledgeable too, so he's a nice addition to our family. I asked him how he felt about Sarah giving up her weekends off and going back to her old job. He said it wasn’t for him to say. It’s “her boots on the ground and her choice,” he said.

“I didn’t mean you were in charge,” I said. “I just wondered how you felt about losing weekends off with her.”

He said it was her decision. He knows her other job was potentially dangerous and she’d already had an incident with an amorous drunk who called her “baby” and appeared to be about to put his hands on her. She took off in her work truck and didn’t try to change his water meter. He wasn’t the owner of the house anyway. He was a friend. It wasn’t her fault. The water meter was supposed to have been replaced in 2012. Obviously, the new field service technician needs to go in with a police escort.

What made me happy is that Sarah's coworkers and supervisor welcomed her back to her old job, a water treatment operator at American Water in Davenport, with a "welcome home, Sarah!" Her supervisor even gave her a “pep talk,” she said. When I asked for details, she said that he told her if she got her grade 4 certificate, the highest water treatment licensure available (she already has her 3), she could write her own ticket, and that her “brains,” not her brawn, would take her far in the water industry.

That was my best Mother’s Day present of all. I know that both of my kids not only love me but are successful in their jobs and feel appreciated.