In 1974 we lived in Virginia about halfway between Norfolk and Virginia Beach, about 16 miles from home to the Norfolk Naval station. I was assigned to Admiral Stansfield Turner’s staff and I had become an avid cyclist at my previous station (USNA Annapolis). I carried my bike onboard ship whenever possible, and whenever the weather was good and the flagship was in port I would commute by bicycle. It took about an hour each way.
On 30 July 1974 I was in a traffic accident. I didn’t remember the date but I have my complete medical record for my time in the Navy, and the doctor’s entry was very detailed. I was on the main road to the Naval Station when I was hit by a Virginia State Trooper in a patrol car. The trooper was stopped at the stop sign on a secondary road when he started across the main road not realizing how fast I was going. The entry from the report: “...hit by auto while riding bicycle this AM. Patient was thrown onto hood of car being struck broadside on right leg. Also hit head but was wearing helmet. Also denies loss of consciousness…”.
The trooper was in shock and he was afraid he’d lose his job. I was really OK except for a few bruises, and I didn’t want to make trouble for him. He had to report the incident and I asked him to include that all I wanted was to have my bike repaired or replaced. It turned out that the red tape was monumental but I eventually got a few hundred dollars with which I bought a fancier bike which I still have.
About a month later we went to sea for a North Atlantic NATO exercise with some official port calls in England, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Portugal. I took with me my older bike, a Schwinn Supersport. It was a good bike, but quite heavy. When the flagship was in Copenhagen, the Admiral sent me ahead to the Hague, Netherlands, to meet with the U.S. Naval Attache and work out a schedule for the Admiral to meet with V.I.P.s when the flagship got to Rotterdam. It was a short flight from Copenhagen to Rotterdam and I took my bike with me just like half the other passengers did. I arrived Friday morning, biked to the Hague in an hour, and sat down with my counterpart staff officer and worked out the schedule in an hour. The flagship was not due into Rotterdam until Monday morning, so I had the weekend off! I got a room in a little pension and planned for Saturday to bike to Utrecht (about a 40 mile ride), spend the night there and then ride back Sunday. Then I’d be ready to meet the ship Monday morning. Well, things didn’t go as planned.
I started out early Saturday morning (5 October 1974). It was cool and pleasant, and after about an hour I was near Gouda. This is dairy country, but near the road was a cyclodrome with a sign that Eddy Merckz would be appearing that afternoon. He is not well known in the U.S., but he was then the most famous cyclist in the world. He had just won the Tour de France at the elderly age of 29. I had a goofy thought that I could take a lap on the cyclodrome and then I could say that I had ridden on the same track with Eddy Merckx (just not at the same time). There was no one around and
the track was open, so I pedaled as fast as I could - then disaster. I had a small light attached to a front fork; it came loose and a spoke caught it. Here is the entry from my medical record which the Navy corpsman entered after I got back to the ship: “...was riding his bicycle when the front wheel and the patient was thrown …(and sustained) multiple abrasions and lacerations to left frontal aspect of forehead and to left superior aspect of upper lip. Rx: 3-0 silk sutures….”. Fortunately I was wearing my helmet but even so the left side of my face was nearly ripped off. I was knocked out for a few minutes and it took me a while to realize where I was and what I was doing. A passing motorist saw what happened and he loaded me and my bike into his car and took me to the nearest medical facility. It happened to be a veterinarian who did a nice job of sewing my face back on. The kind gent, Mr J. E. Muider, took me and my bike back to the Hague where I checked back into the pension.
Later that afternoon I carried my bike to a shop on the corner (there seemed to be a bike shop on every corner). The front fork was bent way out of shape and the front wheel was completely demolished. I asked if it could be fixed, and sure enough it was repaired and ready to go early Monday morning. I cycled to Rotterdam and met the ship. It was about 48 hours after my “incident” and my face looked like it had been through a blender and was a patchwork of colors - red, yellow, purple. The Admiral asked me how many Marines I had taken on in a bar fight. Naturally I had written to Donna that I had a little scrape with my bike but everything was OK. Meanwhile my good buddies had written home to their wives that I had been nearly killed, and the women had been calling Donna with condolences.
A few weeks later I received an official looking letter from the Dutch government. As it was, medical care was free but the supplies had to be paid for. I was billed 13 guilders which I recall was $3 or $4 U.S. dollars.
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