[flatbutt]

I found this letter that I wrote to be published in the old Backroads magazine. Just a blast from the past

The Shannon Nunley Memorial Journey


Those of us in the motorcycling community know that if you ride long enough; put enough miles under your tires that eventually you will lose someone to fate. Such was the case for us that knew Shannon Nunley of Arizona. Simply stated Shannon was a young man that lived his all too short life fully. Wine, women, song and motorcycles literally were his passions. Most of us never got to meet him face to face, knowing him only through cyber space on the R1100S web page we inhabited. But Shannon was so engaging and open that we all became very tight. We did indeed share our lives with him as he welcomed us into his.

So in May of 2005 we, his friends and cyber family, embarked on a journey to commemorate him. It was decided to carry the rear seat cowl of a BMW R1100S (one of Shannon’s favorite rides) around the lower 48. Each rider would carry the cowl on their S through their region on a loosely planned route. The rider would meet another S pilot at a pre-arranged point. There the carrier would sign the cowl, make an entry into a trip journal, photograph the handoff and turn the cowl over to the next pilot. In this fashion the cowl , or Shroud of Shannon as we sometimes refer to it, has been making its way from Arizona through Texas Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and the Virginias. The cowl, now resting in New Jersey, will continue on its journey around the USA come spring, being signed and photographed on its travels.

The point of this exercise is to return the seat cowl and journal to Shannon’s parents in Arizona. It is our hope that, in some way they may draw some comfort from this. Maybe when they receive the seat cowl, knowing how it journeyed around the entire country being photographed, signed and carried by people they’ve never met, they’ll have a better understanding of the impact their son had on the world they brought him into. Maybe, when they read the journal containing our thoughts they’ll see that though his death was tragic, his life wasn’t wasted. And we are hopeful that when they touch the cowl, they’ll be touching Shannon, knowing that he touched all of us.