Remembering Bruce Rossmeyer

Sweetwater County, Wyoming---Earlier a motorcycle appeared behind me on interstate 80 the rider was poised in a crouched position as if ready to pass me. I had that instant feeling of being grateful that I had glanced at the rear view mirror before changing lanes and passing the trucker ahead of me. So I held position and waited. And waited.  I glanced at my side mirror and didn’t see him so I thought he was in my blind spot so I waited some more. But there was no one there.

Now I’m not a “seeing things” kind of person but I swear I saw a motorcycle behind me. I looked for any turnoff behind me...there were no side roads or exits. The road was long and straight and I could see for miles ahead and behind. I swear, lie-detector-swear, that I had seen a motorcyclist for a nano-second during my glance in my rear view mirror.

I was in a part of Wyoming that I was trying to decide whether or not I would take a side trip off 80 to a tiny highway in the middle of nowhere. A spot on the road that changed many lives forever. The spot where Bruce Rossmeyer was killed on his motorcycle by a motorist turning into him.

I know. All this seems weird. And I was not a “close friend”...I was not a part of his inner circle. My dilemma on going to the sight was that I felt like it was such a personal spot for the family and close friends, especially his friends that had ridden with him on July 30, 2009, that maybe I would be intruding.

Before I left for this coast to coast road trip,  I happened to run into two of his daughters separately. I told them each that my trip would take me very close and both said I should go. Then on the trip I happened to decide to drive through Vegas instead of my original plan and I happened to be there at the same time Beverly, his executive assistant and my first marathon partner was in Vegas with a friend. When we hooked up and I told her of my plan to maybe go to the spot, even that news sent the tone of our conversation feeling like a solemn heartache. We recalled the trip we had taken to Vegas and Bruce had given her some money to gamble for him, if we won we could split the difference with him.

Faster than I could say "What just happened," we had lost the money to the dealer. 

Now years later here we were again. So  just in case I did go, she gave me her MGM Hotel stir stick  out of her drink stuck though a dollar she folded into a bow and told me to leave it there. I kept it safely in my glove compartment.

Fast forward to today,  and I was near the exit for the side trip and I had just seen this weird motorcycle that didn’t exist so I said out loud “okay I’ll go.”

Bruce Rossmeyer  was bigger than life. To me, he was a client. To the United States, he was the owner Destination Daytona, a complex that included the largest Harley Davidson dealership in the country. To Boggy Creek Camp, a retreat for kids with chronic illnesses, he was their fundraising hero. To Beverly, he was her boss and her dear friend. To one person, he was the love of her life. And to 5 people, he was Dad.

He was a big man with a huge heart. With the kind of face that when he laughed his whole face laughed: it would turn red with eyes that squinted and smile lines that appeared to take over his face, followed by him running his fingers through his hair. He was loud...yet even if he would have whispered, people listened when he had something to say. He had not been given anything. He was the kind of business man that built his world from the ground up.

News of his accident sent shock waves through Daytona Beach, through the Sturgis Motorcycle event where he had been heading with his friends and through the world.

It made national news.

Now here, somewhere along this highway where the closest town has 300 people living there, his life ended. I started getting butterflies in my stomach and I felt I was close. Then there was a sign that had a broken heart with a dove. Below it, a cross, and a wreath.  I pulled off the highway, ran to it, looked and dropped to one knee. I was there. It was here...

I stood up and scanned the horizon. It was beautiful with snow covered mountains in the far distance. The only sound was occasional passing cars. Dried roses had blown a pedal scattered path through the sage brush. Tiny empty bottles of Crown Royal lay at the base.

People who had been there had written messages on the wooden post.  With a lump in my throat I walked back to my Hyundai to carefully get Beverly’s tribute and I decided impromptu to take my little plastic Hawaiian flowers that had been dangling from my mirror and leave them thinking of the year when Bruce’s “Champagne Ball” charity for Boggy Creek Camp was Hawaiian themed and he had donned a grass skirt as a dare. The memory made me smile.

I heard it said by people at the funeral that he died doing what he loved or that he was in a better place or that it was his time. Well I don’t buy that. Sure he built a life around the motorcycle business and loved it. But what he loved more was his family.  And the best place he could be is with them and the people devastated by his void. And no time would ever be “right” for this man.

I don’t know why I thought I saw a motorcycle behind me on the highway and I’m still a little confused by it. But it took me there.

Alone by the road, near the wide open fields of Wyoming, by his memorial, I thought of him and thanked him for everything he did for Daytona Beach, Florida.

He died there and he is missed. And what is left is a legacy.