Ben's Special Christmas Wish |
Ben Edrington, a 19 year old teenager, has been afflicted with muscular dystrophy and has been confined to a wheel chair most of his life. Back in May, Ben overcame the many obstacles that MD presented him and graduated from high school - quite an accomplishment. Ben's close companion, sister Lydia, then started asking Ben what sort of special Christmas wish he would like to have fulfilled. After much thought Ben said he would like to be able to ride down to the ocean on a motorcycle. This wish presented many unique challenges due to Ben's situation. But not disheartened, Lydia worked on trying to make his wish materialize. After asking many people, she finally was told to contact Renee at Trike City Inc. Renee is a real gem and instantly told Lydia that she would see that Ben's Christmas wish would come true. Renee contacted many local riders and our chapter asking for riders for this event. Our turnout for this event was stunning. Pop Jackson offered his bike with the sidecar for Ben to ride in. He even had his trailer all decorated up for Christmas in tow. Almost all of the trike owners in our chapter showed up as well as many of us with two wheels. In all there were custom bikes, beautiful Honda's, Harley's and even a BMW trike. About 10:30 Ben and his family arrived at Trike City. Renee got the group organized with Ben and his family riding 2-up on the bikes. The procession of about thirty bikes made its way up US 19 to East Bay Drive, then west out to the gulf beaches. We initially stopped at Sand Key Park but the concrete wall obstructed Ben's view of the gulf so we proceeded across the Sand Key Bridge where the view of Gulf of Mexico and Clearwater Bay was great. The procession wound its way up Clearwater Beach to North Beach where Ben was able to see the gulf from a vantage point out on the pier. Ben's Christmas wish came true. Renee and Wayne of Trike City did a great job of helping Lydia seeing that Ben's wish came true. As for the rest of us - Merry Christmas, Ben, you helped make our holiday complete. Thanks to all of you that have forwarded the pictures of this event to suncoastwings.com. Make sure that you visit Born to Ride and Full Throttle to see the video. Click here for a slideshow presentation Video clips requires Real Player to view ( click here to download free Real Player) Please wait a minute or two for the video clips to load. Each clip is about 7.5 meg. Video Clip 1 Video Clip 2 Video Clip 3 Video Clip 4 Video Compliments of Born to Ride - See their show on Sunday Dec 25th an 12 PM, WTOG channel 44 for this event. Group Photos provided by Full Throttle. Click here to view the e-mail that Renee and Wayne sent to us about this even. Ben's Return - A update to the ride
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