Motorcyclists make a dream come true

Pure, unadulterated joy ... it can show up in the most unlikely of places.

This time it was at the Portales cemetery on the last Friday of April.

A fair-sized crowd had gathered for a bittersweet military memorial service for Homer Mitchell, a World War II veteran who had died in 1944, but whose remains had only recently been identified and returned to his hometown.

Some of Mitchell's extended family members there that day included brothers David and Bob Tanner (their grandmother and Mitchell's grandmother were sisters), as well as David's wife, Elizabeth.

The funeral procession began in Clovis that morning.

Mitchell's hearse and the cars with family members were escorted to Portales by numerous motorcycle riders, including members of the Patriot Guard Riders (a national group of volunteers who famously "ride with respect" at services for veterans and first responders) and members of the Green Knights Chapter 11 (a motorcycle group headquartered at Cannon Air Force Base).

The parked motorcycles - many adorned with United States flags and all of them glistening in the sun - lined the roads immediately around the Mitchell family plot.

When the Tanners drove in, Elizabeth said she told her husband, "Someday I'm going to ride one of those."

A little backstory is in order. Elizabeth Tanner - who also goes by Liz - grew up in Portales in the 1950s and 1960s, the daughter of Bob and Maurine Dunn. She became an elementary teacher, and spent her entire career in Clovis after student teaching at Lincoln-Jackson.

Her first job was at James Bickley Elementary, but most of her career was spent at Highland Elementary where she taught fifth grade and then fourth grade before eventually settling into the first-grade classroom where she stayed until her retirement in 2008.

She's slowed down a little since then. She'll be turning 75 in September, she said, and she's had both hips replaced. She covers ground slowly with the assistance of a rolling walker.

Elizabeth caught my eye - and the eye of several others - after the service was over, when she moved away from the crowd walking slowly next to a motorcycle rider who was clad in leather, wearing a patriotic do rag, and sporting mirrored sunglasses.

I asked around and found out she had requested and was on her way to receive her first-ever motorcycle ride.

The motorcyclist was Keith Adams of Clovis. He's retired Air Force, but still works at Cannon as a military contractor, and he's a member of the Patriot Guard Riders.

"When he walked by," Elizabeth later told me, "I grabbed his arm and said, 'Do you ever give rides?' and he said, 'Sometimes.'"

This arguably unlikely duo was also spotted by Valarie Bullington of Clovis. She was at the service with her husband, Joseph Bullington, president of the Green Knights. She offered Elizabeth a ride on her husband's bike, "but she said she was going with Keith."

That didn't keep Valarie from participating. When she found out Adams didn't have an extra helmet, she offered up hers, and at the last minute wrapped Elizabeth in Joseph's Harley-Davidson zip-up sweater, explaining, "It gets chilly when you ride."

It took a bit of a team effort to get Elizabeth onboard, but soon she had her arms wrapped around Keith's waist and they were off for a long, slow lap around the cemetery.

"When she got off, that smile was ear to ear," Valarie said.

While Adams has carried passengers before, he said having an older woman on a walker come up and ask for a ride was a first for him, too.

"That was a lot of fun," he said. "It kinda took me back to when I got my first bike. I wanted to give my mom a ride and I couldn't."

In the course of the conversation, he used the words "privilege" and "honor" to describe the experience, adding, "It was an absolute pleasure to be able to give her her first ride."

As Elizabeth was clambering onto the bike, her brother-in-law Bob Tanner was looking on with a grin, and later told her, "Liz, you're braver than I am."

"I wasn't even worried," Elizabeth replied without missing a beat. "I trusted him."

"She got off of a walker to climb on the back of a Harley," Bob said. "Does that make sense?"

It made perfect sense to Valarie Bullington and the other riders.

"Motorcycles have such a stigma," she said, noting how quickly some are to judge "a bunch of guys in leather."

The truth is, Bullington said, "They are some of the nicest guys around."

And gals, too, I might argue.

At the end of that ride, Elizabeth was unzipping the black Harley-Davidson hoodie when Valarie stopped her.

"I said, 'You know what?' You keep it to remember your first ride," Valarie said.

Homer Mitchell had only barely turned 20 when he died in Germany.

I have a notion that if he found a way to peek down at the cemetery on that last Friday in April, he would have been tickled pink to see his distant cousin's wife making a dream come true.

Maybe he, too, was grinning from ear to ear.

Betty Williamson bets Mrs. Tanner's former first graders are also grinning. Reach her at:

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