He throttled the Harley up, and when the speedometer edged past the 100 line, the motorcycle began to wobble. It shook hard, then flipped, and before the needle had even dropped back down below the century mark, the Harley was on its side, and bike and rider were tumbling and scraping along the hard pavement.

Glenn Hawley was wearing riding leathers. They got pretty scuffed up. When he finished sliding along the highway at ninety, then eighty, then forty miles an hour – when he finally came to a stop a short distance from his mangled motorcycle, Glenn raised himself up and dusted himself off.

His buddy wanted to take him to the hospital, but Glenn declined. It hurt, sure. But not that bad. The buddies were going to the movies that evening, in a couple of hours. He needed to get back to town and change clothes.

He admitted – years later – that the movie and conversations were sort of a blur, and that he was probably in shock or something, from the wreck. At the time, he felt like he needed to be there, to do what he said he was going to do.

And he did. Throughout his life, William Glenn Hawley was that kind of guy.

In my circle of relatives, Glenn Hawley was superman, of sorts. He owned a boat and went fishing, and camped out, and slept in the woods, had a riding lawn mower, and wore plaid shirts that showed off muscular arms. I was a kid, the son of a psychologist, and Glenn was my uncle who could crash a Harley Davidson at one hundred miles an hour and then get up and get cleaned up for a date.

He married my father’s sister, and in all of my life, I never witnessed a better definition of love and committment. They did not argue, they smiled. They did not complain, they laughed and praised the children, and kept house and lived their lives through fifty-six years of marriage.

Uncle Glenn died just after midnight, on Friday morning. He was battling leukemia when I saw him last, but he didn’t show it. He spoke of his treatments, but not the pain. He fought it for eight years, but during the course of those years, you might well see him out on the riding lawnmower keeping up the immaculate lawn.

He was active in church and scouting. Knew no strangers. Always had a story to tell, and they were really interesting stories, not those listen-and-nod ones that some people push. He had friends for life, and a lifetime of friends and family.

He was a man’s man.

And a kid’s Superman.