“I just got to get away. Got to hear the wind song singin’ in my ear.
‘Cause the wind was my mother. The highway is my brother. I was born to wander.”
-Lyrics from “I Was Born To Wander” by Rare Earth, the 1970s Motown rock band
Back in the day, Hayward Gill rode his motorcycle 3,600 miles round trip to Prince Edward Island,
Canada for a hog rally. Say what?
No, not that type of hog. For Hayward, a motorcycle enthusiast, the expedition was no small thing for him to mount his iconic Harley Davidson and attend HOG rallies in the U.S. and Canada. HOG is the acronym for Harley Owners Group, the oldest and largest motorcycle club in the world.
So why ride?
“I like the freedom, the air moving around me; free as a bird,” says Hayward, 72, a 13-year prostate cancer survivor. He and his wife, Gloria, both retired from General Motors in 2020, after 51 and 40 years
respectively.
Hayward, 72, got his first bike in 1978. He’s been riding a Harley since 1995. His current Harley Davidson Ultra Classic is his sixth.
He has made the 2,000 mile round trip to the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota 15 times, with his wife mounting up with him twice. Over the years, he estimates he has laid down more than 300,000 miles. Hayward says he rides “rain or shine, I’m rollin’. It doesn’t matter.” Many times he rides in groups, enjoying the comradery and friendliness of fellow bikers.
Hayward was 59 years old when diagnosed with prostate cancer. He got his prostate removed on his wife’s birthday on February 28, 2009. He was introduced to The Empowerment Network by his older brother, Leroy Gill, a prostate cancer survivor who was diagnosed about five years before Hayward.
“I joined The Empowerment Network right after it got started,” Hayward says. “I went to the meetings before my surgery. I wanted to be fully educated on what to do following the diagnoses.”
Hayward says being a cancer survivor has empowered his life.
“I have no regrets what so ever,” he says. “It was a blessing that I was diagnosed in my fifties. When you can catch it early, you can get over it.”
The Empowerment Network shares stories of survival and educates Black men to Get screened early. ARGUS Heal (Health Equity Action Lab) is proud to support this work. Learn more visist: www.tenstl.org
