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From Pain to Peace: 'Riding with the Blue Moth'

Hancock spent 36 days bicycling from Huntington Beach, Calif., to Tybee Island, Ga.
Hancock spent 36 days bicycling from Huntington Beach, Calif., to Tybee Island, Ga.

Bill Hancock found peace and unexpected closure while bicycling across the country after the untimely death of his son. Hancock, a NCAA sports official, chronicles the journey in his book Riding with the Blue Moth.

"Blue moth" is a phrase from Hancock's childhood. It's what he thought his grandmother was saying when she used the term "blue norther" to describe a well-known weather condition in the Midwest.

"A blue norther brings cold air with blue skies... but just brutally cold temperatures and just chills you to the bone," Hancock says. "And that's what the waves of grief came like."

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tom Goldman is NPR's sports correspondent. His reports can be heard throughout NPR's news programming, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and on NPR.org.