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We lost another longtime member on Jan. 28. Charlie Kinsley, age 89. Let’s kindly remember one of the Morris Area Free Wheelers OGs.
Some insights from one of his riding partners – Lili. Charlie joined the club in 1983 and immediately became one of the small group of riders who never missed a weekend ride. In those days, there was only one, alternating Saturdays and Sundays and alternating long and short. We went to work during the week and hoped fervently for good weather on the weekends. Once we met at the start at a coffee shop in Hackettstown and waited two hours for the rain to stop. It didn’t. When we did ride, Charlie was usually at the rear welcoming and encouraging new slower riders. He could have gone faster, but he enjoyed conversation and seeing the sights. We stopped to watch the goats play king of the hill and to admire the woolly lambs up in Warren County. Charlie would often do over a hundred miles on ride days, because he rode from his house to the ride start and then back home again after. Home to a typical start was 25 miles each way. He volunteered for years at the Multiple Sclerosis fundraising rides, coming in late on both weekend days, shepherding the riders at the end. He was a long-time treasurer of the club, retiring only when the club began doing its business on the internet. When he and I both stopped going even on slow rides, we still sometimes joined the bikers at lunch or after the ride, and last year he was still riding around his Parsippany Lake neighborhood.
There will be a celebration of life service on February 17, 2024, at 11:00am at the Parsippany United Methodist Church, 903 South Beverwyck Road, Parsippany, NJ 07054. Arrangements are under the direction of the Par-Troy Funeral Home.
In Lieu of flowers, donations in Charles’s memory can be made to the United Methodist Church of Parsippany. 903 S Beverwyck Rd, Parsippany, NJ 07054 (https://parsippanyumc.org/) or Parsippany Animal Control and Shelter. 1069 Parsippany Blvd., Parsippany, NJ07054 https://www.parsippany.net/Departments/animal-control-shelter
Regards,
Joseph Reo – President
