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Fellow Shriners help cancer patient get his dream ’ride’

• A terminal cancer patient will ride in the Shriners Parade Saturday in Leesburg.

Holly McCarthy

LEESBURG — Rickey Johnson had three questions on July 18 when his doctor informed him he had pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver.

He wanted to know when he could eat a good meal, if he could have one more dance with his wife of 23 years, and finally, if he could ride his Cushman in a Shriners parade.

Thanks to his Moose brothers, it appears Johnson will take that ride.

His Shrine friends got together to ensure that Johnson’s Cushman, a utility vehicle he got from long-time friend David Carmichael, was ready to roll.

Then, on Monday, they began planning an impromptu Shriners parade for Saturday in Leesburg.

“We’ve been friends for a lot of years,” Carmichael said. “It was something special to him, and that’s why we did the hurry-up job in getting it fixed, and that’s why we did the hurry-up job in getting the parade set up.”

Johnson has ridden in parades before, Carmichael said, but always in someone else’s vehicle. Once Johnson acquired the Cushman from Carmichael in a trade, he began the slow process of piecing his vehicle together using spare parts from other vehicles.

“He just fell in love with it,” Carmichael said, “and he was in the process of having the motor and transmission fixed when he was diagnosed.”

Johnson will drive the Cushman while a friend rides in the passenger seat in case he becomes too weak to continue.

Johnson’s wife, Debbie, said the last month has been “a roller-coaster ride” since her husband’s devastating diagnosis.

“He has osteoarthritis in his back and was being treated for back problems, but the pain was just getting to be more and more,” she said.

“I kept thinking there was something wrong. We went back to the ER with all his records and said ‘tell us everything that isn’t wrong until you find what is,’ and 13 hours later they told us what it was.”

Johnson is currently resting at home under hospice care. The 55-year-old retired chief investigator with the Lee County Sheriff’s Department has turned over his business, Albany Aluminum, to one of his sons.

“It’s been bittersweet,” Debbie Johnson said. “We’ve seen so much friendship and love, there’s no way we can begin to thank everyone.”

Johnson said her husband could barely sleep after his friends told him what they had planned.

“That night he kept waking me up, saying ‘Isn’t this so awesome?’” she said.

Through all the excitement and emotion, however, Rickey Johnson wants people to know that the parades are about helping children get medical care free of charge through the 22 Shriners Hospitals for Children across the country.

“Rickey is still able to ride to help the children walk,” she said.

The parade will begin in downtown Leesburg on Starksville Street, then turn onto Main Avenue heading toward the courthouse. Lineup will begin at 8 a.m. and the parade will start at 9 a.m.