‘Life’s light shone bright’

Deepa Bharath

“Open your eyes and see

Feel the fire inside you

Feed its desires, make it grow,

It will show dreams come to life.”

-- Richard “Jesse” Rolsheim (Dec. 22, 1981 -- Nov. 18, 2002)

Jesse Rolsheim’s life was much like a trip on the midnight blue

Honda Shadow he rode.

It was free. It was propelled by infinite kinetic energy, if such

a scientific concept actually exists.

He was ruled by his heart and an insatiable, eternal wanderlust.

He was a poet, a philosopher, a musician, a rebel, an outsider -- a

man addicted to love, generosity, kindness and not-so-kind chemicals.

Jesse’s life was like a rainbow-hued soap bubble precariously

floating skyward that was suddenly and mercilessly smote and

annihilated by the bright sun.

Jesse suffered fatal head injuries the afternoon of Nov. 5, days

before his 21st birthday, when he ran a red light at a Costa Mesa

intersection and hit a car. The accident left him in a medically

induced coma for 13 days after which he quietly passed away.

His grieving family believes that their beloved Jesse’s sudden

departure from a world that was just beginning to make sense to him

had much to do with the half-shell helmet he sported at the time of

the accident and the months and years leading up to it.

“Jesse was wearing a $200 leather jacket, thick leather gloves,

sturdy blue jeans and steel-toed boots,” said his mother, Leslie

Rolsheim. “But all he had over his head was a plastic bowl.”

The most important part of his body was covered by a useless

accessory that is usually sold in flea markets and popular biker

hangouts. It is shaped like a bowl and barely covers the head,

leaving the face, ears and everything else exposed.

It’s considered hip and cool, but it’s illegal and not approved by

the Department of Transportation that recommends and mandates

full-faced, cushioned helmets that provide greater coverage and

protection.

“You are my firstborn son...you taught me how to be a mom! Through

all of our laughter and our tears, our hearts are so bonded ... I

will miss you so, and I look forward to being with you again --

someday.”

-- Leslie Rolsheim, Jesse’s mother

Leslie Rolsheim says she is determined to get those “bowls” off

the streets and heads of those who wear them.

“I will talk to the police, Congressmen, senators,” she said.

“I’ll talk to anyone and do anything it takes to prevent this from

happening again and causing pain and grief to another family.”

She already is going to popular biker hangouts and clubs with her

message. And though she has done nothing formal yet, she says she is

determined to get a law passed to ban the sale of half-shell helmets.

It is a task that has posed tremendous challenges even to police

officers who are ready to whip out citations for bikers who don’t

wear the legal helmets.

Costa Mesa traffic enforcement officers have struggled with the

issue for several years, said Lt. Karl Shuler. They hand out anywhere

between 10 and 60 citations a month. It’s a problem that worsens

during summer when bikers are out in large numbers, he said.

“Half-shell helmets are extremely dangerous,” said Shuler, who

also teaches a motorcycle safety class at Orange Coast College. “The

only thing protecting your head and skull from the blow is a thin

layer of plastic. And you can’t hear the traffic or what’s happening

on the street because of the overwhelming wind power when you’re on a

bike.”

And what’s more, the half-shell helmets are the first to fly off

your head when you hit the ground, he said.

Shuler added that his department always has a “huge crackdown” on

bikers with illegal helmets during the summer time.

“It’s hard to control,” he said. “It an image thing. It’s a

style.”

“His clothes were in perfect order, his bike and boots shined to

perfection and his girl by his side, is the way I think of Jessie.”

-- Julie Hunt, mother of Elizabeth Hunt, Jesse’s fiance

Jesse’s first wheels was a moped he rode to Newport Harbor High

School. When he turned 16, his parents got him a “real” motorcycle.

It was a red Kawasaki Ninja.

“It was a 250 cc bike,” Leslie said. Just the right size for her

son, who was small-made.

He loved to do wheelies on that bike. He also got a lot of tickets

on that bike. After the Ninja came his dream bike, the blue Honda

Shadow. It was almost like an extension of Jesse’s body. He wouldn’t

be seen without it.

The first time Michelle Stambuck and her husband, J.J., met Jesse

and his girlfriend was in the Westminster Mall around Christmas time

in 2001, she recalls.

The Stambucks founded a motorcycle club that has been meeting

outside Java Jungle on Coast Highway in Huntington Beach every

Wednesday for more than a year now.

“They had parked their bike next to ours in the parking lot,” she

said. “I asked him if he wanted to join us on Wednesdays and he said,

‘But I don’t have a Harley.’ I told him ‘Who cares if you have a

Harley. You’re welcome to join us any time.’”

Jesse and Elizabeth were regulars to the club since then.

“They were wonderful,” said Stambuck. “We called them ‘the kids’

because the rest of us, you know, are older.”

Almost everyone in the group wore full-face helmets, except for

Jesse.

“It just wasn’t cool enough for him,” Stambuck said. “It wasn’t

him. But that was OK. We accepted him for who he was.”

The group was one place Leslie Rolsheim knew she could find her

“prodigal son.” When he never came home for days, she would meet him

here and beg him to come home more often, to tell him she missed and

loved him.

Biker Don Keesling remembers that Jesse was full of energy.

“I’m hyper and he was more hyper than me,” he said with a laugh.

“I’m old and hyper. He was young and hyper.”

Keesling said wearing a helmet is an “individual choice” for

bikers.

“We know the risks,” he said. “I rode bikes through high school

and college and we didn’t have helmets back then. It just boils down

to this -- when it’s your time, it’s your time.”

Jesse shared his personal life with Keesling just as he did with

most of the bikers. He told them weeks before his accident that he

had been through a drug rehab program, that he was “clean” and felt

he had a whole future ahead of him.

“Your zest for life so brightly lived, so suddenly departed, the

ache in my heart so profound that mere words are truly inadequate.”

-- Rick Rolsheim, Jesse’s dad

Rick Rolsheim still has a tough time talking about Jesse. The

memories fill his mind and suffocate his heart and words get stuck

somewhere in between.

“What can I say?” he asks with obvious stoicism. “I warned him a

lot about the helmet. Weeks before his accident I took a picture of

him with his bike and his fiance Liz, and at that time a thought

suddenly flashed through my mind: ‘What if something happened to

him.’”

But then, Jesse never heeded anyone’s warning.

“He’s always been that way,” his father says. “He’d fall he’d pick

himself up and then go full steam ahead. He’d fall again, pick

himself up and go full steam ahead. That was his life.”

For 13 days after Nov. 5, his family waited for him to pick

himself up. But it never happened. This time, he was fallen for real.

For all his meanderings, Jesse was close to his family. He

announced his engagement to Elizabeth Hunt at a Newport Harbor High

homecoming game, with all his family present.

His brother, Jonathan Rolsheim, a junior at Newport Harbor High,

says his brother was his role model. Sure, Jonathan gets straight As

and is part of the school’s wrestling team. But he loved his brother

for who he was, he said.

“He has always been my best friend,” Jonathan said. “When I was

younger and had nobody to hang out with, he hung out with me. He got

in the wrong kind of crowd, but when I tried to go toward that crowd,

because I wanted to be like him, he’d protect me and keep me away. He

didn’t want me to get mixed up with that crowd.”

Everybody knew Jonathan as “Jesse’s little brother.”

“My time with my brother, there’s just no way I could bring it

back,” Jonathan said. “I wish I could go back in time and tell him

how much I love him.”

“Life will never be the same without Jesse. He showed me what it

was like to smile when all I knew were tears ... He was a rebel with

a huge heart.”

-- Elizabeth Hunt, Jesse’s fiance

Jesse’s mom masks her tears quite well. Behind the facade of a

bright smile lies untold sorrow and grief that gives her pounding

headaches.

“It seems like it’s been two years since Jesse died,” she said.

“It’s only been two months. Days crawl by.”

Sometimes the emotion gets so unbearable that she goes to his room

and turns on his music -- Metallica -- real loud and gets lost in its

noise.

“That’s when I get hit on the head with the realization that he’ll

never be back,” she said. “It’s a great way to release all the pent

up emotion.”

But she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I don’t want it to get easier with time. I don’t want his memory

to go away.”

Rolsheim says the weeks before his death were Jesse’s best in a

long time.

“He was a kid with bipolar disorder and attention deficit

disorder,” she said. “He’s been chemically dependent for a long

time.”

When he grew up he replaced medical drugs with recreational drugs.

“He hit rock bottom and checked himself into rehab,” she said.

“The days before his death, he was happy. He was the happiest he had

been in a long, long time.”

Rolsheim says she does not know how long it would have lasted.

“Maybe a week, a month, a year, who knows,” she said. “But I’m

glad that’s the way it ended.”

Life’s light shone bright

Someday it will be gone

Treat each rising sun as you’d appreciate your last.

Never dwell on what you left behind.

Forget you even had a past.

Moving forward -- a positive direction,

You must always maintain

Master mind’s conscience as your loss becomes obsolete,

Experiences constantly gain.

-- Jesse Rolsheim