The first time I was ever on anything with two wheels and a motor, I got thrown off by an orangutan who was really possessive of his Briggs and Stratton powered mini.  It started out weird and just kept getting weirder.

I lived on the southern edge of Amarillo and at the end of my block was the beginning of more nothing than most people will ever see.  On a clear day you could see Lubboc from there.

 

 The neighborhood dads got together in some sort of paternal pow-wow and decided a good way to keep us busy was to put us on dirtbikes, except for MY dad who was an accountant. After selling popcorn and cutting grass all summer I ran into a sweet deal on a 80cc Yamaha Mini-Enduro.   It was a pig but somehow my uncle managed to get a 100cc jug and piston mounted on it and turned it into a power-pig.  The only remaining problem was that I had to make grass grow in the circle I had worn in the back yard before my Dad would let me take it to “The Field”.   This seemed all the more unfair to me because he was the one who said I could not take it out of the yard until I had learned to ride it.  DOH!

 

About five miles south was a strange little dumpground/hangout with an abandoned railroad tanker car. This was the best place in the whole universe.   We had campfires and several adolescent beer and wine experiences.   Our favorite pastime was jumping our bikes and shooting dead TVs. Note, the old black and white ones blow up A LOT better.

 

The main thing that happened to me then was that I got addicted to motorcycles.   One time, my Yankee cousin  "Tuffie" visited and I took him for a ride out to “the tank”. I remember we got drunk and he got sick. He kept saying the sky was “too big”.   Every time I ride a motorcycle I think to myself “No Tuffy, I think the sky is just about big enough today”.

 

I could ride a wheelie at top speed all day long. The Mini-enduro became part of my body. The bad part was that my body was not all that coordinated.

 

One day, I took a turn in my ally a little wide and ended up slamming through my neighbor’s privacy fence at about fifty.   I hit the wading pool halfway across his yard.   Actually, the bike hit the pool and I flipped up in the air and just watched as my bike flipped into the place where the water used to be.   My high flying act was terminated by my neighbor’s house which bounced me head first into his nicely manicured snowball bush.   I remember thinking “Wow! I always thought it would hurt more when I broke every bone in my body.”  

 

When I got my breath I surveyed the damage.   I broke the mirror off.   Ok, never used it anyway.   Bent the brake and clutch levers almost backwards and bent the bars all to hell.   Smashed four boards out of my neighbors fence and drained his pool for him.   Broke several asbestos shingles off his house with my butt and really screwed up his snowball bush.   At that point I had to sit down and come to terms with   the astonishing fact that I WAS COMPELATLY UNHARMED! (NO, not even a scratch). Fortunately I had been wearing shorts, sandals and my lucky AC/DC t-shirt.

 

After I paid off all the damage and helped put up the fence I got some handle bars off of a Honda 350 at the junkyard that made the Mini into a sort of “Ape-Hanger” dirtbike.  I never found my balance on it again even after I ordered some stock bars.  Mostly because by the time I sold it, my knees were almost in my helmet.  I sold it for a 10-speed bike and a hundred bucks. 

 

Fast forward a few years. I got a Honda 350 track and trail rat-bike when all my friends were getting HDs and crotch-rockets.  I was the Jack Nicholson character to my friends easy-riders except for I was the one doing all the drinking and drugging. Bikes came and went,  I had a broken down triumph in my yard for two years. Sad sad times that just got worse until I woke up and some fat biker yelled at me to lay back down and put the bottle back on my back so he could shoot it off.  After this, I went to jail and I have never really been clear on why.  Drugs maybe. 

 

I didn’t get another bike until a couple of years after I sobered up (Thanks to Dr. Bob and the good ‘ol timers).   After I got a job and grew tired of riding the bus to work I got a Honda Nighthawk 450.   GREAT BIKE!   I rode it everywhere rain or shine for four years.   Then I got married, started gaining weight and traded it in on a Honda Shadow vt750 with an all chrome tank and fender set.   Suddenly I was a rock star.   People would follow me halfway across town just to watch the thing sparkle.  

 

I rode that for about three more years before I got a cage for rainy days.
  One thing led to another and I wound up divorced and broke and so I sold the bike. DOH!   I sold it to a friend who was new to bikes but pretty athletic and insisted he would take it out of traffic to learn but ended up t-boning a parking lot   security cart and totaling the bike.   DOH!   And since he was a friend I had sold it to him for two grand DOH!   Later he gave up motorcycles and became a dancer at a queer bar.   DOH!

 

A couple of years ago a friend let me ride his new Valkyrie and even though I had not been on a bike for a few years the bike fit me like a charm and I have wanted one ever since.  I was sad to see them try to pass of the Rune as a Valk.

 

I almost bought one last month but the Lady sold MINUTES before I got there with the cash. I realized afterward that the loan I got was not such a good deal and since  I am in the process of buying a house and feeding three daughters , I paid it back and decided to raise the cash instead.

 

Since I turned 42 last year I have spent more and more time watching happy riders buzzing down the blacktop, stopping by the bike shops.. you know “on my way home” and generally wondering if the sky is still big enough.