Answers to Questions Nobody Was Askin' by Sample Tim;

Author:Sample, Tim;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Down East Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Rebel Without a Clue

I recently treated myself to a “mental health day.” With my wife off visiting her family in Minnesota and the weatherman promising bright sunshine and temps in the high eighties, the conditions seemed perfect for some serious self-care.

I rose early and by six a.m. I’d fed and walked the pooch, taken out the trash, and loaded the dishwasher. Household duties duly dispatched, I headed to the garage for the ancient and mystic ritual of awakening my vintage 900 cc Honda motorcycle.

After keying the ignition, I always check to make sure the green “neutral” light is on. Then, after engaging the manual choke, I hit the starter button and stand around sipping coffee for another three or four minutes. When the engine is sufficiently warmed up, I back off the choke, reveling in the mellifluous four-cylinder symphony.

The auditory and olfactory stimulation accompanying this ritual affect me pretty much the way all that bell ringing must have affected Pavlov’s dogs. I’m ready to ride.

Cruising a ribbon of fresh two-lane blacktop up near the Belgrade Lakes, I encountered plenty of other bikers with the same idea as me and couldn’t help reflecting upon how far the sport of motorcycling has come since I started riding in the late sixties.

Back then the prevailing image of bikers involved scruffy leather clad outlaws out looking for trouble. But, this stereotype, reinforced in movies like the The Wild One, featuring Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin attempting to terrorize the good citizens of a small California town, was about to be eclipsed.

Nobody could have imagined that a scant dozen years later those bad-boy bullies would be sent packing, not by some rival motorcycle gang, but rather by a cheerful assortment of middle class housewives, Ivy League jocks, coeds, and buttoned down junior execs zipping around America on a new breed of brightly colored, inexpensive, gas sipping Japanese motorbikes. The sound track for this two-wheeled revolution was a catchy top-forty style advertising jingle, the chorus of which promised, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that I took my very first motorcycle ride on one of these diminutive imports. That brief ride was all it took to convince me I had to get my own bike. In the spring of my senior year at high school I did just that, having finally spotted my dream machine parked in a dusty corner of a shabby used car lot on Route 196 in Lewiston.

The bike’s Ferrari red paint job and gleaming chrome tank cast a powerful spell, temporarily blinding me to its long list of less than stellar qualities, including, but not limited too, its tiny size, skinny tires, and conspicuous lack of anything remotely resembling actual horsepower. Ah, but the clincher was the price. How could I possibly go wrong when the salesman promised I could drive it off the lot for under $250, including sales tax and fourteen-day plates? How indeed?

Did I mention the part about me driving it

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