Hog Heaven, My Harley Days

The Harley Davidson was rather pretty sitting there at the end of the driveway of an expensive new home, built on a narrow, wooded road that negotiated a high ridge line. The roads out in the direction of Missouri wine country are some of the hilliest, windingest and just plain prettiest that our state has to offer. If one chooses wisely, the car traffic is also quite light. This makes the area nice for people to explore by both motorcycle and bicycle.

I was enjoying the one and a half lane road on my bicycle by myself that day. I noticed the FOR SALE sign, including the price, thought for a moment, turned around and ambled back. I don’t know much about Harley’s, I rode and raced Kawasaki’s and Suzuki’s when I was younger-dirt bikes, of course. When I imagined myself on a road bike, it was always some foreign crotch rocket under me – a Ninja 1000, per say: 155 mile per hour, 0 to 60 in just over three seconds, 124 horsepower; which is actually 67 more horsepower than my first car, and only 63 less horsepower than my current minivan!

It is with great luck that I was just getting past the truly young and dumb years by the time that I started into motorcycles, for now I knew what I must do – which is DO NOT! Get a Ninja! I love finding the limits, and when I am doing such, seem to forget about the dangers involved. Ever since, I’ve loitered around, only in the moderately young and dumb phase.

It wasn’t a big Hog. It didn’t have ape hangers. It wasn’t black, with cracked black leather and extra-long exhaust pipes, designed by a trumpet maker, to squeeze every last decibel out of each explosion heading for the exits each time an exhaust valve opens. It might have even fallen under the category of a ‘ladies bike’, I wouldn’t know. What I did know was that it looked quite nice and seemed very reasonably priced. ‘I could buy this, check out the Harley experience for one year, then sell it for near what I paid’, was what I was musing.

I had been a member of a Harley gang once before, though it was not for very long. I joined as a lone wolf, then left as a lone wolf. Years prior, as I was summiting a big hill, a rather large ‘gang’ started coming past me, one by one. The downhill was steep and winding enough to satisfy the most hardened adrenaline junkies. Everyone was having a ball. I took my place in the group while in a full tuck, weaving and swooping down the hill as an integral part of the gang, only my ‘ride’ weighed just slightly more than a bowling ball. At the bottom, the rest of my new family started to come by. I was pleasantly surprised to get the cool, low wave from each of my members.

Mary was game to the idea. This is one of those opportunities where ideas that probably would have been an unexpectedly pleasant life experience get stuck in idea Purgatory – “seize the moment!” (Facebook is so full of this crap, I apologize for saying it.)

But, I didn’t.

Following is my imagination of the experience, had I done it, and “seized the moment.”

*****

Rolling into the biker bar in the old town of Defiance, only this time, I look cool, my bride on the back, she looks really cool too, although she looks cool not only in my imagination; the world shifting to slow motion, lean the machine, weighing a whole mess of bowling balls, slowly against the kickstand and throwing a leg over and taking Mary’s hand, as she does the same,-every motion, long and deliberate-as we walk into the bar. We’re new, but part of the gang. We’re members. The bartender says, “I’ll have it right up”, instead of the, “I have to take care of my own customers first”, which we’ve heard at that same bar on rare occasions, while sporting our skimpy spandex.

Somebody says to us, “you look familiar, where have I seen you before?” I begin to brainstorm, ‘oh crap, our other life in spandex!’ I had forgotten about that in all of our slow-motion coolness, going on just now. “Sturgis, perhaps? In ‘03? Perhaps? What year were you there?” I ask. “Oh yah, we were there that year too,” I continue. Their face remains stuck in a look of confusion for a few moments, as they slowly turn and walk away. We take no notice of the spandex people, though some of them were likely my cohorts in bailing out this very same bar, when it made a serious Jello shot miscalculation...