Day 24 - Beryl Markham

There are many books that have influenced me and my adventurous nature. Perhaps the most important of these has no motorcycles and is not by a man.

West With The Night by Beryl Markham is the autobiography of a woman published before I was even born. Beryl grew up in Kenya as a bit of a wild child. Her playground was the Serengeti and her playmates were Masai tribesmen who taught her the ways of the wilderness.

Not content to marry and stay at home, she went to the world with confidence and poise. She was a successful race horse trainer who followed her father's trade. After that she learned to fly and became the first woman with a commercial license in Kenya.

Building on this second career as a bush pilot she went on to become the first person to fly non-stop from England to North America - east to west. Charles Lindbergh flew from west to east helped by the tailwinds. Beryl did it the hard way against the headwinds.

She writes with simplicity and clarity. Lions and tigers were not story book characters but real and dangerous. Her character comes through not as bravado but as confidence in herself and her abilities. She writes about the wonders of her life with a purity and innocence that conveys the reader into her world. One wants to jump into the passenger seat and go for a ride.

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Day 23 - Ted Simon

If Zen and the Art … is the worst motorcycle book, what is the best?

There are many nominations for this title and different people will have different opinions but, for me, Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon wins the prize. The writing is simple, humble, and unpretentious.

1973 - I was partying at UConn and pretending to get an education. I had a motorcycle but I don't remember which one. Considering that I lived with the two biggest dealers on campus it's a wonder I remember anything.

1973 - Ted was loading up his bike to go for a ride. This ride would last four years and cover 63,400 miles. And it was on a Triumph! Not the most reliable bike of the day.

In those four years Ted finds a panoply of challenges, experiences, friends, and fiends. He finds ways to overcome the challenges and fiends, and to optimize the friends and experiences. He does it as a person would, with an inquiring mind, a bit of trepidation, and a lot of curiosity. No mystical spirituality required!

Ted grows and the reader grows with him. He's a marvelous writer who is able to convey his thoughts and actions as if you were right there with him. It's not an action thriller but rather the memoir of a man you would love to go for a ride with.

I met him once at a motorcycle show. I almost missed him because he was just sitting there like any other person who wanted to get out of the sun. No big sign pointing and shouting, “Look at me. I'm a really big deal!” We chatted a bit about our experiences in Africa before others begged for his attention. I came away thinking that he exemplified the epitome of the adventure traveler. Doing it not for fame and glory but simply because he wondered what was around the next corner.

Note - this is available on both Amazon and audible.com - highly recommended!

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Day 22 - Pirsig

My bookshelf is stocked with every type of book relating to motorcycles and travel. Round the world or round the block. Hiking, adventure biking, 4x4ing, I've got lots of them. One book I don't have is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

Amazon describes it thus,

“One of the most influential books written in the past half-century, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a powerful examination of how we live and a breathtaking meditation on how to live better.”

Maybe it's me but I think it's the worst book ever written about motorcycles and motorcycling. Pirsig has his head so far up where the sun don't shine that he will never need sunglasses.

I remember when it first came out, I was first in line to get a copy. Prepublication news said that he had ridden across country on a Honda Super Hawk and written about his trip. Coincidentally, I had just finished riding across North America on a Honda Super Hawk and wanted to compare our trips.

We must have been in different universes because nothing he wrote matched anything I experienced. I had no existential revelations or spiritual visions. Ghostly Indians did not ride alongside me to cause me to question my life.

I rode along US 6 and my trip was about the beauty of the world I was passing through. My contemplations consisted of wondering if I had enough gas to make it to the next town and whether I should seek shelter because it looked like it would rain soon. Meeting people along the way who were warm and friendly was all I need to believe the world was in good shape.

Instead of contemplating my navel I concentrated on the slight ticking sound coming from my engine. I thought about the friends I had left behind in Boston and speculated on what lay ahead when I got to San Francisco. I didn't need a mantra to clarify my purpose in the world. I ride, therefore I am.

I'm sure the crowd that claims spiritual powers from crystals loves the book. Whenever someone claims that the book really spoke to them I excuse myself and walk away as fast as I can.

In 1974 I got about 1/4 through the book and tossed it into the trash. My only thought was, “Boy did he save a lot of money on sunglasses!”

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Day 21 - Blood

It's a little after midnight so I'm over the time limit but I gave blood nine hours ago so I'm claiming the Red Cross exemption for

 today's post.

Giving blood is a simple chore that is made irritating by all the protocols that surround it. They ask you your name and date of birth over and over as if you might suddenly have been switched with an alien presence. If they're so concerned about safety why not give you a wrist band that they could scan?

Then they want to know all about your sexual habits. Again, redundant questions that would be easy to lie about. Have I paid for sex? Have I paid for sex with somebody my own gender? Have I had sex with anyone who has or might have HIV?

How many people are there that are taking time out of their lives to put themselves through all this and then lie? I get that someone who hadn't come out about their sexuality might feel peer-pressured into giving blood. However, that very fact means that they must have tests to assure the blood is clean before passing on to the recipient. Add in the Covid-19 protocols and it verges on a gothic inquisition.

They also have a questionnaire with ~84 questions that you are supposed to complete on line before coming to the donation center. This is new and supposed to speed things up but it doesn't because they ask all the same questions all over again. Twice!

Finally, they actually take the blood. That takes half the time the questioning does. “Lie down”, “Make a fist”, “You may feel a needle prick”, Be bored for ten minutes while a little bag fills up with your vital fluid.

After that somebody smiles at you and says “Thank You” You get a juice box and a mini bag of cookies and go home.

Why do people do it? The same people, over and over. Not knowing who it will go to or why. Putting themselves through this exasperating process when they have other things in their lives.

Simply because it's the right thing to do. It's the ultimate altruism. You don't know who you're giving this gift to; cop or crook, black white or green, republican or democrat. All you know is that somebody will need this and you're there to make sure they get it. No gold star, just the feeling that you did the right thing.

See you in six months when we do it all over again!

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Day 20 - Bison

The first thing you need to know is that bison do not like being called buffalo. Buffalo are their Asian and African cousins, Bison are all American.

When the call went out for volunteers to herd bison I was all in. Who wouldn't want to be part of the traditional western scene of herding animals across the prairie? At 10am I was standing with a small group of other people who were also looking for fun and adventure in the old west. This being the 20^th century our first task was to sign a liability disclaimer agreeing that if we got maimed or killed it was our own damn fault. Then we got the safety lecture. Regrettably there were no donuts in sight.

The plan was to herd the bison into a corral using quads, atvs, and our trucks. The trucks would form a moving conga line parallel to the fence and the quads would keep any strays from getting away. The modern quarter horse.

As you might guess nobody briefed the bison on the plan and as we tried to move them to the southwest corner of the field they decided they liked the northeast corner better. Cutting across open ground in the Blazer at 45 mph while chasing very large animals is pretty exciting!

Once we got lined up again we were able to minimize the chaos and move the herd into the corral. This led to the second part of the day which consisted of weighing, immunizing, and tagging them.

They are moved from the corral into a long corridor of heavy steel bars. The calves weigh ~300 pounds and the bulls are ~2000 pounds. None of them are especially pleased about the whole process and continually expressed that opinion by kicking, ramming the steel cage, and making loud, angry noises.

My job was to wait until the animal came down the chute and pull a lever that put a collar around its neck so as to immobilize it while the inspection and immunizing took place.

Standing 6” away from a pissed off bison that weighs nearly as much as my truck got me to wondering about how good the welder was who put this all together. Luckily they seemed to be up to the task.

One by one the animals went through the line and when I released the collar they were only to happy to bolt from the chute, out through the gate, and back into the field where they came from. Home, Home on the Range.

It was a great experience on a warm sunny day. The owners told us we did a great job and we all said we would be back again next year for another roundup.

Then the donuts came out and my day was complete!

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Day 19 - The Train

Rocky Mountaineer’s New Glass-Domed Train Runs From Colorado to Utah

For a lot less money you can take the Amtrak California Zephyr from Salt Lake City to Denver, stay the night, and come back the next day. 22 Jun is generally the longest day of the year so you will get to see the sunrise just before going over Soldier Summit and down the other side of the Wasatch mountains. There is the boring part across the desert from Price to Green River but after that it is all scenery all the time.

Amtrak's Vista Dome cars may not be quite as fancy but they are just as good for looking around and seeing the sights. The food in the dining car is great and reasonably priced. They fill the tables up so you are certain to meet new people to share the experience with.

Past Grand Junction you are into the Rockies and running along the Colorado River. A quick stop at Glenwood Springs and then into Glenwood Canyon.

There are only two ways to go through the canyon; take the train, or raft down the river. Just before entering the canyon the conductor walks through the cars advising people with a “sensitive nature” to relocate to the left side of the car. The reason being that the rafters all know the train schedule and make sure to pull over so the can moon the train as it goes by. I think the engineer aids and abets this time honored tradition by sounding the horn along the way.

The rest of the trip down into Denver is scenic and relaxing. A perfect end to a great ride. A nice dinner in town and an AirBnB bed completes a memorable excursion.

The next morning it's up early to get back to the train station for the trip back to Salt Lake City. This is a perfect complement to the first ride. Heading west in the morning gives the scenery an entirely different perspective. Serene and composed. This time you will be going over Soldier Summit as the sun is setting and will be getting into Salt Lake late. I find the rush of the train through the urban scene to be an enjoyable counterpoint to day's natural wonders.

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Day 18 - Covid Counterpoint

I'm going to relinquish my own words today in favor of my friend Dave who offered an excellent counterpoint to my discussion of Covid and the failure of the government and media to properly explain it to the general population. Dave has done some excellent research that fills in many of the blanks. Too bad that much of what we get in the news is only sound bites and fear mongering.

~70k drug overdoses in the US in 2019. 200k+ deaths from Covid from March through November. This includes the insane death curve of the opioid thing over the past few years. Back around 2010 we had a bunch of years with 12-15k per year. I hope that puts Covid in perspective. I have three doc friends, in different areas of the country, who have never seen anything like this in 20-35 years of work at the hospitals they are at. They claim dying the way these folks do is about as dark as you can imagine with slow-growing brain tumors as amongst the few ways they would less prefer to go.

Note that if 1/1000 people died in the US it would be a tiny percentage and still 320k. The kill rate is much higher than that if we all got it though.

A bit more: I know a 38 year old 2:45 marathon runner who got it. No comorbidities^*. He was sick for 4 weeks, was not hospitalized, and has lost nearly 60% of lung function. He will never run again, so he is now an ex-marathoner with his last in late fall 2018. I also know a guy who lost his father-in-law and that man's brother in the same three week period. One had heart disease (so do 50% of men over 47 years of age by they don't know it) but the other didn't have comorbidities. Maybe they just didn't win the gene pool but who knows.

We can know a lot of folks who got sick and "are fine" but that doesn't mean the hospitals won't overflow and such as it doesn't take that many folks who would have otherwise been fine to block them up.

Dave

^* the simultaneous presence of two or more diseases or medical conditions in a patient.

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Day 17 - The Mall

Dreary is the only word for it!

I went to one of the largest malls in town today. If there was any holiday spirit there I didn't see it. Just people milling around like zombies going through an ancient ritual that had lost all meaning.

The clerks were cheerless in their greetings as the shoppers shuffled along, looking at things they weren't buying. Nobody wanted to touch anything for fear of contamination.

The stores were roped off to allow only a few people in at a time. Few people were willing to wait. Move along, don't look left or right, just go through the motions until you can get home and order on line.

Santa sat in his chair behind a Plexiglas screen. Children were not allowed to approach. The Grinch has finally stolen Christmas. The Amazon driver is Santa's new helper. Don't smile. Don't touch. Be afraid.

I fear the loss of joy more than I fear the virus. The death of joy is worse than any mortal wound.

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Day 16 - Corvid

I had an extended conversation with a person today who had some interesting theories about our current situation. He was a working class, right-leaning guy who saw the pandemic as an excuse for the government to take more control of people's lives.

He didn't deny that the pandemic was real. His thesis was that the government and media have blown it all out of proportion to the real threat. It is all a scare campaign get people to do whatever they were told.

I had to agree with him on a lot of points. It does seem that every death is now a Corvid Death no matter what the pre-existing conditions were.

Wearing a mask is probably helpful but certainly not the way a lot of people use them. They wear them all askew so that they can breathe which renders them completely useless. I don't see the news media exhorting people to wear their masks correctly.

Articles are constantly publishing big numbers of infections and deaths but don't put those numbers in context. What were the demographics of those people. Did they have other conditions that contributed to their demise? How many people died of drug overdoses during the same period? How many died in auto accidents? who really cares how many people died in Germany or Russia, how many died in my home town?

I've known several people who have caught the virus and they've all recovered. All of them agree that it was a horrible three days of misery but they are not only back to normal, they are immunized for the next year. However, they still have to wear a mask because they might be a carrier!

Ignoring these questions and classifying these people as ignorant only inflames the conspiracy theories and leaves us wondering what the truth really is.

In the end we did agree that it was definitely a conspiracy by the Plexiglas manufacturers that is behind all this.

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Day 15 - Coco

It turns out to be harder to write all this than I expected. For a person who “talks too much” and “has a million stories”, I'm finding that it isn't so easy to organize my thoughts into something coherent and interesting. Who would have guessed?

I wrote about wanting to visit India and go for a ride with Gaurav Jani. Of course that plan has failed because Gaurav died a few months ago.

Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Time passes quickly and our plans slip through our fingers like water. One day we say “Tomorrow” and many tomorrows later we find we are stuck in the same old rut.

Today is yesterday's tomorrow.

I'm pretty good at making plans and following through but I can also be lazy and let things slide. Case at point:

A few years ago, 12 to be exact, my friend Marty and I rode our bikes to Baja. We had few plans other than to avoid getting arrested. We had a paper map and big gas tanks. We were happy.

One of the goals on the trip was to stop at Coco's Corner and meet the man, the myth, the legend. Alas, it was not to be. We were there but Coco was not. We hung out thinking he might return but while we waited a couple of hours it was not to be. I planned to return the next year but that was not to be either.

I was thinking of Gaurav today when Coco crossed my mind. Is he still alive? Is he still in residence? A quick Google search indicates that he is alive and doing well at the Corner.

Just as I challenged myself to write this blog, I now challenge myself to go back to Baja and find Coco in the spring. This time I will not let the opportunity fade from my grasp.

Want to come along? Let me know.

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Day 14 - Stupid Magazine Articles

I just saw a review of the new Honda 125cc Trail Bike in Cycle News. I used to have one of the original 90cc versions from the '80s. About as simple a machine as you can get. 2 wheels, 1 engine, plus a seat and handlebars. It will go anywhere and if you get stuck it's so light you can just pick it up and carry it out of trouble.

This is a bike for hunters, campers, and people who like to fish while being quiet enough to never disturb the Green Taliban. In other words, it's for everyone who wants to go farther into the woods than they care to walk. It's a mild mannered machine for people who want a capable motorcycle and are not bothered by their image. The kind of people who often bungee-cord a milk crate to the rack to carry their stuff.

So what does Cycle News do? They show pictures of it flying into the air over jumps and doing wheelies. The last thing that any actual buyer would be doing with such a machine.

I find this really irritating. Why do publications feel they need to show bikes and riders doing hooligan things when they so rarely do in real life. Worse, they seem to be encouraging people to do such stunts which only further tarnishes the image of the motorcycle community.

To me this is just plain and simple arrogance, and I wish they would cut it out!

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Day 13 - Favorite Motorcycle Movies

As soon as I say I ride motorcycles I often hear, “I loved that Fastest Indian movie.” And so do I. I have friends who knew Burt Munro and they say that the movie is pretty realistic for a Hollywood product. It compressed the events of several trips into one but it created a good story that made people happy so I say, Good Job!

There are other motorcycle movies that are equally good but have not had all the fanfare that Hollywood publicity creates. Here's a list of my favorites.

On Any Sunday is the classic of all motorcycle movies. It was made by Bruce Brown in 1971 as a follow up to his Endless Summer surfer movie. It was made by somebody who had the true feeling for motorcycling and really distilled the essence of the era. It has spawned several sequels by Bruce and his son but nothing equals the original.

As much as I like Sunday, it's not my choice for greatest motorcycle movie. That honor goes to Riding Solo To The Top Of The World, a 2006 film by Gaurav Jani. No film comes close to capturing the soul and spirit of the adventure traveler that this one does. It has inspired many of my own travels. Gaurav and I discussed the possibility of traveling together at some time but, regrettably, he passed away in May 2020 before I ever got to meet him. A reminder that life is short and tomorrow is never assured.

People often mention Long Way Round but I've never seen it. Free motorcycles, a camera/support crew, and a big budget reality show do not interest me.

“Oh darn, I have a flat tire. Julio would you be so kind as to fix it for me? And Maria could you make us all a latté while we wait?”

Far more fun and infinitely more real is Mondo Enduro. A bunch of English riders on Suzuki 350 bikes go around the world before mobile phones and gps. What they had was an 8mm movie camera and paper journals to record their trip. They are out for fun and adventure before "Fun & Adventure" became a thing.

I've ridden through Baja several times and one of the high points was seeing the start of the Baja 1000. Dust to Glory is the movie that captures all the chaos and excitement of that race. It was filmed by Dana Brown, son of Bruce Brown, and shows that great film making runs in the family. Just be prepared for 97 minutes of unrelenting excitement!

Those are three of my favorites. Leave a comment if you want to share yours.

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Day 12 - Photography

I used to teach a B&W photography course at the San Diego Ocean Beach Free School. I was really into it back then and spent almost as much money on camera equipment and lenses as I did on motorcycle things.

On the first day of classes I would haul in all my stuff and lay out some big 13x19" prints that I had made. As the students filtered in I invited them to look over what I had laid out. At the start of class I asked them what they thought and inevitably the comments went something like, "If I had equipment like yours I could take great pictures too"

After a bit of discussion I pulled an old Kodak Brownie from my pack and explained that every one of the pictures they had just praised was made with this simple camera. Some of them were amazed and some thought I was making a joke.

I pulled out more of them and handed them to the students. They were yard sale finds at a dollar apiece. Some were dismayed that they wouldn't be using their fancy Nikons and Pentaxes and expressed the opinion that they should be able to use whatever they wanted.

I explained to them that the camera did not take the picture. The eye, the mind, and the heart took the picture. The camera was just a clever mechanism for capturing what the eye saw, the mind imagined, and the heart felt.

Some students never came back but most of them got it. They had fun experimenting with the limitations of the Brownies and getting to know what the interplay of light and shadow was.

When they had exposed 3-4 rolls of film I showed them how to develop it and how to make prints with yard sale enlargers. There is a great satisfaction in seeing the joy in a person's face as their first print comes slowly to life in the developer tray.

I taught the course for a couple of years. To me, the photography lesson was learning the eye, mind, heart connection. The rest was just physics and chemistry.

Note: those old Brownie cameras now go for $25-50 on etsy. I should have saved them all for my retirement fund.

Day 11 - Hiking

Went hiking today. The town I live in, Tooele, is in a valley between the Oquirrh and Stansbury mountain ranges. There is a road zig-zagging up the side of the Oquirrh to the east that I can see it from my living room. It's a service road for the power lines and I'm guessing that it's about 8-10 miles long and ~3500' elevation climb above the valley. It has been calling to me since I moved in.

Today we went looking for the bottom of that road. It's off an old mining road with a gate across it so we parked the car and climbed over the gate. In a mile or so we were under the power lines with no access in sight so we started bushwhacking up the side of the hills.

Came across a large deer carcass that must have been brought down by a mountain lion. Everyone has to eat and survival is a hard case. Mother Nature is not sentimental.

I chose to follow a deer track up the side while Beth chose a different path. When I was halfway to the top I looked around and saw that she was already ahead of me. Amazing woman!

An hour later we intercepted the service road which was our goal for the day. We followed it back down to see where it intersected the mining road. Much easier going down than climbing up! Next time we'll know where to start our climb.

I kept thinking about what a great trail this would make for the motorcycle but the mining company must have read my thoughts. Armco guard rails cut off all access to the area. I just don't see myself lifting my bike 4' into the air to get past them. There are plenty of legal places to ride all around here, this one will have to remain a hiking adventure.

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Day 10 - Thanksgiving

#GiveThanks - It's been all over social media. Here's my list:

1. Beth - 30 years of marriage that has been, at times, inspirational and stormy, but never dull. What's not to like? A Honda Hawk GT, 2 Ducatis, a Moriwaki land speed record bike, a couple of AHRMA race bikes, and she's a great cook! (I do the dishes and clean the kitchen). Best of all, she's been my best friend and companion through all theses years.

2. Takeo Fujisawa - When you think of Honda you think of Soichiro Honda who was certainly an engineering genius. However, I would suggest that Honda would be nothing but an interesting side note if it were not for Takeo Fujisawa. When Honda went to Europe to buy modern machine tools, it was Fujisawa who made sure the money was available to pay the bills. His financial expertise is what gave Honda Motors stability and helped it flourish. It was a perfect team that lifted the world of motorcycles to an new level. They really were, “The Nicest People … “

3. Friends - I have plenty of acquaintances but I have been truly fortunate to have more than my share of true friends. It's well known that I can be a little crazy but I've had so many friends who have shown me patience and love throughout the years. Without them I have no idea where I might have ended up.

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Day 9 - Honda Dream

This is moto-insanity!

Bring A Trailer has concentrated on special interest vehicles since it began a couple of years ago. They seem to filter out the scammers and cheaters and try to ensure that the cars, trucks, and motorcycles on their site are honestly represented.

Unlike eBay their format is like a traditional auction. What you bid is what you agree to pay. No max bid hocus-pocus. Also, like a real auction, the bidding continues as long as there are bids. No sniping! At the very end, every time there is another bid the countdown clock is reset to 2 minutes. I've seen auctions that went more than 30 minutes past their deadline because two or more bidders were still duking it out.

All this gives the site a tremendous amount of credibility and the prices that are bid reflect that trust. However, some times there is no understanding what goes on in people's minds.

Case at point, “No Reserve: Restored 1965 Honda CA77 Dream Touring” This is a semi-popular Honda that is over restored to the max. I'll bet that it will never see the road again and is merely a piece of jewelry to enhance somebody's ego.

The final price: $24,652 !! This one you can't blame on the millennials because they weren't even born when this was made.

Compare it to this 1966 Dream on BAT. Same bike except for being a year newer and restored to a state as originally delivered from the factory. No polished points covers, no gleaming brake hubs, no wet look tires. Just dead stock factory original. Not as pretty to sit in your lawyer's office to impress the yocals who don't know any better.

One side of me says, “A happy buyer and a happy seller make a great transaction.” The other side of me says, “This is moto-insanity!”

YMMV

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Day 8 - Honda 250 Scrambler

My next major motorcycle was a Honda CL72, a classic Honda 250cc Scrambler.

Not the original bike but one just like it that I own now.

It was heavy, had questionable brakes and not much power to challenge them. What it had was high pipes and a skid plate under the engine. Another adventure bike!

Down the Coast Highway I went. In a little more style than with my little C110. I went to L.A. looking for something that I don't remember. What I do remember is getting tired of the city and riding up into the hills looking for a place to spend the night. A little searching and I found an out of the way place where I could throw down my sleeping bag. I sat looking down at the night lights of L.A. and thought about Steve McQueen's quote, “I rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.”

I woke in the morning and found I had acquired a few friends in the night. A small snake, a lizard, and a couple of gopher rats had all snuck into my sleeping bag to get warm. No problem, I shook them out and sent them on their way. Fellow travelers in the night.

On the way north I suddenly lost all power and noticed a long black thing laying in the road behind me. My chain had broken and was beyond repair. I pushed it to a nearby house and the owner said they would keep it until I could return with a new chain. People were like that back then. Maybe they still are.

I hitchhiked back to San Francisco and found that Honda had two different chains for that bike depending on whether I had an early or late model. I, of course, had no idea which one I had but I took a wild guess and started south. I, of course, had the wrong one but I got it to work by letting it hang loose and taking it easy on the way home.

I got the right chain and decided to give it a tune-up and general cleaning. By the time I was done it was late and I was tired. I decided to leave it parked in front of the apartment on Grant Street rather than take it to the garage across town.

OF COURSE, it was not there in the morning. Stolen and never to be seen again.

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Day 7 - Dan

I've had a long history with Yosemite. My aunt and uncle had a small vacation cabin in Foresta which is inside the park boundaries. I would visit them once in a while and camp out by myself at other times.

I was driving up in my Jeep late one evening, the cold seeping through my thin Army surplus field jacket. No top, no doors or windows, and most regrettably, no heater. Climbing up into the mountains only increased my misery as I reduced my speed to cut the wind chill factor.

A family in a station wagon flashed by and I, for a moment, wished I was just a little less radical. Then I thought to myself, “I'm the youth of America, master of the future, and everything else I can see before of me!” I sat up straighter, put the pedal to the metal, and roared off into the night.

When I got to my aunt and uncle's nobody was there. It was dark and I was cold. What to do?

I saw a light off in the forest and thought it must be somebody else's cabin. Mountain people are friendly and generous I reasoned. Surely they would take in the frozen nephew of Betty and 'Pad' Padilla for a night. Surely they had a warm couch I could sleep on until morning. Surely even a mug of hot chocolate for a weary traveler was possible.

I wasn't sure of the roads in this little community so I struck out cross-country with enough star light to avoid walking into trees. However, not enough light to see Crane Creek before I tumbled down the bank and into the water. Now I was really cold and miserable. I climbed up the other side continuing my quest for the light.

That's what I found, A LIGHT, hanging from a cord, attached to the A-Frame of an unbuilt house. Thus, I met Dan, who would become my lifelong friend. He was building the cabin but this was as far as he had gotten. He did, however, have some spare blankets he was willing to share and we ended up talking about life and carpentry into the night.

Dan was from San Francisco and had a real car with a real heater. He said he came up every other weekend and I was free to ride with him whenever I wanted to visit Betty and Pad.

A couple of weeks later he called me at work and said he was going up and asked if I wanted to ride with him. I accepted and it became a regular thing. Not to see my aunt and uncle but to help him build his cabin. Along with others we built it by hand over the next months and years. We would go up on Friday evening, work on Saturday and Sunday, then stop at the Pine Cone Restaurant in Merced for dinner on the way home. An interesting aside is that my mother worked as a waitress in that restaurant when she was a girl.

All who built it were free to use it with the exception of Dan's bedroom which was not only off limits but was too crammed with stuff to be usable anyway. 

Wherever I've been in the world that cabin has been a beacon of stability for me. Over 50 years of stories and misadventures have been witnessed by those walls. Maybe some of them will make it into these pages.

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Make my day, tell a friend about this blog!

Day 6 - The Jeep

When I was living in San Francisco in the '60s I had an old World War II Jeep (MB Series) for a while. It had no top and no doors. What it had was a cracked windshield and a couple of bullet holes in the side. It was painted a ghastly green by some previous owner but I didn't care, it had 4-wheel drive and could take me to all the places I wanted to go.

My friend Chip and I used to drive down to Big Sur picking up any and all hitch hikers along the way. A jug of wine, a baggie of weed, a buck or two for gas; each sharing what we had to get a little further down the road. We camped out under the stars and told ourselves that we were free and that it would never end.

California was a lot less up tight back then. You could drive out to Ocean Beach and race up and down the sand chasing sea gulls. Another great idea that proved to be my undoing. While trying to have fun with a new girlfriend I got caught in the sand as the tide was coming in. By the time a truck came to tow me out the only thing to be seen was the top of the windshield. The tow truck drive handed me the hook and told me to swim out to the Jeep and connect it because he sure as hell wasn't going to do it.

Once on dry land I received a quick chemistry lesson. To wit: salt water does not play nice with copper wiring. The girlfriend stuck around for a while, the Jeep had to go.

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Make my day, tell a friend about this blog!

Day 5 - The Vespa

The second important bike in my life was a motor scooter. A Vespa 160 GS. It belonged to a friend of by brother who was under orders to sell it because he had broken the rules once, or very many, too many times.

This was a disaster waiting to happen. Too much power, too little brakes, and absolutely no suspension to cope with the streets of San Francisco. Those little tires were never meant to deal with the craters euphemistically called pot holes.

The tiny tires also meant that cornering was always a challenge because leaning it too far over meant that it would scrape the bodywork. This would lever the back wheel off the pavement if one were not careful. Centrifugal force would immediately take over and fling the scooter and rider off the street and into the nearest stationary object. Ouch!

I didn't care. It was fun to blast through traffic, cutting in and out and in between the bigger cars and trucks. It was the '60s, the Haight-Ashbury generation, and all young people in San Francisco were supposed to act crazy!

The little wheels also meant that it was prone to doing wheelies whenever going up one of those famous hills. I once had a girl on the back and let out the clutch too fast. The Vespa wheelied, she fell off the back, hurled many bad words at me, and walked home. Alas, I never saw her again.

I did ride it to Yosemite one time. Remember, this is a 160cc machine, not the 50cc of my little Honda so I was not quite as crazy. Until the ride home …

There was a Corvette coming down the Altamont Pass at the same time I was. Now a Corvette and a Vespa are not usually in the same competition class but where he had the power, I had the maneuverability. I was cutting in and out, lane splitting before it was legal, doing anything I could to get ahead. Maybe he saw me or maybe he was just in a hurry but I was having the time of my life!

Until …

The engine seized!

Remember those little wheels? Let me tell you that they do not offer much stability when they are not turning. I managed to grab the clutch and keep it upright while I coasted to the side of the road. 50 miles to home in North Beach and I was wondering what I was going to do. Having nothing to lose I started kicking it over and over until it miraculously started. It must have overheated and seized but was able to restart once it cooled off. It didn't run very well but it got me home.

The following weekend I took it over to my friend Dan's place because he had a garage I could work in. I took out the engine and carefully cleaned it off so I could disassemble it. Then left it out on the sunny sidewalk to dry off while I went into his apartment to make a sandwich. He came in and said, “Wow, you've got it back together already?”

“No, I'm waiting for it to dry off so I can work on it.”

“Well it's not out there now.”

I ran out and, sure enough, it was gone. Vanished!

I called around but a replacement engine was more than I could afford so I sold the body for a little money and became a regular patron of the MUNI, San Francisco's bus and trolley system.

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