former Harley rider

Well, I didn't just jump into being a Harley rider. Uh, no, I was more cautious than that. Well, cautious is not the right word for riding a baby motorcycle sixty miles over the pass to work and then sixty miles over the pass home. Why over the pass? Because I lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and worked at White Sands Missile Range, and the Organ Mountains stood between them.

What is a baby motorcycle? A 50cc Honda with bicycle tires that kinda looked like a motorcycle and had the power to get over the pass in both directions. I could pick it up with one hand, so it had only as much weight as it needed.

But it was as much a godsend as a nonbeliever could hope for. I think it cost me two hundred fifty dollars when that was about as much as I could scrape together.

It was the start of a long adventure.

Working at White Sands meant I could almost afford to think about buying a bigger, more powerful motorcycle as long as I only almost thought about it. I had a wife and three kids to feed too, and we barely made it on my income.

Wait! What has this to do with being a Harley Rider? I'm getting there.

Eventually I got a real job and bought a Honda 350, a real motorcycle! I could hardly stand it when I bought a Honda 400. Ooo! And then i bought a Honda 750cc motorcycle! If I wasn't in Heaven, I was at least in a cathedral!

But I got itchy and experimented with a Yamaha 750cc Triple. (That means the engine had three cylinders instead of two or four.). What a honey of a motorcycle!

But I wrecked that one with the help of a careless car driver and wound up with more spare cash than I had sense for, so naturally I bought a Harley Sportster! See? You knew we'd get here!

Oh geez! Oh geez! I really was in Heaven!

I loved that Sportster, I think I went everywhere on it. All around Los Angeles, to Denver, to San Francisco, hell, to Portland! I toured around Monterey. Spent three days along the coast north of San Francisco. I spent a week in the desert somewhere near Barstow. I think I rode it to Las Cruces once! I rode and rode and rode that Sportster, nearly always grinning..

I mean, really! I rode it in clear weather, in sandstorms, in rain, in snow. I don't think I tried sleet.

I took it places I shouldn't have, like into a forest on a mountain, like out onto desert sand, like onto a road that had ice on it. I think I survived on pure sheer luck! It was wonderful!

I thought I would ride that Sportster forever!

But eventually I walked into my Harley dealer's showroom and fell in love with the Night Train, a Harley cruiser with a 1440cc engine. It was black and chrome. Black and chrome. To me, it made color superfluous. Oh damn, I fell hard for that motorcycle.

Linda and the parts lady at my dealer's said they could tell as soon as I saw it, I had to have that Night Train!

Goddam! Goddam!

I repeated my experiences with the Sportster on the Night Train. That is, I rode it everywhere. I rode it in all weathers! I gave rides to friends who dared. I rode and I rode. I grinned and I grinned.

And another driver got me! I don't mean a car hit me. This one darted halfway into my lane, saw me - aren't they supposed to look first? - and panicked, darted back into his or her own lane, and drove on without looking back.

I don't know that. I had moved over ito the half-lane the driver allowed me, and hit something that jerked my front wheel out of line, and the Harley and I went down. I got away with scrapes and bruises. The Night Train didn't. Somehow it got totalled.

I replaced that one with a newer Night Train. I rode the second til I had to give up motorcycling.

Why? Why? Sorry. I got old. My reflexes and my strength could no longer match what a motorcycle demanded. I reluctantly surrendered.

I walk now. Or bus. Or Uber. Or get rides from Charles or Patricia, my brother and my great friend. Mostly I stay in my room and "work" on my computers.

By the way, if you're dying for English metrics, a 50cc engine has a 3 cubic-inch displacement. A 350cc engine has a 21.35 ci displacement, and a 750cc engine is all the way up to 45.76 ci. A 1440cc engine displaces 87.86 ci.

Oh! And a Harley rider is someone who rides a Harley. Some, like I did, ride a Harley if they are going anywhere they can't walk. Some sunshine riders only ride in good weather, or when a friend asks them to, or on weekends. Yes, they are still Harley riders, but you can probably see my raised eyebrow and slightly elevated nose.

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