Motorcyle...uh...Hot Scooter Riding

I used to own a motorcycle. Long time ago, probably more years than most of you have been alive. It was a 125cc Ducati. Italian bike. Dependable, fast little bike, a real rounder. My husband had a big bike now. A 750cc Jawa, another old name bike most people won't even recognize. That thing was a hog, man. Harley has hogs, but back then, in the early 1970s, this Jawa was a hog. Fast as a bullet, big, heavy, a monster bike.

Well, I got myself picked up by a cop for the first and only time in my entire life with my little fast-assed Ducati. It was really a dirt bike, but I was riding that thing all over the bick highways around our house in Michigan. Then one day the thing dies at a stop sign. And there are no cars in sight--until one starts slowly appearing from the haze of the setting sun behind me. And it was a cop car. Of course it was!

I'm stirking my bike starter like a maniac. Start, you crummy piece of Italian crap, I'm thinking, start or I'll take a hammer to you when we get home. Cause you see this bike didn't have a tag or licence, it didn't have working headlamps, and I didn't even have my driver's license with me. I'm stomping that starter. The bike's going unk, unk, ummmnk. It's having nothing to do with my efforts to get it started again. It does not know what a hammer can do, obviously.

Cop car rolls to a stop behind me and in a few seconds I have company. "Can't get it started?" he asked, kind of friendly. "No, but I'll get it," I say, hoping he'll go away. I know he won't. He will not go away. He's a cop. I'm a woman on a weird little dirt bike with a dead starter in the middle of a highway alone.

He starts walking around the bike and looking it over. I'm sunk. "You don't have a license plate on this thing," he says. I keep my mouth shut. I have never broken a law before and never been in jail. I don't think I've ever even spoken to a policeman in my life before this. "Hey, there's no lights on this thing," he says, his voice not so friendly now. "Can I see your driver's license?"

"Umm, I left it at home. See, I just live over there, not far, and I was just trying out the bike..." I'm lying. I ride this bike all the time on these back roads. I don't lie so good. He knew I was lying.

"I could take you to jail for this," he says. "I ought to take you to jail."

I shut up real good.

"I ought to ticket you and take you to jail. But I think we'll put this bike in the trunk and I'll drive you home this time. I ever see this thing on the road again without lights or license, you're definitely going to jail then."

I thank the officer and let out a relieved breath. At home, rolling up in a cop car, and my husband walks out the front door to see what's happening. He hears the cop out and then turns to me and says, I swear to God, "I TOLD you not to drive that bike on the highway!" My mouth drops open. He never told me any such thing. And anyway, he ain't my daddy, I want to drive a motorcycle, I drive a motorcycle. Then he turns to the officer and says it will never happen again.

I loved that Ducati. I went to a cycle rally with it once where people were driving up mountain slopes and racing as groups through forested trails. I made it up the slope without breaking my neck, but it scared me silly so I decided to go on a trail ride. I head off with about five people in front of me and they're scorching the earth, riding fast. I'm struggling to keep up. I don't know the trail, I'm getting a little nervous, but I can see them ahead and I just put my head down and hurry up. Then the group disappeared around a turn in this forested area and I follow them. I'm going, I don't know, between 30-50mph and smackdab as I clear this curve I'm faced with a huge ravine with only a 6inch wide board spanning it. The group is on the other side, stopped, waiting for me. And laughing. Well, I'm going too fast to stop. I'd have laid that bike right into the ravine. All I can do is hit that board and hope to keep the wheels straight and not kill myself. The front tire hits and I'm doing okay, but I'm stiffling trying to maneuver across and the whole thing got to me. I'm going down, that's all my mind could scream. I'm going down, I'm going! And down I went. The back tire slid off the board and BAM I'm tumbling into the ravine with a motorcycle landing on top of me, wheels spinning crazily. It wasn't a long fall, but still a person could have broken her back or neck falling down there. I got bruised and scraped up and I'm absolutely fireworks furious. I push that bike off me, get to my wobbly feet and scream obscenities at the doofuses who led me into this quagmire. I could have killed them if they'd come down into that ravine near me.

So now, these years later, I'm going into motorcycles again. Although technically it will be a scooter. This thing will be a 150cc and will top out at around 70mph. It's sporty, hot looking, and I can't wait to get it. My husband is getting one too. He's leaning toward a yellow one, I'm all for red. We're going to strap a rolled up tent and stuff to the back and going camping in places not too far away from where we live. We're going fishing at lakes and streams you can't get to by car. We're going riding, just riding, on backroads, away from traffic, away from noise and strife. These are cruising scooters, not little city scooters, so we can go on freeways with them if we want, but that's a real waste of motoring around. Mainly we'll go on side roads, back roads, two laners.

I hope this time not to fall into any ravines. My bones might be a little more brittle now. But at least I'm going. By god, I'm going.