Mean Motor Scooter

My older brother owned a motorcycle before he could legally drive a car. That set the precedent for his two younger brothers to do just the same. I did inherit Kawasaki Trail Boss for a summer, but like all hand-me-downs, it never had that stink of something new. It wasn't mine. I was just riding around on my brother's motorcycle. My younger brother and I shared "my" motorcycle for a couple more summers, but when it was time, he got his own. The reason for this transition isn't hard to fathom. We graduated to cars. Four wheels beats two every time.

Well, almost every time. I have very fond memories of the summers I spent tooling around the dusty mountain roads on my Kawasaki. I learned a good deal about the care and maintenance of a motor vehicle as I did. I learned to handle a clutch, and the vital distinction between a front and rear brake. I learned to judge RPMs by ear, and how to jump start a flooded engine. Mostly I remember the feeling of mastering the hand-foot coordination that is required to handle a manual transmission.

Many years later, when I had long since given up on two wheels, I was given the opportunity to apply my talents to a paying gig. After I left the world of video rental, or to be more specific, the world of video rental left me, I went to work installing modular office furniture. My boss had another business on the side: Motorcycle escorts for funerals. A cool way to get out of having to lift and move heavy steel desks aroune the Denver metro area was to ride a motorcycle with a siren on it, stopping traffic at major intersections in the Denver metro area. There was one sticking point: I had no motorcycle endorsement on my license. I had also grown up riding little trail bikes, and that was a very different experience from the Harley Davidsons I was being asked to ride. On slow days at the warehouse, I would take a bike out and practice in the neighborhood. Stopping. Starting. Popping the clutch. Starting again. I never had the skill or confidence to go down to the DMV and take the test. I just kept lugging those steel desks from room to room in IBM branches across the front range. And I dreamed of riding motorcycles.