I owned a motorcycle. Not that I was ever legally allowed to do so, but in keeping with the time-honored tradition started by my older brother, it was a rite of passage that we enjoyed while becoming full-on teenagers. I learned to ride by handling his Kawasaki Trail Boss 100 on the dirt roads around our mountain cabin. There wasn't a lot to it, really. We took turns giving one another rides up and down the half mile between the big hills at the end of the two ruts that served as our driveway. Back and forth. Endlessly.
Until it was my turn. My older brother had moved on to the four wheels of the Toyota pickup he bought once he got to high school. It was deemed appropriate that I would have my own motorcycle, and so in keeping with the family line, I chose another Kawasaki. This was also a 100cc trail bike, a notch smaller than its predecessor, but the hundred cubic centimeters were important. I was informed that anything less would make it a "mini-bike," and I wasn't going to ride a mini-bike.
And so during those summer months that we lived in the mountains, this was a near daily activity after finishing our chores: filling up the gas tank, strapping on our helmets, and my younger brother and I would rev it up for a session of tearing up and down the dirt road until we tired of it. Never did it occur to me that this was a needless waste of fossil fuel that certainly contributed to the climate crisis that we set in motion all those years before. Not to mention the constant ringdingding of the two stroke engine echoing into the valley for hours at a time.
When summer ended, we stuck the Kawasaki in the back of the station wagon and hauled it down to civilization where it sat behind the fence of our suburban home, waiting for the seasons to change and it would be time once again to hit the road.
Except that one time, when I was fifteen, and it occurred to me that there really wasn't a huge difference between the dirt road in front of our cabin and the suburban cul de sac where we lived the rest of the year. So when my parents were out, I opened the side gate and wheeled that bad boy out. I was gratified by the way it started right up. I sat there in the driveway, idling. My younger brother rushed out to join me, because that was what we did.
I took a few quick turns down to the corner and back. The helmets were stowed in a box locked away in our cabin, so I went without. The wind rushed through the hair I had back in those days, and the feeling I had was that of a conqueror. The streets were mine.
But I wasn't crazy enough to take it past the stop sign at the end of our street.
The sound brought other kids outside, and just around the corner I saw some of my friends, the ones who were still young enough to stand in awe of my mean machine. I roared up to their driveway, and stopped, smiling broadly.
Then I did something that sticks with me to this day: I revved the engine and popped a wheelie, lurching forward up the driveway in the direction of my assembled fans. They squealed and dashed out of the way, and I stopped, yards away from them but feeling that I was the menace that this neighborhood deserved.
That's when the dad came rushing out of the garage ahead of me. "What do you think you're doing?" He roared. "That's a death machine! You could have killed someone."
And in that moment I understood why my parents had kept my motorcycle under wraps when were were "in town." I wasn't ready for this kind of interaction. Not with the kids. Not with the dad. Not with all the responsibilities that came with operating a death machine. I stammered an apology, because I wasn't really a rebel at all. I was embarrassed and ashamed, and I backed out of the driveway and put the motorcycle back where it belonged.
Safe.
When I turned sixteen, I left two wheels behind and inherited that Toyota pickup my older brother had grown out of. My younger brother got himself a Yamaha. For riding in the mountains.
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