Over the years, I've done a great many things.  I've also done a lot of things that weren't so great, but I digress.  The point is, I think I've got some pretty good stories.

My First Motorcycle.

At the tender age of eleven, I lived in Tampa, Florida.  My mother worked at a produce market and was married to a barber. 

The barber's name was Eric, and he was a very feisty Italian that played guitar and rode motorcycles.  You could have called him a biker since he didn't own a car and rode his bike everywhere, everyday, but he didn't really fit the description, at the time, of a biker.  This was around 82', and Eric was a clean freak.  He also rode a KZ1000, which was, and still is, extremely cool.  It was all flamed out, and had a most righteous Shoei fairing on it.  Eric was pretty cool for a barber, and fun, too. He took me for my first triple digit ride one day, and I was hooked. 

Times were kind of tough, so I worked for my own spending money.  We weren't broke, just poor.  If I wanted something, I had to figure out how to get it.  This secret talent of mine has stayed with me and pisses my wife off to no end.  I worked at the produce stand where my mother worked, sorting potatoes, wrapping lettuce, and carrying groceries out to the car for little old ladies.  The owner paid me well, I think it amounted to about ten dollars a day, which was decent, and all the fresh fruit I could eat, so when I saw the old scooter propped up against the back wall of the bar behind the market, I knew it would be mine.

It was one of the old pedal types, you know, you get on the thing and pedal it down the street like a bicycle until it starts, at which point you get the pedals into a neutral position or you knock yourself flat on your ass in a lowside going around a corner.  It was a faded orange color, and had a basket on the front.  The seat was ripped, and one of the floor board pads was missing, exposing the blossoming rust under the orange paint.  This thing was clearly bad ass.  The Toecutter would have been proud to ride this hell raising machine of glorious road freedom.

A similar moped to my first "bike"

So I went back inside the market and called Eric.  Mom was working, but I knew if I asked her, it would be like that movie "Christmas Story". 

"You'll get hurt on it!" she would say.  Mom knew that boys would be boys, but she also had to admit that Mothers just have to be, well.... Mothers. It was her mission in life to make sure we were fed and clothed, went to school, and not die in a horrific scooter accident. 

But Mom had married a younger guy, and he was a little dangerous.....he played guitar.....he rode motorcycles.....and he could cut and style her hair. 

Eric had Mom wrapped around his little finger and I knew he could play Devil's advocate and get me my two wheeled freedom. 

I called him. 

Me:  "Uhhh,  Eric?  I, uhhh, found a motorcycle that I want to buy."

Eric:  "What does your Mom say?"

Me:  "I haven't told her yet."

Eric:  "You at the market?"

Me:  "yessir."

Eric:  "I'll be there in a minute."

I went back and pondered the scooter leaning against the back wall of Skipper's Oyster Shack, which is still in business.  Man, this was going to be so cool.  Me and the bike, on the open road.  Maybe Eric and I could take some road trips together, like he did with his buddies on the weekends sometimes.  I sat on it, trying to get a feel for it's handling and capabilities.  I was going to have to pay closer attention when Eddie Lawson was on the Wide World of Sports again.  If I slid forward on the seat a little, my new girlfriend would be able to sit behind me.  I didn't have a girlfriend, but expected they would be coming around as soon as I rode down the main drag on this panty dropper.

In the distance I could hear Eric's KZ coming.  He had Kerker 4 into 1's, and they sounded awesome.

He parked out back and waved at me.  He went inside, where I was pretty sure he was saying hi to Mom so she wouldn't come looking for him and catch us conspiring to get me my first set of "colors".

He finally came back out and walked up to where I was standing next to the steel horse.

Eric:  "I thought you said it was a motorcycle?  This is just a beat up polish scooter."

I still have no idea what that meant.

Me:  "This thing is RAD!  I have the money for it, I just need you to buy it and get Mom to be OK with the idea."

Eric:  "That's no problem, but where's the owner?  Is he in the bar?"

Me:  " I guess so.  I haven't seen anyone around yet.  Maybe it's not open yet, and someone left it last night?

Eric:  "nah, Skipper's always open.  Owner's probably inside.  We got a problem, though....."

Eric went on to explain that he had promised Mom prior to marriage that he would stay out of bars, and a promise was a promise, and he didn't see how we could go inside and buy the thing unless I was willing to do it. 

Now, the irony of what he just said did not escape me in the least, I mean, what would Mom have said about sending her baby boy into a bar so her husband wouldn't have to?  But, I would have put on a tu-tu and danced on stage to the tune of "Goodship Lollipop" for a chance at the scooter, so going into some old dive bar on a Saturday morning was not going to be a problem. Inside I went.

I went in through the warped screen door and stood still for a minute while my eyes adjusted to the darkness.  The darkness became grayness, and I wondered for a minute if there was a fog bank rolling in, until I relaxed my lungs and took a breath.  It was smoke, and lots of it.  No, the bar wasn't on fire, it was plain old, stinky cigarrette smoke.  In retrospect, I'm not quite sure where it came from, because there were only two people in there, the bartender, and a guy passed out on the bar. 

I realized the bartender was watching me, so I walked from the hallway where I was standing, past the bathrooms, which didn't have doors on them, and made my way up to him.

"I want to buy the motorcycle outside?"

The bartender jerked his thumb at Sleepy the dwarf, and I walked to where he was slumped over on his barstool.

Me:  "Sir?  Sir?"

The bartender threw his rag at the drunken lump and yelled, "Hey shithead!  Kid here want's to buy yer bike!  Sell it to him so you can settle up!"

   The guy woke up, and through eyes that looked like two piss-holes in a snowbank, looked me up and down and said, "gimme twenny-fi bucks."

I pulled out the money and gave it to him, mostly in ones and quarters, but he was asleep again, so I layed it on the bar, where the bartender promptly picked it up.  I didn't know what to do next, so I went outside and found Eric riding around the back lot on my bike.  He said, "it runs pretty good.  You buy it?."  I nodded in the the affirmative, and then he says,"didja' get a bill of sale?"

No, I say, what's that?

Eric said,  "you got to have a bill of sale, go back inside and get it", then he takes off on my bike again.  I watched him for a second, then went back inside.

The bartender looked at me, but didn't say anything. 

Me:  "I need a bill of sale, please?"

Bartender:  "hunh.  Go outside and get the serial number, and come back inside."  He hands me a pen and a dried cocktail napkin complete with a beer mug ring stain.  I went back out side, where Eric quickly located the number and wrote it on the napkin.  I took it back inside where the bartender filled out the napkin with " I, drunken shithead, have sold this motorscooter, serial number(with an arrow curving to where Eric had written the VIN)to some kid."

I wish I still had that napkin.

I carried it outside, where Eric pretended to read it, and Mom came oustide of the market.

"What are you guys doing?", she asked.

Eric walks up to her and says, "looking at Johnny's new scooter.", and before she could say anything, he put his arm around her, kissed her, and asked, "How's your day been?"

She looked at him dreamily and said, "Great....now."

Smooth operator.  Cue the sax.

I rode that scooter every where for a year.  I rode it on trails, I jumped ramps with it, and even had a bitchin' lowside on it where I slid forever and tore my jacket to shreds.  Eric sewed motorcycle patches all over it to hide the rips.

We finally sold it at a yard sale for 75.00 after a new coat of chevy orange paint and some new brake and throttle cables.  I used the money to buy a Maxon motocross helmet so I could ride my new to me KX-80 in style.

The KX used to belong to motocross star Billy Lyles in a former life and was fast. 

But that's another story.