We Danced with Agnes

“Rich, you guys are crazy. Everything’s flooded!” Those are the words my Dad said to me as I prepared for the next day’s ride with my buddy “Wizard”. Dad was in “his” chair and I was smearing as much waterproofing onto my boots as I could get.

It was June of 1972 and Hurricane Agnes had just slammed into the East Coast bringing with it the costliest devastation from a hurricane to date. In my part of Pennsylvania, we were spared the brunt of the horrific winds and destruction, but there was flooding of all the creeks and streams. None of that mattered to Wizard (or “Wiz” as he became known) or myself, we were going to ride.

Wiz was my boyhood buddy and where ever one of us was spotted the other was surely close by. We had known each other since about the sixth grade and became friends out of need for we were a couple of ninety-eight-pound weaklings that were picked on mercilessly by the alpha males of the school. We were both scrawny and skinny. Wiz wore a head full of red curly hair and glasses which further set him up as a target and I had a full head of long hair that the girls seemed to like but that fact seemed to increase the wrath of the macho.

It had been raining for days and all predictions called for the rain to continue the following day. The day Wiz and I were to ride.

I called Wizard on the phone while my boots were soaking up another layer of waterproofing, to make sure the ride was still a go. He told me that it was, and he would meet me at “The Hump” at our usual preset time. (“The Hump” was nothing more than a mound of dirt about half way between each other’s home. It was pushed up by dozer to divert any running water off the dirt road which once led to the strip mine above my house. The road had not been used as intended for years and was now a busy dirt bike trail used by all the young wann’a be’s.)

The next morning, I set off in the heavy rain to meet Wiz at The Hump. The trail leading up to “The Hump” was a thick mud slick in the wooded areas and was washed away over the hilly parts of the old strip mine.
Navigating through the washes and hub deep mud was no easy chore and it took me almost twice as long to get to The Hump as usual. There I waited for Wiz to show up and from the vantage point of The Hump I could see the valley below and the trail Wiz would be riding to get to our meeting place.

As I sat there waiting for my riding companion to show, the rains continued to fall strong and steady and though I’d never admit it to anyone back then or even now, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, Wizard and I might have been just a little hasty in our decision to ride on such a day.

It was about then I saw Wizard far off in the distance riding towards me and struggling with the elements just as I had a bit earlier. But we had met up almost on time and there in the pouring rain we made our plans as to where we’d go, or could go, that rainy water-logged day.

We had discussed several options of destinations and chose “Boone Mountain Fire Tower” as our targeted point. So off we went in a north east direction over the remaining portion of the strip mine being sure to “play”
in every mud hole along the way that had now grown to proportions of small lakes, and through some heavily wooded country where mud had taken over trails that just a week or so earlier were thick with dust.

Wizard and I had several stopping points on each of our trail rides and this day was no exception. We would stop at these points and turn off the motors of our red and blue Honda SL-70’s and just listen and enjoy the relaxing yet somewhat eerie sound of the deep woods The Keepers would provide for us. But today The Keepers were in no mood to provide any kind of solace to us. Had we been listening to them we would have heeded their warning and turned around and went home. Each one of our regular stops provided nothing of our usual tranquil sounds of chickadees, woodpeckers, and squirrel and chipmunk activity. But provided us with ominous unheeded warnings of constant heavy rains against the tree leaves and ground.

One of our stops each time we ventured this way was a small bridge made of railroad ties and gas pipe. Under the bridge ran a small runoff stream barely deep enough to get a sneaker clad foot wet. But that was in normal times and today that bridge was completely under water and the small runoff stream was a raging muddy torrent several feet deep.

For several minutes we sat there on our mud clad and steaming bikes barley able to tell who had the red bike and who rode the blue. Both of us knew full well that to try such a stream crossing as this would be asking for trouble and there was no help in case of emergency closer than two or three muddy miles back. However, neither of us wanted to be the one to suggest a return home and face the ridicule of the other.

So, a discussion was formed as to the best way to cross the angry stream while The Keepers shouted the sound of their warnings by way of the pouring rain into our deaf ears. It was decided that the water flowing over the bridge was only about six inches deep and we would cross on the bridge as we normally do in drier times. So, with myself successfully making the crossing first, Wizard followed, and we defiantly continued to the fire tower. Thou now our speed was slower, and we avoided the deepest mud holes. It was about then, I think, that we realized just what The Keepers were trying to tell us. But still too stubborn to heed their warnings, we pressed on to the fire tower. Now the rains were getting harder.

We made it to our fire tower destination soaking wet and covered in mud from head to toe. I had never seen our little bikes so badly coated before. The chain was a series of mud links and I could almost hear the grit and grind chewing away at both chain and sprocket. The cylinder head of the
SL-70 was in an almost horizontal position directly behind the front tire and below the protection of the front fender so that inches of mud had been thrown onto it and “baked” there from the heat of the motor. It was almost a ritual for Wiz and I to climb to the top of the fire tower to spit and throw small rocks off it but that was not to be today. We were both cold and wet.
We set about finding a small stick each to scrape the caked-on mud off the cylinder head of each bike to help keep the engine cool. I really don’t know if it actually helped or not, but it didn’t hurt, and this was a chore we always did when ridding in mud.
After scraping the mud from the motor of each bike we headed home.
The rain had turned into a down pour and as we rode we avoided the playful mud dances and kept our bikes out of the puddles as much as possible. We just wanted to get home.

Wizard was lead for our journey home and as he approached the run off stream and bridge we had crossed just about two hours previous I saw him stop and stand up and when I caught up with him I saw why. The stream had swelled even more since our crossing and water was now flowing over the bridge deeper, harder and faster. I couldn’t help but to be reminded of an episode of “Then Came Bronson” called “The Forest Primeval”. Once again, this time without even trying, I was Jim Bronson. Wet, cold and desperate Bronson must make it out of the forest to survive.

“What’er we gonn’a do now?” we ask each other. The rain was coming down hard now and through the tree leaves it was hard to hear a normal tone of voice. The Keepers were angry now and enlisted the help of nature in shouting their dismay to us. “First gear and keep it revved up!” I shouted to Wiz as I once again played guinea pig by being the first to cross the underwater bridge. I could feel the little bike being pushed by the current as I rode across the swollen and angry stream standing on the foot pegs. I made it to the other side and shouted to Wiz not to hit the water too hard or slow down during his attempt. Wizard did as I instructed and made it across. Once again, we were on our way home.

The rest of the journey home was fairly easy, but we didn’t even attempt to play in the mud. We were cold and tired and as we pulled into my driveway I could see my Mother come out of the house with a worried look I had seen many times before for many reasons. “Where have you been?” she asked. Not realizing it, we were gone most of the day on a trek that usually took just a couple of hours. The mud, muck and weather had slowed us down more than we had realized. Wizard was ordered to get home as soon as he showed up by his mother who was equally worried. I was then ordered to hose off and come into the basement where I was to get my wet muddy clothes off.
My Dad questioned my sanity and the amount of brain matter I had “for crying out loud!” Dad further ordered that while hosing myself off I was to hose the bike off and to not put it in the garage “looking like that”.

My Mom and Dad, I would find out later, figured I’d have enough common sense not to go on a ride that far in that kind of weather and we would surely turn around and come home shortly after leaving. The addiction leaves little to no room for common sense and it would be almost forty years in the future when I would prove that to be true once again while on my way to Jackson Hole Wyoming when I would ride once more through a watery hell.