The Winter Fix

I sit here in self-imposed incarceration lamenting the weather outside my window. Mid-March and snow covers the ground that, just days ago, in a period of unusual weather patterns, was soaking up beautiful warm sun shine that brought temperatures into the sixty-degree zone and even flirted with seventy degrees in some locations. Now however, the day is bitter cold and windy. I need my fix.
I am tense and anxious. My heart is beating erratically and with palpitations. My mind is unclear and concentration is an act of futility. I am pacing the house between TV and computer, food and coffee. I need my drug. I just don’t know how much longer I can hold on to reality.
I need the feeling that only my drug fix will bring. The freedom of my mind. The feeling of flight without leaving the ground. I want to feel the high that my drug of choice will bring me. I want my motorcycle. I need her badly. Only she will set my mind at ease. Only another true biker will understand.
Cursing the weather and the geographical location of my birth, I have to smile and chuckle under my breath through all the distain. To a day not unlike today. A day some forty-five plus years ago, a day my friend Wiz and I decided we could take the winter doldrums no longer.
Wiz, short for “Wizard”, was my best friend growing up. A friendship that lasted into adulthood and through many trials and hardships between us and also individually.
(Wiz had the moniker of “Wizard” thrust upon him around the time of eighth grade. About the time when everyone who has a nickname gets a nickname. “Wizard”, “Caveman”, “Porky” “Squirrel”, “Wofat”, and many others all earned their title around that time.)
It was in the depths of winter of early 1972 that Wiz and I decided we could not take it any longer and decided to go “trail riding” one cold and blustery Saturday.
The plans were made for the winter ride, as all our motorcycle and future plans were made, the day before in class and study hall. Had we studied our academic curriculum as hard as we had studied motorcycles Brockway Area High School would have graduated two Harvard bound scholars.
We met up at our usual spot. A place Wiz and I called “The Hump”. It was a place of nothing more than a “hump” of dirt and rock pushed up by a bulldozer in the strip mine above my house that had now started to grow over with grass and blackberry bushes. It was the place that was the middle distance between Wizards home and mine, give or take a few football field lengths.
(Wizard and I were both the proud owners of 1971 Honda SL-70 KO models. His was candy blue and mine was candy red.)
As usual, I was the first to arrive at The Hump. I was dressed more for arctic exploration than trail riding. I had layers of long underwear and heavy clothing stuffed underneath the old style red and black plaid Woolrich clothing. Heavy thick gloves and high rubber boots completed my winter riding ensemble. I was probably silly looking in all that clothing with a red helmet to top it all off.
Wiz rode up to our meeting spot shortly after I had arrived. He was also dressed in clothing thick enough to stop the projectile of a .30-06 cartridge fired from a rife at close range.
After some discussion as to our sanity and our destination, we headed in the north east direction of our well known, and favorite, destinations, the abandoned U.S. Forestry Service fire tower.
It was bitter cold and windy as we took off toward the tower. It was going to be a very cold and unpleasant ride but we were going riding. Damn the cold! Damn the wind!
About half a mile into our ride there was a sharp left bend to the dirt road trail. Most times the turn was full of water from a low laying swamp next to the road. In dry times the bend in the road was dry also but after a rain it would be covered with water for several days before drying up again.
Now, in the middle of winter, it was covered with water and frozen. I was in the lead and in my frozen state of dementia, I had forgotten about the water hazard.
I entered the bend in the road and leaned the little motorcycle into the tight turn. WHAM! I went down, hard! I remember watching the SL-70 slide down the snow and ice covered dirt road as I also slid on top of the ice-covered mud puddle.
Wizard was far enough behind me to be able to stop and assist in the rescue and behind his laughter he asked if I was ok. Moaning in bewilderment and pain I told him I was ok “I think”. My first thought though was not my own wellbeing but that of my beloved bike. She had slid a good distance. But with the snow coverage and the smooth ice, minimal damage was noticeable or sustained.
Looking the bike over for damage I felt some pain in my left hip but I was still able to walk and throw my leg over the saddle. I fired the little loyal motorcycle back to life, found a tree to prop the front tire against, straightened out the slightly bent handle bars, and continued the ride.
For the next couple of miles or so, the ride was frigidly cold but uneventful. The pain in my hip was getting more noticeable but I was bound and determined that this ride would be completed as planned.
Wiz and I turned onto a gated road to which we simply rode around the gate as legions of other trail riders have done throughout the years since the gate had been placed. (Back then riders had more respect for property and as long as no damage was done to the woods or road, no one really minded.)
The snow covering the road was virgin and the tracks of the two SL-70’s riding side-by-side were the first signs of human usage this trail had seen since the snow had fallen.
Wiz and I were chilled to the bone but the fire tower was only another fifteen minutes or so away when suddenly my bike disappeared from under me once more. Another frozen mud puddle under the snow and, once again, I went down hard!
This time though the bike took more damage than I. The muffler was dented badly and the front brake handle was snapped in two. I on the other hand, suffered no other noticeable wounds but my left hip was getting sore to the point of me not being able to walk without a noticeable limp.
Wizard was being the master of the obvious and told me “Wow! You went down hard again!” I responded with something to the effect that I already knew that bit of information but “Just look at my bike!”
“We probably should go back.” I told Wizard. I was cold and hurting, and now I had just damaged my bike. Wizard said he was cold and readily agreed.
By the time we got back to “The Hump” and split our ways for home, my hip was hurting badly and I was cold to the point of uncontrollably shivering. “How am I going to explain this to Mom and Dad?” I thought to myself. They had both warned me not to go riding on such an awful day. But I would not hear of it. Mom would be worried sick if she knew I was injured and Dad would be mad if he knew I damaged the bike and worried Mom because I just would listen. I remember Dad saying something to the effect that “If I froze to death don’t come crying to me!”
Pulling into our drive way and still thinking about how to talk my way out’a this so as not to lose the bike for an extended period of time or even worse yet… to evoke the stare of Dad. You knew you screwed up royally when Dad would great you with “The Stare”. It could cut through steel and melt the most solid reasoning the accused could conjure.
I was in luck! Mom and Dad had gone shopping and left a note saying they would return later. It would be just myself and my Aunt Laura (My mother’s sister who lived with us at the time.)
I returned to the garage to put my bike at such an angle so the damaged muffler and abbreviated brake handle would not be as noticeable.
After hiding the crippled little Honda I went in to the house to inspect my own wounds.
All the heavy outer clothing and layers of long underwear were stripped and discarded in the basement and, clad only in my skivvies, I went upstairs to the bathroom, limping as little as possible passed my Aunt.
Once I was secure and alone in the bathroom I rid myself of my underwear and examined my hurting hip. Wow! The left side of my gluteus maximus was as red as the bike I rode and the pain was bad.
I filled the tub with hot water and took a bath while I schemed a story to cover pain and bruising. Should I be questioned.
The next couple of painful days were filled with bragging rights to the other guys about my wrecks and the subsequent multicolored bruise on my butt that was now purple, blue, and black with just a hint of yellow.
It was about Wednesday or Thursday evening, following my Saturday snow follies, and all the family were seated at the supper table when Dad asked me “Well, how bad did you get hurt?” Stunned, I said the same thing that all guilty parties say. “Why, wha’dya mean?” “Well, I see you wrecked the other day when I told you not to go out in the cold.” What could I say, I had been caught. He’d seen the evidence of the bike. But now, I was getting “The Stare”. That’s it, I’m done. There’s just no getting out of it now. I suddenly lost my appetite as I answered in a feeble, “I’m ok.” Dad’s response was highlighted by a slight snicker smile as he said “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me.”