We old codgers need naps. Heck, when one gets up every morning at five o\u2019clock to welcome the little grandkiddies in for a long day of babysitting, you\u2019d need a nap too. Well, recently, as Walzie was off in a turkey hunting dream, and I\u2019m sure I was off in some exotic land wearing a grass skirt and a coconut bra doing the Hula for some hunky pool boy, we were abruptly awakened by a loud buzzing sound shooting past our bedroom window. I jumped up, threw up the shade, and caught a glimpse of the neighbor boy on his new motorcycle as he disappeared off in a cloud of dust.
\n\u201cOh my,\u201d I said to Walzie as he squinted through one eye, \u201cMichael got a motorcycle.\u201d
\n\u201cGolly, that scares me to death,\u201d he moaned, sounding like the boy\u2019s mother.
\nWalzie is obviously not a huge motorcycle fan. Several years ago, his brother married a motorcycle mama on a Harley \u2013 yes, they got married sitting on their matching Harley Davidson Sportster\u2019s and yes, she was well schooled in the ways of being a biker\u2019s mama \u2013 tattoos, leathers, chains, dangling cigarette, the whole shebang. Shortly after the Harley honeymoon complete with Hell\u2019s Angels and all, Don brought her to meet us \u2013 on their Harley\u2019s of course.
\n\u201cHey, big brother, you wanna ride my bike?\u201d Don asked.
\nI knew Walzie\u2019s heart was pounding. But not wanting to look wimpy in his brother\u2019s eyes (and the mama\u2019s) he straddled the Harley and stomped on the kick starter. The bike roared with that distinctive Harley rumble. He slipped it in gear, twisted the throttle, the bike leaped onto its back wheel, and Walzie did a wheelie from here to eternity. Okay, eternity might be exaggerating a bit, from here to the red briar patch across the yard.
\n\u201cDon\u2019t scratch my bike,\u201d the brother shouted.
\n\u201cDo you want me to show you how to ride that thing?\u201d Mama smugly offered.
\n\u201cJust get me the #@$$ outta here,\u201d resonated from the briar patch. \u201cI\u2019m not Briar Rabbit, you know!\u201d
\nWalzie looked like the loser in a cat fight. From that time on he was not a fan of motorcycles.
\nAs for me, yeah, I went through the motorcycle phase, too. My first husband loved his Harley. (Yes, there was a husband number one back when I was young and knew everything, but we won\u2019t go there.) We spent our summers in Port Matilda at the motorcycle scramble races. Looking back, I don\u2019t think it was the bikes so much as the bikers that infatuated me (but we better not go there either). Anyway, my mother always referred to motorcycles as \u201cdarned old killer machines\u201d. I\u2019d grin at her and then plop my behind on the back of that Harley and ride off into the sunset with my Peter Fonda. Until the day that Harley slid from under us on a patch of hot tar, and I tumbled a hundred feet down the highway in front of Peters\u2019 Grocery Store while on our way to the Lion\u2019s Inn for a Belly Buster. Believe me, I left a lot of skin on that blacktop and carried painful road rash around for several weeks. (Never did get that Belly Buster, got a butt buster instead.) Since then, I\u2019ve always been a little leery of motorcycles, too.\u00a0 Guess I didn\u2019t make a very good motorcycle mama. (Whew! Glad I outgrew that phase!)
\nJust a few summers ago, our son, Jason, sprung it on us that he was buying a crotch rocket. Yes, this is the son with the three little boys and a whole wagonload of responsibilities. Oh yeah, it\u2019s a gas saving thing, he proclaimed. Maybe so, but it scared us to death. A few months later, he showed up at a birthday party with his arm in a sling and road rash all over (you see, Jason wasn\u2019t aware that I knew all about road rash).
\n\u201cWhat the #$@% happened to you?\u201d his dad questioned anxiously.
\n\u201cNuttin!\u201d
\n\u201cCome on, Jason,\u201d Walzie said. \u201cDon\u2019t even try to lie out of it. It was that darned old killer machine, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d
\nI was hearing my mother all over again.
\n\u201cWell, you should see the stupid dog,\u201d Jason surmised. Shortly after he repaired the bike, we saw the ad in the Bargain Sheet. The crotch rocket was sold. Whew!
\nSo now you see when every time the neighbor busses past our window on his motorcycle, Walzie and I cringe. Michael waves and Walzie shouts, \u201cbe careful, Michael, stay clear of dogs, hot tar, and red briars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We old codgers need naps. Heck, when one gets up every morning at five o\u2019clock to welcome the little grandkiddies in for a long day of babysitting, you\u2019d need a nap too. Well, recently, as Walzie was off in a turkey hunting dream, and I\u2019m sure I was off in some exotic land wearing a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-interest-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}