Peyote Dreams
By
Art Bone
"Poor Mexico; so far from God, so close to the United States." Porfirio Diaz
In Mexico, autumn brings on El Dia de los Muertos. Most gringos think the Day of the Dead is the Mexican version of Halloween but that's not true. It has much deeper meaning than kids begging for candy. It's an important part of Mexican culture. It's a time to remember friends and family that have gone before, to decorate cemetery plots and build alters to loved ones but really, as the days grow shorter and colder, it's a way to laugh at death and, most importantly, have a fiesta.
This last Day of the Dead was especially significant to me because CJ and I started doing our wills. Given the health problems I was having last summer with my heart, we thought it was time to get that chore done. There's nothing like deciding who's going to get which of your Nortons when you're gone, and making your own funeral arrangements to put you in the mood for Day of the Dead. I just read in a New York Times article that Buddhist monks contemplate pictures of dead bodies in various states of decomposition as a way of forcing them to think of their own demise. At first glance it would seem that that practice would cause sadness and depression but, according to the article, they found it makes them happier and more carefree. Deciding on funeral plans and cremation or burial did brightened my mood.
I found I wanted to do my best to keep the fun in funeral.
And, thinking about cremation made me think of my late friend, Alan Robinson, secretary of the TT Riders Association for many years. For several years I stored a bike at Alan's home in Sussex and we would ride up to Liverpool together and take the ferry to the Isle of Man. One year when I arrived he was a little hesitant about our plans. When I pressed him he said he had a request from the widow of a retired TT rider to scatter his ashes on the TT Course but he didn't know how I would feel about it. Well, I thought it was a great idea and not off-putting in the least so, in the spirit of the occasion, we took the bikes over to pick up the ashes at the crematory. We showed our letter authorizing us to pick up the remains to an assistant who disappeared into the back for a few minutes, returning with a plastic five liter Castrol oil container with the top cut off and the opening covered with duct tape.
When questioned the assistant explained that the couple had agreed before the gentleman's passing to this simple and, I thought, for a biker, rather elegant solution to what could have been an expensive problem. Funeral homes don't give those fancy urns away.
We proceeded to the nearest pub and took the impromptu urn in, sat it on the bar, and explained to the barman and customers that we wanted to buy a round and raise a glass to our departed friend. Everyone was more than happy to join us and Alan, a man with a bon mot for every occasion, raised his pint of Guinness and said, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, petroleum products to petroleum products. Godspeed old friend!"
It was later, in the bar of the Isle of Man Steam Packet in the middle of the Irish Sea, when we hatched the rest of our plan. I don't remember who first suggested it but we decided the deceased would probably love to have his ashes scattered on the Mountain Course at one hundred MPH.
What racer wouldn't?
We decided Alan would ride pillion holding the urn/oil can and I would tap him on the knee when we reached the desired speed. We would do a practice run first, then the money shot. After another pint we decided the place to do it was at the Veranda. It's up on the mountain with no houses about. A series of bends, a left, two rights, and a left make up the Veranda and it's a beautiful spot, giving east, over pastures of sheep and a little village, to the Irish Sea. It's also a very fast section so getting to a hundred MPH wasn't a problem. Back then there was never any police up there to spoil the occasion. We decided Alan's Pan-European Honda was the best mount for the job.
We got there the next morning and pulled into a lay-by to finalize our plans. The road was full of would-be TT riders and we waited for a break in traffic so we could perform our little ritual without interruption. Finally I kicked it and we howled into the first bend at about seventy. I stood the bike up on full throttle and tipped it over into the second, right hand turn at near a hundred. We were well over a hundred when we straightened up for the sprint along the Veranda straight and I tapped Alan on the knee. He tapped me on the shoulder to acknowledge and we pulled off and turned around, heading back to the lay-by.
Alan loosened the tape on the oil container and got a grip so he could rip it off at the proper time as I watched traffic coming up the mountain. Finally we launched and I got very busy. I left the lay-by at full throttle and we were on schedule in the second corner. When I glanced down at the speedo, we were well over a hundred and ten. I tapped Alan on the knee.
Have you ever seen human remains that have been cremated?
Alan and I assumed that they were like sand or maybe even gravel.
You know what they say about assumptions?
These remains were more like talcum powder.
When Alan ripped the top off that Castrol can it was like an explosion. We were instantly enveloped in a cloud of dust. I let off the throttle and started looking for a place to stop. I found a wide place and pulled in. We got off the bike and looked at each other. We were both covered, helmet to boot, with gray dust. The dust had even filtered inside our helmets and our faces were covered with fine gray powder. We started hacking and spitting. Then we noticed the four big sport bikes pulled in behind us with German plates. They were right on our tail when the dust storm occurred.They were very concerned.
"Vot happened? Vot es the problem? Did you blow up your engine?
When we showed them the empty Castrol can and explained that they had ingested human remains they started spitting and gagging right along with us.
So celebrate El Dia de los Muertos with a fiesta, surrounded by food and wine, friends, family, and music, not to deny your more or less eminent death but to embrace the life you have while acknowledging its limit.
Or, as cartoonist Charles Schultz has Charlie Brown say, while sitting on the end of a dock, contemplating the millions of stars in the night sky, "You know Snoopy, one day we're all going to die."
Snoopy says "True, but all the others we're not."
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I just saw on the internet that a 74 850 Roadster sold for $18,000 at the Mecum auction in Vegas. Then I got a note from a friend on Atlanta that sold his 70 Bonneville on eBay for $14,000. Boy, does that make me feel old! I'm remembering all those $300 running bikes I turned down and that I could have bought a brand new Mk II for $1800 in 1975.
But I didn't any more have $1,800 to spend on another motorcycle in 1975 than I've got $18,000 to spend on one now. I'm not going to buy any more old bikes and I'm not going to sell any of the ones I've got so it's all academic to me.
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South Africa Motorcycle Tour - Very Little Norton Content
We were riding through the Constantia neighborhood of Cape Town and, as I was making a right turn across traffic, I saw a trailer with four old bikes on it. I was in the middle of turning and watching oncoming traffic so I didn’t get a good look but when we stopped my riding partner, Carleton, said, “Did you see that Norton Atlas on the trailer back there?”
As a matter of fact I didn’t but that was all the Norton content I needed to tell you about our South Africa tour.
As usual, CJ came up with this tour. She was looking at places we haven’t visited and, while browsing moto tours, saw South Africa Moto Tours. She checked their website and was intrigued, especially by the price. It seems the South African Rand is in the dumper against the dollar at about 15 to 1, making the price of their “Gourmet Food and Wine” tour about half of what we normally pay for trips of similar length. We signed up and started looking for some riding companions. Our friends Ron and Cynthia jumped aboard almost immediately then, a couple of weeks later, Carleton and Carol sent in their deposit. A week before the trip we got an email from a couple, Jack and Debbie from Boise, Idaho, introducing themselves and saying they were joining us on our adventure.
Probably like many of you, I knew very little about South Africa before my visit and I didn't try to learn. I'm one of those travelers who prefers, rather than studying a destination and arriving with expectations, to let the experience of a place "wash over him." My attitude is that good planning can drain most of the adventure out of a trip. This laziness on my part is made much easier for me because I have CJ planning stuff for us to do.
As I've written before, CJ hates serendipity.
Tony France, an Englishman living in South Africa for thirty five years, is the sole proprietor (and sole employee) of South Africa Moto Tours and, given his vast motorcycle experience in the region, he's a fine fellow with whom to travel. I think he was a little disappointed that we insisted on a "sag wagon" (a term he hadn't heard) to carry the luggage meaning he had to drive instead of ride a bike. He made up for it by smoking his pipe incessantly, a practice his wife forbids in the house.
With a small group we could stay in more interesting B&Bs and lodges and the places we stayed in were all first rate. Most had restaurants attached and several had wineries. Since it was a food and wine tour we ordered off the menu instead of having a set menu as on some tours. The food was excellent and so cheap, even compared to Mexico. A shot of Jose Cuervo was 15 Rand = $1. That's right folks. It's cheaper to drink tequila in South Africa than it is in Mexico.
At one of the places we stayed for two nights, we left the ladies to their spa treatments and shopping and rode over Swartberg Pass. We did about forty kilometers of dirt and were treated to some spectacular views then had lunch on the porch of a country pub in the little town of Prince Albert. On the way back to our hotel on the paved road we came around a corner and encountered a troop of baboons in the road. I don't know who was more surprised. The biggest of the baboons snarled at me as I went by and, as I watched in the rear view, made as if to jump on the back of my bike. I didn't want any hitch-hikers.
To sum up, the roads were well maintained, the people we met were friendly, the scenery was spectacular, reminding me of northern Arizona or Utah, and it was just a delightful trip.
The reason I included this in my column was not to make anyone jealous (well, maybe a little) but to urge all of you to get out and ride. Get out of your comfort zone. Do that trip you've always dreamed about. Ride to the rally this year. We're all getting older and none of us know how much longer we'll be able to do this. I've lost three wonderful woman friends in the last few months, two if them last week. Deborah was a prize-winning photographer who's work was featured in Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta. Caren was a talented film maker who's film, Lost and Found in Mexico, was selected "Best Documentary" in 2006. Sweet Lulu was a lifetime visual artist, ghost writer, editor, and a relentless tequila drinker. They were all smart, funny, beautiful, and creative people. They were all here just a minute ago and now they're gone.
Life is not fair, a fact for which I give thanks every day.
I had dinner with Lulu two weeks before she died. She knew she was on borrowed time. We had a little private conversation while everyone else at the table was talking and she said, "I can't complain. I've had a wonderful life. I wish it could be longer but. . . I can't complain."
I hope I can say the same when I know my ride is over.
When Day of the Dead comes around next year there's going to be an alter in my shop with pictures of Lulu and examples of her art work and a bottle of Centenario Reposado Tequila.
Godspeed all you lovely ladies.