Peyote Dreams
by
Art Bone
"Poor Mexico; so far from God, so close to the United States." Porfirio Diaz
In January I told CJ we shouldn’t plan so much travel this year. It seemed to me we were always gone and we have a beautiful place to live. I thought we needed to stay home more.
Be careful what you wish for.
The red White Freightliner hissed, groaned, and sighed to a stop beside me at the intersection of Hawkinsville road and Seven Bridges road, chrome bulldog rampart on its stubby COE hood. I grabbed the handhold, climbed up, opened the door and threw my overnight bag onto the seat, clambered in, and closed the door.
There was a faint whiff of paper mill under the overcast sky.
My ‘53 Ford ragtop with the Corvette engine was parked across the road at O’Reilly’s truck stop. I told Junior O’Reilly my dad would come get it in a day or two.
A year and a half earlier I had passed this very spot at well over 100 miles per hour in a red 1957 Corvette. Less than a second later as I turned onto Hawkinsville road the Vette oversteered, the rearend stepped out, and instead of looking across the overpass, I was looking straight at O’Reilly’s, ninety degrees from where I wanted to be traveling.
When the right front fender of the Corvette hit the bridge abutment the whole front end, hood, fenders and all, came up off the frame.
The last thing I remember thinking is, “What the hell am I going to tell my dad?”
Weeks later I was told it took two wreckers and a pickup truck to take the remnants to the junkyard. The body came completely off the frame and the engine was ripped out and ended up on the road underneath the overpass. The right front tire was where the engine used to be.
The next thing I remember is extreme pain and hearing a woman’s voice asking, “Is he dead?”
At that point, I wouldn’t have taken a bet either way.
I was relieve to hear a man’s voice say, “No, the ambulance is on the way.”
This brush with mortality focused my mind on the bigger picture and and I spent the the next year and a half searching for Enlightenment or at least a reason to stay in Macon GA.
Didn’t find it, but I found where it wasn’t. It wasn’t in the bottom of a bottle of bourbon, or beer, or in the beds of several teenie boppers. This was before they invented drugs. I thought it might be on the other side of those blue mountains in the western distance. I needed more space than Macon, Georgia could offer.
Space to make BIG mistakes.
So that’s where I went.
The truck driver said, “Where’ya headed?”
“Whichever way you’re going.” I said, “I’m not particular.”
And with that I rode away into a different life.
And that’s how fast this coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives.
I returned from a great, two week trip to Baja with MotoClasico and North West NOC members, put the bike away, walked into the house and I haven’t left. That was three months ago.
Walk out of one life into another. One world ends and another begins. It’s going to be up to us what we do with this opportunity . . . And it is an opportunity.
This whole pandemic thing has been . . . Interesting. CJ and I have been locked down ever since I returned from the Baja trip. We’ve stayed at home, worn masks when we go out, avoided contact with everyone, and, so far, all is good. We’ve been on one little trip, in the car, up the mountains to Xichu, where we parked on the side of the road, ate lunch, and drove home. Big Whoop right? But it felt good to get out of the house for a day.
We’ve been doing one thing that I’m happy about. We go out to this park a couple of miles from the house and walk three miles every day. It really has helped with the mental health side of the lock down. There are much worse ways to spend time than watching the sun rise over the mountains while walking through a vineyard.
As soon as the shutdown was announced our MotoClasico meeting place, Fatboys Bar, closed down, laying off the whole staff, who are all wonderful, hard-working folks. After conferring with Arvino, the owner, our group decided to take up a collection to help these guys and we collected $180 per person. I am so proud of MotoClasico’s members. They step up when the need arises.
And, speaking of the Baja trip, I am so glad I went on that adventure. And there’s a lesson to be learned here. Can you imagine canceling out at the last moment, then having the whole world change and suddenly you can’t leave your house?
It reminds me of a Brother Dave Gardner (a southern comedian) bit.
Two old guys sitting on the front porch of the retirement home saying, “Well, I could have.”
There you have it. Everyone “Could Have.” The North West guys and the MotoClasico guys did it.
Featherbed frames. Have any of my readers ever slept in a feather bed? Feather beds are a lot like making love on the beach; much better in theory than in practice.
When I was a little kid, before grammar school, my grandparents lived on a farm in the little unincorporated community of Double Run, in South Georgia. This farm had no electricity, an outhouse, and a water well off the back porch with a windless and bucket, and an iron dipper hanging from the post supporting the roof that gave the water, cold from thirty feet below ground, a distinctive metallic flavor I can taste as I’m writing this. It was heated with a fireplace and lit with oil burning lamps. The only beds were feather beds and, let me tell you, they were not nearly as comfortable as you might imagine or the name might imply. The thing about a feather bed is that it looks fluffy and soft but when you lay down on it you sink right down to whatever is underneath, usually a wooden platform, and that’s what you’re sleeping on. Think laying on a wooden floor in puffy overalls. Nice in the winter because of the insulating qualities of feathers, but not soft, no indeed.
I mention this because I always think about it when I hear someone praising the handling of bikes with the fabled feather bed frame. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure they were miles ahead of what was available back in the day when Rex McCandless invented them. They had to be better than the Garden Gate frame. Supposedly the rider finished the TT and said it was like sleeping on a feather bed.
But who knows what a TT rider back then was used to sleeping on. A corn shuck mattress?
Rallies. With the National Rally being canceled, what is available this year? I just got word the Barber’s Vintage Days (Oct 9 through 11) is a go. Maggie has secured Norton Hill for us, for another year. For those of you who have never been, this is a must-attend event. Everything about Barbers is first class. I’ve been to motorcycle events all over the world and I’ve never seen the attention to detail Barber’s staff puts into every aspect of the facility.
Once I was walking up to the entrance and saw Jeff Ray, the General Manager of Barbers, speaking to a security person near the entrance. Two guys had leaned their pedal bikes against the building.
He said, “Move those bikes away from there.”
Barbers looks pristine for a reason. The staff insists it’s that way
Lake of the Pines, Jefferson City, TX (October 1st - 4th)— I spoke to Richard Asprey and the rally is a go. For anyone who hasn’t been, it’s a first-class event. They’ve been doing it for over thirty years.
The first year I went the featured bike was Texan Sam Wheeler’s Land Speed Record Norton which set a record of 208.729 in 1970, being a streamlined shell made from an external fuel tank from an F84 fighter with a pretty much standard 1970 Norton Commando frame and engine behind.
No idea who the featured bike is this year but those Texas guys always come up with something interesting.
MotorcycleCannonball 2020 (September 10th - September 27th) If you want to see bikes you’ve never seen outside of a museum being used the way they were intended, go to the end of a stage of the Cannonball. Even better, ride along with them one day. This year the event starts in Sault San Marie, MI and ends in Padre Island TX. For an old bike nut it’s a must.
MotoGP - Austin TX- after November 15 - Austin is still on the schedule after all the European rounds. While not a rally per se, it’s a gathering of bikers of all persuasions that anyone calling themselves “biker” will enjoy. The action on the track is great and the food and entertainment downtown is second to none.
As we made our way south the trucker tried to draw me out.
“So, where you headed?”
Since my plans were nebulous, to say the least, my answers were monosyllabic.
“Thought I’d go down to Miami and get a job” I said as we passed Cordele.
“No need to go to Miami. The Cubans have taken over down there.”
I let that stew for a few hours as we approached the intersection of US 41 and US 90.
Finally, a half mile from the intersection, I said, “Just pull over at the intersection. I think I’m headed to California.”
With an incredulous look he said, “You sure?”
I said, “Never been more sure.”
As Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.