now, about that Yamaha…
In general, I avoid mirrors, unless my beard has reached uncomfortable status -as in, I start to notice it- but then I merely scrape it away. I don’t make it a habit to check my look, largely because my look hasn’t changed much in the last (cough) years, other than a pervasive swelling. Yes, kids, I have found myself expanding to occupy space available.
I’ve also reached a Certain Age. In males of the species, a Certain Age usually manifests in the attainment of little red sports cars and a concerted effort to become more attractive to younger members of the opposite sex, or, if you swing that way, the same sex. For our purposes, it would be the opposite sex.
Little red sports cars are great and all, but my body is not as flexible as some others’; I can’t get in and out of little red sports cars, or any other color, without serious grunting and muscular/skeletal protests and general profanity.
Also, I gave up years ago on becoming more attractive. I was not attractive to younger women when I was a younger man, so I don’t expect I would be any more so now. Especially in my new expanded edition. Besides, I’m married. If I want to be rejected for being repulsive, all I have to do is walk in the other room.
Still, reaching a Certain Age requires some foolish activity. One of mine is a 1982 Yamaha Maxim 550 that has achieved brain death and is on its way to molecular status in my garage.
I always considered myself a handy guy. I kept a series of cars running through sheer muleheadedness and an ability to find and purchase “Fix it yourself” manuals. I have tools. How hard can it be?
A few years ago, it occured to me that it might be fun to get another motorcycle. Like many men of a Certain Age, I had owned and ridden motorcycles in my younger days. Blasting about with no real concern for personal safety was the rule, and I stuck to it. But years passed, marriage and family and stuff, and then I started casting about for something of which my wife would disapprove that didn’t involve poker or oxycontin. It might also do to put my minor obsession with video gaming in perspective.
Besides, I told myself and any who would listen, I have a son now, and what better way to bond than in the old garage, shoulder to shoulder, as we did manly things like changing spark plugs and dremeling rust spots from exhaust pipes? Hard work, good values, and fond memories would surely spring from this.
So I bought this thing from some guy on ebay and fought with it for two riding seasons.The front rim was bent. I found one on ebay and put it on. The starter died. I removed it and had it rebuilt, put it back in. It loves batteries like a fat kid loves cake. et cetera.
I became MacGyver. On the way to a doctor’s appointment, the bike decided to take a break in a high traffic area. I limped it over to the side of the road, looked it over (that’s what guys do, ya know. We stare at machines, waiting for the issue to wave at us) and made up my mind that somehow the battery cable was at fault. Taking out my knife, I sliced off part of my shoelace and gave the cable a sling. It seemed to work, so off I went.
Eventually, it became so much trouble to get and keep the thing running that I surrendered, admitting everlasting defeat. I parked it in the garage, earning myself some points with the wife on the “You’ll Get Yourself Killed” issue, but losing some in the “That Garage is a Toxic Waste Dump” issue, so it was pretty much a wash.
Naturally, since I was such a success with one used motorcycle, it made perfect sense for me to get another one. Now, getting another one of the same model could have been a sort of genius. I could combine the two into one good one.
But…no…
I was and remain a Honda Guy. When I was a nipper, my uncle had a Honda 750, the old Single OverHead Cam quarter ton monster. The guy who taught me how to ride taught me on a Honda, and all the bike I’d owned back then were Hondas.
One day, I was idly examining the listings on Cycletrader when I came across a 77 Honda 750K model for what seemed like a great price. It was within driving/riding range too.
A smarter man would have laughed and gone on, but I’m not a smart man, Jenny.
I bummed a ride to BFE and handed the man a check for two bars short of a song. It started. I slipped on my helmet. And only six hours later, enough time to have ridden the thing home and back a couple of times, I begged a convenience store clerk to let me leave it parked there overnight so I could come by with a trailer in the morning.
Again, Jenny, I’m not a smart man.
Into the garage I went. I shoved aside the Yamaha and tore into the Honda with something close to religious zeal. I bought tools. I haunted the SOHC4 mail list and forums. I established an eBay account and coughed up hard-earned cash for carbs and tanks and comstars and gaskets and more tools and brake parts and swingarms and all manner of stuff.
I cursed and sweated away whole summer nights. Lost blood. Bought more tools. I went crazy with a grinder, lopping off parts I didn’t want on there.
My wife took to locking the door from the garage into the kitchen, from the inside, to keep me from kramering in, wild-eyed and oily, to deliver adult language soliloquies on the complexities of four separate carbs functioning as one, or the location of spark plugs being designed by Satan, or my complete failure as a wrencher.
I cursed the Beast, begged it, kicked it and sweet-talked it, lavished gifts and sweat on it. More than once I fantasized about a huge bonfire in the back yard, complete with ritualistic robes and charred motorcycle flesh.
To add to all this: my son, my projected partner in this folly, apparently divined my hopelessness early on, and was steadfast in his indifference to the carnage. Remember, Sysiphus had no teammates.
Incompetence is eternal. A year passed. Two years. Two seasons wasted. Friends with bikes left off asking after the project. Coworkers doubted the thing even existed. My wife openly mocked me. I developed a snarl and a bleak outlook.
The dawn of the third year for the Honda, the fifth for the Yamaha… Outside, the birds chirped. Trees greened. Grass grassed and stuff, and there, in the garage, two aging, hulking machines thumbed their little rusty noses at me, delightedly reminding me of my ongoing problem with accepting reality. They will not carry me. They will only carry those with whom the motorcycle spirits are pleased, and I am not among that number.
But there may be hope. I saw a Triumph on Ebay the other day. It’s not far from here, and the bids are running a little lean.
on October 8, 2008 at 1:58 pm
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Doug,
Remindes me of ‘the Phoenix’, my son’s ’75 Corvette. He had put 100,000 miles on his Ford Explorer and bought a newer daily driver. In the meantime, he just couldn’t seem to sell the Explorer so he found a wiley 75 year old guy who would take it and some cash in trade for an old ’75 Corvette. My son, his wife, and in-laws (dad is a corvette freak) drove the 4 hours down to Indy to check it out and pick it up. About half way back to Chicago, just outside Purdue, his wife saw smoke then flames from the dashboard. Her dad was riding shotgun and yanked the burning headlamp switch and pushed 5 bottles of water they had with them into the hole.
The next day, the car was towed back to Chicago and a shop that specializes in Corvettes. Insurance covered the $2,300 in dash board repairs and his towing insurance covered the ride up. But after the repair was complete, they asked how he was going to get the car home. They suggested not driving it as the control arms on both rear wheels were virtually rusted thru and needed replacement.
He drove the car home and started a repair project. He and his wife (and father-in-law) dove into it with gusto. I lent them the tools. After a busy Fall, Winter, and Spring in the garage, the Phoenix was resurrected – for the most part. He’s had niggling little problems and breakdowns when he takes it on a road trip.
Three weeks ago, I took him over to a wiley 65 year old with a low milage ’99 Corvette for sale. Bill’s a lot more knowledgable about Corvettes now than he was last year. But he bought it anyway…
on October 9, 2008 at 11:36 am
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great story, Bob. Corvettes are a bit out of my league.
on February 17, 2009 at 10:13 am
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That was great!! I wish I had your talents….I meant writing talents, not the working on bike talents.
on February 18, 2009 at 1:00 pm
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hey Ruben,
thanks for coming by. How’s your boy?