James Brody
September 7th, 2004, 09:08 PM
David Buss turns up everywhere, even in Spring-by-god-City.
I visited a Harley showroom four months ago. I explained my age - 62 - to the clerk and my wish to sit on a Harley before I die at 63. She let me climb on a Sporty and a Softie (engines off!) and directed me to a motorcycle training course. I enrolled, attended, and after 20 hours, got a perfect written score but failed the riding test. Nonetheless, I'm allowed to ride between sunrise and sunset if I also wear a helmet. (Passing the riding test lets me ride after dark and without a helmet! The logic is peculiar and national in scope except it's meant for bikers and I want to be one of them, a yearning which is, itself, a sign of incompetence.)
I went next to my insurance agent and met his assistant, Erin.
Erin, lean, blond, and lively, rapidly announces dozens of opinions in a resonant baritone, and shows me her doll...a witch on a broom...but she reverses it, the black dress is cut like a hospital gown and the doll's buns are bare. (A bewitching moon!)
I mention bikes and insurance and Erin describes her guy, Spike, who also rides bikes. He is a judo expert and makes Samurai swords. When asked why not guns, Spike explained once that he likes to be very personal and watch up close when he hurts someone. (Erin prefers a pistol although she doesn't carry.)
She ordered him a Harley for about $23K but Spike is so talented a mechanic that he will quickly modify it. "It's Spike's way of making something his own. He is SO well-rounded!" And Harley's record is such that experienced bikers tear down new ones, after paying premium dollars and rebuild them for safety and reliability, especially the earlier AMF models. They also buy a second, non-Harley so that they have a bike that works. Egad! A fortune for an indoor hobby!
I'm jealous and notice that her engagement ring probably cost less than a fortieth of what she spent on his bike. (He may even have taken it from his mother.) I listen for more.
Spike has a mortgage problem with his ex-wife and Erin won't marry him until THAT woman's name off the deed! (She apparently doesn't mind the three kids that he supports.) Nonetheless, Erin is happy even if her wedding is delayed until mid-2006. Time doesn't bother her. She remarks, "I'm in no hurry. Whenever I go past a mirror, I think, 'Damn, I look good for 33.'"
I agree.
Notes: Insuring a '95 Suzuki Marauder 800 would cost me $600 per year. The bike costs $2200, a helmet another $150, and another bundle for boots, jacket, and gloves. (EMTs and road crews like leather because it keeps the blood in and the cinders out when you fall. Nylon leaks, especially if you're having a seizure from a broken neck.) I probably should first pass the riding test...I was always the first cut in basketball tryouts and, in an easy course, once got a C in social dance. I still spaz with new tasks when there is an audience. For example, cute servers in a cafeteria even now lead to dropped milk cartons! For my grandson and son and cat, I must NOT do this.
I bought the damned bike...9 years old, 440 pounds of blue-specked black and a soda-fountain of chrome, with 4100 miles. A Suzuki Intruder 800...the name, color, and fit of the seat match both my soul, my butt, and my stubby 30 inch inseam. Tennyson's Ulysses, to seek, to find, not to yield, came to mind before I gashed my forehead (twice!) not on Spike's blade but on the top edge of the windscreen, and shit myself, also twice, during my first runs on a public road...an odyssey of 7.2 miles. Like the old woman who swallowed a fly, I died of course.
My son is instructed to sell the Intruder to Fred...
References:
Buss, D. (1994) The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. New York: Basic Books. (There's a 2003 edition that tells you more but with far less punch.)
I visited a Harley showroom four months ago. I explained my age - 62 - to the clerk and my wish to sit on a Harley before I die at 63. She let me climb on a Sporty and a Softie (engines off!) and directed me to a motorcycle training course. I enrolled, attended, and after 20 hours, got a perfect written score but failed the riding test. Nonetheless, I'm allowed to ride between sunrise and sunset if I also wear a helmet. (Passing the riding test lets me ride after dark and without a helmet! The logic is peculiar and national in scope except it's meant for bikers and I want to be one of them, a yearning which is, itself, a sign of incompetence.)
I went next to my insurance agent and met his assistant, Erin.
Erin, lean, blond, and lively, rapidly announces dozens of opinions in a resonant baritone, and shows me her doll...a witch on a broom...but she reverses it, the black dress is cut like a hospital gown and the doll's buns are bare. (A bewitching moon!)
I mention bikes and insurance and Erin describes her guy, Spike, who also rides bikes. He is a judo expert and makes Samurai swords. When asked why not guns, Spike explained once that he likes to be very personal and watch up close when he hurts someone. (Erin prefers a pistol although she doesn't carry.)
She ordered him a Harley for about $23K but Spike is so talented a mechanic that he will quickly modify it. "It's Spike's way of making something his own. He is SO well-rounded!" And Harley's record is such that experienced bikers tear down new ones, after paying premium dollars and rebuild them for safety and reliability, especially the earlier AMF models. They also buy a second, non-Harley so that they have a bike that works. Egad! A fortune for an indoor hobby!
I'm jealous and notice that her engagement ring probably cost less than a fortieth of what she spent on his bike. (He may even have taken it from his mother.) I listen for more.
Spike has a mortgage problem with his ex-wife and Erin won't marry him until THAT woman's name off the deed! (She apparently doesn't mind the three kids that he supports.) Nonetheless, Erin is happy even if her wedding is delayed until mid-2006. Time doesn't bother her. She remarks, "I'm in no hurry. Whenever I go past a mirror, I think, 'Damn, I look good for 33.'"
I agree.
Notes: Insuring a '95 Suzuki Marauder 800 would cost me $600 per year. The bike costs $2200, a helmet another $150, and another bundle for boots, jacket, and gloves. (EMTs and road crews like leather because it keeps the blood in and the cinders out when you fall. Nylon leaks, especially if you're having a seizure from a broken neck.) I probably should first pass the riding test...I was always the first cut in basketball tryouts and, in an easy course, once got a C in social dance. I still spaz with new tasks when there is an audience. For example, cute servers in a cafeteria even now lead to dropped milk cartons! For my grandson and son and cat, I must NOT do this.
I bought the damned bike...9 years old, 440 pounds of blue-specked black and a soda-fountain of chrome, with 4100 miles. A Suzuki Intruder 800...the name, color, and fit of the seat match both my soul, my butt, and my stubby 30 inch inseam. Tennyson's Ulysses, to seek, to find, not to yield, came to mind before I gashed my forehead (twice!) not on Spike's blade but on the top edge of the windscreen, and shit myself, also twice, during my first runs on a public road...an odyssey of 7.2 miles. Like the old woman who swallowed a fly, I died of course.
My son is instructed to sell the Intruder to Fred...
References:
Buss, D. (1994) The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. New York: Basic Books. (There's a 2003 edition that tells you more but with far less punch.)