I have previously written about my experiences with wheeled vehicles where I had to do all the work to move them around. That all changed when we got a go-cart. We weren’t allowed on the road with it, but we could ride for hours as long as we had gas in the can. We usually ran it around the perimeter of our yard or on a track between Harold & Betty Wesley’s house and Aunt Ruby & Uncle Jesse’s. By the time my boys came around, go-carts had some safety features. There’s even had a roll cage. There was nothing like that on ours. We had a telephone pole with a guy wire in the southwest corner of our yard, and we drove between them, usually drifting. The fact that we made it through our childhood years without anyone being decapitated on that guy wire is proof that God watches out for children. The only bad thing about the go-cart is we couldn’t go too far with it.
That would change again when we got motorcycles. We had trails through the woods and yards from Chambers Road to Ken Brand’s house. That was maybe a half-mile on the road if you drove it, but much longer zigzagging through the woods and yards. Looking back, I’m not sure why everyone gave us the run of the place because we did some damage to some yards. One of our trails had us come within a couple of feet of the northwest corner of Aunt Ruby and Uncle Jesse’s house, and it’s a wonder we never mowed anyone down whipping around that corner. I guess they could hear us coming. We would motor up the hill and around Wanda Ray & Johnny White’s house and then back into the woods and onto the Brand property.
If you’re going to ride motorcycles, you have to accept two facts – you’re going to have to learn how to work on them, and you’re going to get dinged up a bit. I had problems getting mine started one day, and I knew the most reliable way to get a stubborn bike to start was to put it in gear, hold the clutch, run with it by my side, and then drop the clutch. The best place to do that was on Harold and Betty’s paved driveway. So, I’m doing that, and it starts, but I am not fast enough to handle it. The bike pulls away from me, causing the throttle to open up even more. I let everything go, but it was too late. I slammed into the concrete. The motorcycle went right down the driveway for maybe 20 feet across Jonesboro Road and crashed into the ditch, completely disappearing from my sight. One beautiful chrome rear-view mirror flew up out of the ditch on impact, like someone had flipped it like a coin. I run across the street and pick it. Except for the mirror, it was OK. My right knee was not. It took two months to heal completely, and I was able to hide it from my mother, who was less than enthusiastic about me having a motorcycle.
Kenny and Kevin Wesley, Ken Brand, and I all had motorcycles. Ken’s daddy, Mr. Larry Brand, was the first person I knew who rode motorcycles, and he could be seen cruising down Jonesboro Road regularly on his. Ken had the biggest and fastest motorcycle, and I can say it – he was a better rider than I was. There was a long driveway on the east side of the Brand property with a hump on it that made it perfect for jumping. None of us ever got any good at it, though. Like Evel Knieval once said, “Anybody can jump a motorcycle. The trouble begins when you try to land it”. I’m sure Ken had the best jump any of us ever did, but he fell and knocked himself out cold doing it. He was wearing a helmet that day, and it cracked from the impact. Somehow, he was OK. I hit that same hump going a bit too fast myself one time and got a really nice jump out of it. I knew it was a little too nice, and time slowed down enough for me to see that it was not going to end well. I landed on the right side of the driveway and bounced over into Mr. I.J. Brand’s plowed field. I didn’t even fall over. Yeah, I meant to do that. 😊
A few scars were a small price to pay for the hours of enjoyment and the good times with friends. When my boys came along, I was less than enthusiastic about getting them a motorcycle. They seemed to be more content with the latest video game, and I was OK with that. I’m not quite as OK with it today. We may have become too safe, and maybe, just maybe, we are cheating our children out of actual experiences.
“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” – Grace Hopper, United States Navy Rear Admiral, and computer programming pioneer