Things That Don't Go Well With Motorcycling

You know, I’ve ridden motorcycles off and on for most my life. Over the years I’ve learned there are a few things that really don’t go too well with motorcycle riding.

I.B.S. (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) is at the top of my list. For those of you whose knowledge of IBS is limited to what you’ve seen and heard on T.V. commercials let me just say this, a more correct term for IBS would be B. B. S., Battle of the Bowel Syndrome, and folks once that battle starts it’s not a question of if you’re going to lose the battle but where you’re going to lose it.

You see, when IBS rears its ugly head food goes through you like Grape Nuts through a goose. It doesn’t even stop to say hello, and once those intestines of yours get to barking, your time for finding the proper facilities to let the enemy “pass” (if you catch my drift) is very limited.

So, when riding down the road on a motorcycle at 55 to 70 mph with the Battle of the Bowels rumbling in your stomach, every bump, every pothole, every crack in the road you run over only serves to irritate the enemy, stir him up as it were, and hasten his attack. When this happens that limited time you have to find a suitable place becomes even shorter.

Of course the term “suitable place” is relative. Desperate times calls for desperate measures and when you’re about to loose the Battle of the Bowels any place that might give you some privacy (and keep you from getting arrested) is suitable: irrigation ditch, deep ravine, thick forest, back ally, you get the idea.

You fail to find that suitable place and, well, you’ll wish you were wearing Depends diapers for adults. And in the words of that great American, if there ever was one, Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Next on the list of things that don’t go with well with motorcycling is windshield wiper fluid. There’s nothing like driving down the interstate on a sunny day and someone driving a mini van ahead of you decides to clean his/her windshield—it’s amazing how wind created by a moving vehicle can carry so much liquid through the air 4 or 5 car lengths. Makes one wonder how much of the stuff actually hits the windshield.

I don’t know, maybe these drivers are just trying to help me out. Maybe they look in their side mirror, see my face shield, and feel it needs cleaning so they share their windshield cleaning fluid with me. That’s nice, but you’d think they’d at least toss a hand towel out the window for me. I wonder how far the wind would carry that.

Another thing that doesn’t go well with motorcycle riding is accidently getting high from two over-the-counter medications (medications you’ve taken before but not simultaneously) for sinus drip and cough.

I mean, driving down the highway with blurred vision, swerving in your lane, all the while thinking you could just let go of your bike and fly with the birds, is not an experience you wish to repeat.

Oh, and calling work (after you’ve pulled off the road) to tell your boss you won’t be coming in and why, leaving your bike in the parking lot of a CVS pharmacy and explaining to the manager why, and calling your wife to tell her where you are, asking her to come get you and explaining to her why, are beyond embarrassing. It’s just down right humiliating.

Finally, utility workers and motorcycling also don’t go well together. Sadly, I learned this not too long ago on my way to work.

Traffic in town began backing up more than usual and I figured there was wreck up ahead somewhere, would that it was only that.

As I finally drew closer to the source of the problem, I could see ahead of me what looked like water utility trucks at a gas station. The crew seemed to be working on a problem.

“Water leak,” I thought. Then I drove by the area.

The smell that penetrated my helmet almost knocked me off of my bike. It wasn’t a water leak they were working on. No, it was a SEWER LEAK! From the putrid, almost overwhelming smell of it, I’d say it was raw sewage at that. I swear I was ten miles down the road before that awful stench finally cleared my helmet.

And wouldn’t you know it took a couple of days before the air around that part of town cleared up. Driving past there for those few days, I breathed in so much methane gas I wouldn’t be surprised if I develop Black Lung Disease!

So, with these and the many other things that don’t go well with motorcycling, you might ask, “Why do you continue to ride?” The answer to that is an easy one. Because it’s fun!

What Goes Around Comes Around

Part of being a good parent is supporting your kids’ as best you can in their various activities. Sometimes this can be very excruciating painful. I don’t know how many Cub Scout Pinewood Derbies; grade school, middle school, high school basketball and football tournaments; swimming meets; church and school programs, etc.; my parents attended over the years as they raised four boys, but the number is high, maybe too high to count. Certainly many of the activities in which they supported us were painfully boring, perhaps uneventful, and unintentionally comical. And I’m fairly certain that if they’d had a choice (in their minds they didn’t, for they felt that that choice was made when they decided to raise a family), they would rather have flossed their teeth with piano wire than be in some hot, smelly, musky gymnasium/auditorium or standing on the sidelines of a football field in the sizzling, ruthless, August heat, cheering on one or more of their sons. But being the petulant turd of a child that I sometimes could be, I of course didn’t appreciate my parents’ sacrifices during those times. Heck, I didn’t even see those as sacrifices. In my mind it was my absolute, God-given right to always have at least one parent at all events I was involved in. Anything less was unacceptable. Ahhh but life, karma, the universe, whatever you choose to call it, has a way of evening the score if you will. In a cute little song recorded several years ago, The Statler Brothers expressed this sentiment better than I ever could. See if the lyrics to it don’t put a smile across your face (for the purpose of not spoiling the inpact of the content of the song, I’ve purposely left out its title. It was written, however, by Don Reid of said group). I just spent an unusual evening At a banquet that still won’t digest Watching this year’s high school heroes Get awarded for what they do best There’s a letter for the one that jumped highest And one ran faster by far One broke the 200 meters And one broke her arm on the bar The baseball team took the honors The MVP stole the show The coach looked scared with a tie on Swore next year they’d be 15 and 0 And in tomorrow morning’s newspaper There’ll be pictures that surely reveal Young men looking strange with no caps on And tomboys in dresses and heals And I've stood up there where they’re standing And never once thought I would be Sitting out here where I’m sitting Looking more like my daddy than me Twenty some years from tomorrow These same boys and girls will find An old faded newspaper clipping Yellow and torn up with time Their daughters and sons will be standing Up there where they used to be And only then will they know what I’m feeling When they’re sitting out here with me And I've stood up there where they’re standing Behind the MVP But it’s late; I’m tired and still hungry Acting more like my daddy than me I’m getting more like my daddy than me