That's funny. My immediate 'neighborhood' is mostly summer people as I live by a lake. For years they have seen me on a motorbike tooling along the local roads, first with an old Schwinn with a little Bikebug friction drive motor. Then a China girl on some kinda cool early sixties Schwinns. This past summer my ride was a Worksman looking much like an early motorcycle and with a canoe sidecar. That has gotten some looks and thumbs up even from some of the local snobs who come from out of state with their big boats and big cars or SUVs and bit egos to match. This fall it was a very cool 4 stroke 50 Schwinn Motorbike and now a 51 Schwinn Greyhound with a honker of a motor on it, about as opposite to a bikebug as will still fit. Now I'm getting move obviously admiring looks, thumbs up, waves, as if the community has finally stopped looking at me as the resident geezer oddball, but more as an aging aritsan who makes very cool rides. Some of the looks are with some envy, it seems to me. In part it is for the bike, but another I think is wishing they had the balls to take a risk, do something different, have fun, be twelve, don't worry over your 'manhood' and what anybody else thinks. I have a neighbor friend who is friends with an old fellow who is a former ore boat captain on Lake Superior, bit belly, big voice, big ego, knows everything and is always right. You may know him. And I know he does not like American Indians, who should go back to their own country except we're already here or should I say there with no place to go back to. Anyway, this guy looks down his nose at me on my 'bicycles with little motor'. Why don't I get a real bike? Har har har. Anyway, this guy who is in his seventies bought himself a sorta Harley, has the Harley look, but is a Kawasaki or Honda, something else. He bought it new and had it delivered. He had never ridden a motorcycle of any kind and had to have the biggest, most manly he could afford. His first ride lasted about fifteen feet and ended in his calling my neighbor to come help him get it upright. Once he got it actually down the road and came to his local little town he came to a stop at a light and just stopped, failing to put his feet down on the ground. Oops. He of course has the full Harely Davidson leathers uniform in requisite black. Do rag, everything. Oh yeah, he's bad. Watch out, dude, I'm a biker and this here's ma hog! I kick ass so stand back! It's like a cartoon and I think kind of sad. He has spent what would be a small fortune in my world of poverty and has something which now sits, scratched up some from the falls, unridden and what must be a terrible blow to his ego and a symbol of failure. When he's visiting my neighbor and I come riding up with the dog in her trailer behind it is like I am an insult of some kind because I'm riding and having fun and don't care what he thinks. I think beneath all the bluster is a fearful, insecure boy who really would like to putt down the road with the wind in his face, just like old Silverbear. I wish he would. I'd even help him put a bike together more appropriate for an old fellow. What goofy ideas we have in this society.
SB