The Gold Wing – Continued

Bob Kersten continued to teach me how to properly ride, not only the 3 wheeled monster; but also how to ride a two wheeled motorcycle. We would practice, on the city’s time, various interesting maneuvers. I don’t think that the machine was designed as a pursuit vehicle and yet we were able to do just that, as long as it was downtown in heavy traffic where the odds were even or on our side.

There was a place under one of the freeways, Race at Raines, the names of the streets that had not been used in many years; covered with dirt and grown over with weeds. They were perfect for a beginner, for surely I was a beginner, to learn how to do 180’s and even 360’s. Bob showed me how to lock up the front wheel; then cut and release, at precisely the right moment, to permit the natural momentum of the back end to pass the front end without having a wreck. This was a good trick to use when looking for traffic violations, our attention towards on coming traffic for expired state inspection stickers. I learned to stop on a dime and reverse my direction in order to stop such vehicles, got pretty good at it. I never found a use for doing 360’s and let Bob show off all alone on that.

One day another new guy to the 3 wheeled motor cycle division wanted to learn some of the stuff Bob had been teaching me. Joe Vowels was his name, and he was just out of the Marine Corp. and ready to rumble. It had rained the day before and so Bob knew that it would be easy to teach Joe how to do 180’s. What they hadn’t counted on was Joe getting his machine stuck in a mud hole. It took some doing; thank goodness those beasts had a reverse position so they could rock it back and forth. After getting Joe out of the hole the two of them were covered from head to toe in mud. They came to the back of the station as the mud had begun to dry. They looked like characters from a Lil Abner’s comic strip. ( I know, you young folks may never have heard of Lil Abner. Think Beverly Hillbillies and that will give you an idea.)

Before moving on too far, I wanted to brag a bit about how well I could do a 180. I got sent to work traffic at a major accident on Kirby about a block north of where it meets with the Southwest Freeway. The accident unit would be handling the report and I’d been sent there to help move traffic around while he did his job. It had been raining, just enough to make the streets slick as I approached from the north. I got to within half a block from where I would be needed, started to stand up while the bike was in motion, locked the front end, spun the back around and exited all in one smooth motion as I began to direct traffic. “Do this all the time, Nothing to it”; as I smiled to myself. My guess is some jaws dropped at having seen my performance, for it was nothing short of a grand entrance.

I mentioned that Bob had established himself as something of a “Jap bike enthusiast”, which didn’t go over well with some of the “old heads”. It was common for Bob to get into a heated discussion any time one of the old heads would play the “Harley’s are better than Honda, or Yamaha game”. It got to be something of a way to say, “Goodnight!” as they closed out the shift arguing about their personal choices.

One evening as we were about to finish off another shift, Officer Stone, one of the old heads, started going on about how durable and reliable the Harley motors were compared to the Jap stuff. Instead of arguing, Kersten jumped in and agreed right away. The room fell silent until he finished his thought, “Yea, if I ever buy a boat and need a good anchor, nothing would beat a good old Harley motor.” Bob had bested Stone in front of the whole shift and it didn’t sit well, at least not with Stone, most everyone else was in the knee slapping phase of enjoyment. Stone’s face grew a deep red and the veins in his neck began to swell. I thought we were going to have to call for an ambulance if it continued. Thank goodness it was time to leave or there may have been a shoot out.

Bob also taught me how to lock up the front brakes to make the most God awful roar; to be used as a replacement for the siren that never had been issued since these machines really were never intended as pursuit vehicles. They had fairly effective disc brakes on the front that, unlike a two wheeled motorcycle, could be locked up without causing an immediate loss of control. When done properly, if such can be said, as soon as the front wheel was locked up, we would then turn the handle bars as if to turn, accelerate a little and scrape the rubber off on the pavement. The resulting noise was sufficient to make folks pull over to the side, believing that a wreck was eminent; at which time we also would pull behind them and motion for them to stop so that we could issue them a traffic ticket for whatever purpose we intended to begin with.

This was also a neat way to “jack with folks”. One morning, I believe it was Thanksgiving morning prior to the annual parade downtown, Bob and I had gone to my folk’s house for an early breakfast. On our way back to the parade area we spotted some “yoyo” walking down the sidewalk with a huge boom box on his shoulder. Without any signal to each other we both elected to apply our improvised “siren”. The sound of two tires tearing at the pavement sent the fellow careening into a shallow concrete retaining wall on his first attempt to get out of the way, then over it on his second. The boom box crashed to the sidewalk and we two, civil servants, were slapping knee and laughing too loud as we continued on down the street. In case you are wondering, the statute of limitations most assuredly has expired on such incidents. I wonder if this will be one of those sins to be answered for when I meet my Lord?

I still am waiting for a chance to go over some details with Bob before I put in the last installment of Gold Wing. I wanted to make sure the dates, price and all were correct prior to putting them down. I think I’ll give him a call; his email is not being opened.