When I was 47 I decided to ride a motorcycle. My mother said that my father rode, which I’d forgotten, and that my grandfather, her father, rode, which I had forgotten, so God bless. My wife accepted it almost as easily; she probably thought that it could be worse. I was surprised on both counts.
I signed up for a motorcycle riding course, held over a weekend. On Friday evening we watched instructional, come-to-Jesus films, with some lecture, on motorcycle riding, accidents, limb loss, cracked skulls, death, motorcycle maintenance, and the like. A full Saturday was spent in the parking lot of Nashville Tech, on small bikes, about 150 CCs, walking them, while straddling them, first; then straight-line riding, then turns, which were continued on Sunday, ending in a riding test. We were told that if you dropped your bike during the test, you failed the course. I think the instructors were not as hard-assed as they talked, but no one dropped their bike.
We brown-bagged lunches, and shot the bull with the instructors. I remember someone asking “How do you pick a motorcycle to buy?” and an instructor’s response was “Pick one that you can’t take your eyes off of.” One of the instructors knew Arthur, a mutual friend, and he, the instructor, told me he had seen Art practicing emergency stops on his Harley, in this same parking lot that we were using for class. Art was the best known rider at Vanderbilt, and if practicing emergency stops was good enough for Art, it would be good enough for me.
As part of the narrative instruction, we were told something of riding on actual roadways. In taking a turn, for example, rather than wrestle with the handlebars, the rider should look to where the rider wanted to end up, most often the far end of the turn, and the turning happened by magic. No one believed that, but it is true. On my first rides up Highway 70, past Bellevue, approaching Pegram, and then again to Kingston Springs and beyond, I initially tried manhandling the bike in the wide, gentle turns in those parts, almost running off the road, prevented only by braking, as embarrassing a thing as when a pedestrian slips on a sidewalk in broad daylight, then looks around to see if anyone else saw it. Then I remembered the prescription of looking to where you wanted to be, and with a cooperative motorcycle, the Hawk, you will arrive there effortlessly. Once experienced, though not completely understood, the prescription became a metaphor for life, even if I often only follow it in reflection.
I knew Jan, who worked where I exercised, and who was a riding instructor too, and shortly after the course finished, and after getting my motorcycle endorsement on the strength of the course certificate, Jan told me that she had a bike for sale – a 1988 Honda Hawk 650, actually 647, CCs. We met on Capers Ave, adjacent to Vanderbilt, and across 21st Ave from Dayani, where Jan worked, and where I worked out. It was a nice looking bike, a dark grey body with silver trim, reminding me of a black panther, it seemed ready to pounce. I got on—my feet comfortably reached the ground, and we reviewed the location and operation of everything. I was nervous, but I rode it up and down Capers, while Jan watched from the Pizza Perfect end of the street. The deal was struck.
When I first started riding, I knew that I was not street competent, even if I was legal. When I approached the Hawk, typically in the 25th Ave garage, I’d feel adrenaline. For the first month or so, I would only ride Sunday mornings from about 6:00 am, getting back two or three hours later. I dropped the bike a few times, three I think, in the early months, at oddly sloped, or suddenly executed stops. At just under four hundred pounds, it was light enough to pick up, and like the unfortunate pedestrian, I looked around to see if anyone saw.
Riding the Hawk has been a source of life lessons for me. I’ve shared one, but the zen (little ‘z’) of riding is rich. When I ride, I am the most vulnerable person on the road, perhaps tied in last place of safety with every other vehicle operator, but even if so, I am somewhat unique in knowing it. Nonetheless, sometimes, when riding the Hawk, particularly after a prolonged separation, I have an ineffable, uneasy feeling that there is something wrong, then a fleeting realization that I am not wearing seat belts, then the final recognition that oh, yea, I am riding the motorcycle. Recognizing vulnerability doesn’t bring angst generally, but it brings clarity and attentiveness – sanity and calmness actually. If someone cuts me off, I don’t tailgate them, or pass them and then brake-check them, not that I would do this in a car, mind you, but in any case, I back off, and I thank God.
The Hawk is the most beautiful mass-produced motorcycle ever to bless the streets, except perhaps for the Harley V-Rod. Young children, from the sidewalk or the back of cars, point and cry out when the Hawk passes, looking to their parents for guidance on what to do with the joy that sighting such a magical thing brings. Strangers have approached me at gas stations and parking lots, wanting to buy the Hawk then and there. Poor Jan is probably beating herself up, possibly for the more than twenty years since our deal was made. One man, full grown, in his 60s in fact, was volunteering at the Green Hills library, a polling place, when I walked in to vote, carrying my helmet. He asked what I was riding, and when I told him, he lighted up and grabbed me, with both his hands, excitedly, by the corresponding shoulders, explaining that he had sold his Hawk years ago, and that he had never forgiven himself. I might have felt that my boundaries were violated, but for the fact that I understood instinctively that we shared a love. Dogs have their own special reaction to the black panther – grrrr.
The Hawk also has special connections to two dear friends – Motorcycle Mike (Fielder), and Will Clendening. Both have passed away. Mike got me into motorcycles, and I had a lot to do with Will getting a motorcycle. Mike took what is my favorite picture of myself, and its no accident that it’s a picture of both the Hawk and me, a cyborg, rider and machine. Mike died of natural causes after a long illness. Will died after his motorcycle laid down and skidded over the divider on a lonely highway between White Bluff and Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee, a few hours after we’d been riding together.
Though Episcopalian, I “joke” that I am part Shinto too, because I act as though I believe that the Hawk and a very few other select things have a spiritual presence, a kami, or perhaps the same holy spirit available to me inhabits them as well. I have always felt that way about animals, vertebrates since childhood, and increasingly non-vertebrates too. I say that I “act as though” because of the attachments I feel – I’d be in danger of becoming a hoarder if I bought more stuff, and if current attachments didn’t prevent disloyal purchases of replacements. In any case, it was with the Hawk that I became conscious of the acting-as-if performative belief. And if the Hawk sees its final ride before I do, it will become indoor furniture, probably in the backyard shed that my wife will require me to get as a man cave, even if the Hawk is worthy of being at the honored center of our living room.
Picture by Motorcycle Mike in Vanderbilt's 25th Ave Garage
Will's place, between White Bluff and Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee
