Earl
Auld Lang Syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my jo
for auld lang syne
We'll tak'a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne
.........
We twa hae run about the braes
and pou'd the gowans fine.
But we've wander'd many a weary fit
Sin' auld lang syne
.........
ane there's a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie's a hand o'thine
and we'll tak' a right gude-willie waught
for auld lang syne
Robert Burns
1788
In the beginning, . . . . . . .
I parked my newly acquired, well used Honda 350 by the door of the fire house as he walked out of the bathroom and glanced at me as I set the kick stand. He stood about six foot two, maybe 200 pounds of grizzled , bearded and balding, ten years my senior. I knew Earl from the Company meetings and other activities. He was quiet but opinionated, capable and strong in personality. A carpenter by trade, and a damn good one, I later learned."Hey mister, can I ride your bike?" as he approached.
I knew he rode. "Sure," and tossed him my keys.
He did not stop walking until his face was about eighteen inches from mine.
softly, as he handed me the keys. "Don't ever do that again."
"Huh?"
"You don't do that. Your bike is yours, and yours only. You don't let anyone else ride 'er. They probably won't know the bike, won't know how to ride or worse, won't care. Hurt themselves or the bike."
"Ok", I said, mostly to myself, as he turned and walked away leaving me standing there watching him as he swung his bad leg over the old Harley, fired it up and roared out of the parking lot on to Main Street and headed home. That was the beginning of what was to become a close and lasting friendship.
***
Among a lot of other things, Earl was a biker. Rode a '66 Harley, which was a little more that ten years old at that point. Never could remember the complicated model designations that Harley uses or the engine names, but it was a '66, mostly stock, except maybe for the pipes which always seemed a bit loud to me, even for a Harley. Maybe had the baffles out, I don't know; no one seemed to mind, and if they did, they never did say so to Earl. Like I said, it was an older model with the police type windshield and the trademark squared off bags that Harley uses to this day. Only one modification. You see, Earl had a bad leg. His right knee was frozen; would not bend, so he kinda walked funny and could not manage the Harley's rear brake pedal which is, as you know, on the righthand side. Now, as you also know, the front brake is controlled by a lever on the right handlebar, which of course he could handle, but panic stopping with only front wheel braking is not a recommended procedure. To solve this, he had mounted a foot pedal just in advance of the left floorboard and had run a cable across the front of the engine and connected to the standard pedal on the right. Worked fine, except that the left foot also handles the shifter, making things a bit busier than usual and infrequently generating some conflict of interest. But it worked for him and he rode a lot in those days. Had been president of the Baltimore Ramblers, a local, long standing and reputable motorcycle club. Didn't ride with them anymore, said they were always in too much of a hurry and sometimes a bit reckless even for his style.
***
I has always assumed that the bad leg was a result of a bike accident somewhere back in time; he never spoke of it and, out of respect for his privacy and not wanting to bring up unpleasant memories, I never asked. Actually, I just mostly did not want to piss him off; I had figured out early that pissing him off was not likely to end very well. Years later, I did ask him and got a most unexpected response. "Bike fell on me." he said with a sheepish grin.
You crashed?
I said it fell on me, never had any problems while ridin'.
How th' hell could that be?
Put the kickstand down in soft ground, turned my back on 'er, was looking out over the countryside up a'top South Mountain, and over she come, right on my leg. Smashed my knee all to hell and gi'me this gimpy leg for the rest of my life.
Couldn't they fix it?
Maybe, but they didn't.
***
I realized that it was not just bad memories behind his reluctance, but mostly embarrassment, and he had found a way to keep riding. And he rode well. His years seem to drop away when he rode. Following behind, as I often was, you would think that you were following a twenty-something year old rider in the way he sat the bike and the way he moved effortlessly in and out of and through traffic. The old bike only had three forward gears, but carried enough low rev torque to top the interstate grades over Garrett County's "hills" without even breathing hard. By then I had moved up to an early four cylinder Gold Wing (early version, long before they came from the factory with custom bags and fairings; "rice burner", some called it.) which usually had me reaching for gears at the first sight of an incline, while Earl's old machine just went on over the top without missing a beat or losing an rpm. It was like he never shifted. (BTW, Earl never had anything bad to say about anyone else's bike, no matter what its pedigree. Never!)
***
And talk about stability! I once saw him take off his pullover sweater without ever slowing down from highway cruising speed. He just let go the bars, and calmly pulled the sweater up and over his head as if he was seated on his couch at home. And the bike never wavered or swerved; just stayed straight on in its lane, and never seemed to miss a beat. Must've had the throttle locked down. It wasn't a stunt, he just wanted to take off his sweater. Could not believe it! That would have been a suicide on my bike.We rode together a lot, and it wasn't just to ride; we always had a place to go to and a reason for going. To Garrett County to visit his old friends, to Ocean City to the Fireman's Convention Parade, To Pennsylvania to the York Co Fair, etc. etc. Harley riders were a bit more clannish in those days. We stopped at a roadside park on the Eastern Shore one afternoon, and a couple of other Harleys pulled in and joined us. They greeted Earl like he was a long lost cousin, nodded in my direction and then mostly ignored me once they had seen the bikes.
***
Anyway, here I am, forty years later, cruising down Route 50 in Worcester County in an aging machine from the Black Forest with more years and more miles than the average American vehicle will ever see, listening to the fiddles and banjos of Bluegrass Junction blaring from the speakers and floating along with the ocean bound traffic that is crowding 65 in the standard double nickel limits of the highway. US 50 is still four lane divided with grade crossings, same as always. I am in a groove, just drivin' and listenin' and thinkin' and rememberin'.
***
Must have been somewhere along about here that we saw it, Earl and me. Think we were on our way to Ocean City to watch the parade at the Firemen's Convention. It was a morning in mid-June, the sun was shining, it was warm but not yet hot, and there was no traffic. We were cruising in the right lane as we usually did; I was leading in the left tire path and Earl was following in the right, a few bike lengths to my rear. Up ahead, on the seam between the two concrete slabs (it's blacktop now) that made up the highway's right side, something was there that should not have been. A scrawny, skinny white chicken with a few feathers missing! In the middle of nowhere, and with no apparent reason for being there, a chicken who appeared to have no better idea of where he was or why he was there than I did. He just stood there on the seam looking for all the world like, as my dad would have said, "an orphan boy at a picnic". Perhaps he was an escapee from one of the trucks that are always hauling truckloads from one of Purdue's chicken farms to the processing plants in Salisbury, on his way to becoming fried chicken for Royal Farm.
***
I had what may not have been my best thought for the day. At that particular instant it seemed to me that it might be great fun to scare the bejesus outa that poor chicken. Now, keep in mind that this is all happening at 60+ mph, and careful consideration of all the possibilities and potential results was hardly possible, nor likely. So, without giving further thought to it, I glanced in my left side mirror and, seeing no other traffic, swerved over into the rightmost track of the left lane and, as I passed just to the left of the chicken, let loose a long blast of my twin trumpets. (The old 'wing had real good horns). As touched the horn button, another thought flashed into my head, one much more clear and terrifying; "Stupid! that chicken's gonna jump/fly right up and directly into Earl's path, maybe in his face, knock him off the bike and God only knows what might result." But it was too late, the horn blasted, the chicken jumped and tried to fly, and I was past the scene, and as I drifted back into my place in the right lane I glanced in my right side mirror and saw something that has stuck in my mind ever since. It is a clear to me today as it was that sunny morning.
It was a small snowstorm, a cloud of white, and, emerging from the cloud, an old Harley with a bewhiskered old rider with horn rimmed glasses and his trademark black half-shell helmet, just cruising along as if nothing had happen. I breathed a sigh of relief, he was ok, nothing had happened.
***
We rolled to a stop at the traffic light at the edge of Salisbury (no bypass then) as Earl coasted up beside. He looked over at me with what only can be described as "a shit-eatin' grin", then over the rumble of his idling Harley, said calmly, "I hit that sum'bitch, didn't I!"
I thought, "Yeah, Earl, you did, you really did hit that sum'bitch, but with the front wheel, thank God, not your windshield.", but I just grinned back and nodded. We rode on.
God, I miss him!
End
Afterword: That was the first and only chicken I have ever seen on the highway, riding or driving, to this day!. Earl died a few years later, got to where he could not ride any more, or had no one to ride with, or maybe just never quite recovered from having to bury his Millie. The bike was left to a grandson who restored it to mint condition and rode it until the engine gave out. Last I heard it was resting peacefully somewhere in a basket alongside the rest of the remaining parts, perhaps awaiting resurrection.
There may be another story there, but I'm not the one to tell it.
