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Written by Shing
Hi Gang,
Let me start by saying this post is rated PG 17, if not R, so if you're going to be offended by colorful language, please delete now and don't ride my ass later. Sorry, but sometimes you have to use questionable
language to describe events if you live offensively to begin with. Oh, and none of this story should be considered credible in a court of law, under any circumstances. Some Ohio VROCers attempted to organize a ride Saturday, or at least three of us did. That would be me, Ol C.W. and Razorback. The whole
thing was Razorback's idea, and he was the one who didn't make it, of course. In other words, Ol C.W. and I spent the day doing about 500 miles in the Buckeye state yesterday, spreading fear of VROC wherever
we went. Sunday found me sore. But it's not from having a poor seat, that's for sure. In fact, if the rest of me felt as good as my ass does right now, I'd be in good shape. And how often can you say that. No, its a
cow, a girl named Sarah and her friend Rachel, and some old guy who owns a really titty '69 Chevy SS Convertible that have my bones and muscles achin' today. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We started by attempting to meet at 10 a.m. Our designated spot was "the first rest area south of Route 30 on Interstate 71." Folks, as the originator of this particular portion of our plan, let me be the first to tell you that this is an asinine way to start out. With all of us assuming the rest area would be 10 miles or so from 71 and 30, we were fucked from the start when it turned out to be 50 miles away. I got to 71 and 30 at about 9:45, thinking I was in great shape until I saw that sign that said "Next Rest Area 52 miles." It may as well have said "twist your right hand." So, I got to the rest area a little before 10:30 and Ol C.W. was already there. I turns out this rest area was 8 miles from his home in Delaware, but of course he claims to have ridden up to Rt. 30 and then back already that morning. Ol C.W. is 6' 4", about 220 lbs and he has the words "Navy" and "Seal" carved into his biceps. What's worse, the word "Navy" was spelled wrong once, crossed out, and recarved with the correct spelling! So I figure he was telling the truth. Now, a word about Ol C.W.'s bike is in order. (BTW, he insists on me using the whole damn name "Ol C.W. every time I type it, which is a
real pain in the ass. I am seriously considering giving him the name of either "psycho" or "blinky" for personal use.) He has a '96 Classic, Blue and white with flake paint, no badges, new carb, baffle-punched
exhaust, lowered. But none of that is the creme de le jeans. Up front he has this awesome Harley Road King headlight nacelle installed with beach bars that are a mile wide. It is truly a beautiful effect both on and off the bike and it would not be difficult to find Ol C.W.'s bike in a crowd. You feel like you're in a movie as soon as you sit on it and start it up.
Anyway, it's 10:30 and this is valuable smoking time, so we sit on a picnic table and light up with some free roadside coffee. It was hazy, real hazy, all morning. I noticed on the way down that looking at the
sun with sunglasses on, it looked like a full moon shining through a dark gray and yellow sky. Now, Ol C.W. was looking up at this haze, with look of concern. "Gonna be a weird day," he says. I'm thinking, no shit, as I look at the biceps. "Whatdya mean?" I ask. "That haze. That's from pot fields burning in Mexico, coming up on that El Nino or something." "No shit? I never heard about that." "Yep." So we smoked and looked at the haze, and checked out some Harleys that were parked and looked at the map to decide where we should go. We decided to wait til 11 for Razorback, wondering if something had come up and whether he'd make it all. We were roughly in he middle of the state, and the gray lines leading east and south, toward the Ohio river, were the sqiggliest. As 11 approached, and still no Razorback, Ol C.W. said "let's go see if we can find him" and we started looking at gray lines that led to New Philadelphia, where Razorback lives. Routes 3 and 39 went there, and then contiuned on to hit the Ohio River at Wellsville and it was pretty squiggly. At 11, we headed toward Route 3, Ol C.W. in front, me right behind. I pulled up beside him a couple of times and noticed he was riding with his head tilted back and his nostrils full open to the wind, like some sort of hopped up air intake for a muscle car. He'd look over at me and point up, "the haze." Other than that, it was a nice, calm sane ride through some pretty country. We got to a little town called Millerburg, which is smack dab in the middle of Ohio Amish country. So, figuring we should take the opportunity get some of that famous Amish grub, we pulled into the nearest KFC to eat. I don't know, maybe it was better, but it tasted just like the KFC back home to me, pretty disappointing really. As we finished up our two piece dinners, Ol C.W. asked if I wanted to ride his bike for awhile and, looking out the window at it there was no way I could resist. I ride an 800 and had never ridden a bike as big as a 1500 before. The intimidation lasted only about 2 minutes and the need to own one set in about 30 seconds after that. We rode for about 45 minutes and then pulled off to the side of the road to switch back to our own bikes and, of course, have another smoke. In the 10 minutes we sat there, no less than three different vehicles stopped to ask us if everything was okay. Two of them were trucks with guys as ugly as we were, but the third was an Amish buggy with two girls in it. Their names were Rachel and Sarah and they were in their mid to late 20s, I'd guess. Rachel wanted to know if our "machines had gone lame'' and whether we needed any help. We told them no, we were actually just taking a break and enjoying the beautiful country. Well, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, Ol C. W. was asking Sarah is she'd ever gone more than 30 mph before. She and Rachel giggled at this and told us that neither one of them had ever gone any faster than a horse could run. "Well, I got better 'an 60 horses in that machine there, and if you want I could show you what it's like to ride all of 'em at once," Ol C. W. replied. Sarah said that sounded like fun, but she wondered if either of our machines could pull a wagon full of hay the way her draught horses
could. Well, to make a long story short, it turned out that their mom and dad were away at some barn raising or something somewhere and we spent the next two hours riding motorcycles with two women who must be part of some sort of reform movement in the Amish community. Well, maybe it was only a half an hour on the bikes, I don't really remember. I remember Ol C.W. pulling up along side of me with Sarah on the back of his bike yelling "She wants to show me her quilts!" with this big smile on his fae. I'm not going to go any further with this little anecdote, but I will say that if a good looking Amish girl ever wants to take you home to look at her quilts, by all means, do it. Sarah must have liked something about Ol C.W. -- had to be his bike -- because he eft with his very own new quilt strapped to his sissy bar as we left. "I don't
know if she gave me this to keep, or if I have to wash it and give it back to her!" he joked. And we were back on the road. We continued up Route 3 and 36 to Mount Vernon, then took Route 39 to Millersburg. There, we were passing a tire dealership with a Hot Rod show when I looked in my mirror to see Ol C.W. twirling his hand in the air signaling me to turn around. "Can we stop? I've always had a weakness for hot rods!" he said. "You're the boss," I replied, and into the tire dealership we went. There were only about 10 cars there, but all of them were cherry. There was a sweet Dodge Challenger that looked like it could pull the front wheels, a 72 Monte Carlo, a couple of 30 something Ford Coupes and a few other gems, including a 1969ish Chevy SS Convertible. The SS was owned by older couple, I'd say in their late 50s to early 60s. He was polishing his fenders and she was sitting under a big umbrella listening to country music on a little radio. I think it was George Strait, but you'd have to ask Ol C.W. to be sure. Turns out, he's a professional
line dancer and two-stepper as well as a biker and whatever else. I'm talking to the guy about his SS and Ol C.W. is talking to his wife about country music. I'm still talking to the guy about the SS, and Ol C.W.
is talking to his wife about dancing. I'm still talking to the guy about the SS, and now Ol C.W. is dancing with his wife behind the car. Right about then the guy with the SS looks up with a start and hollers "What
in the HELL, do you think you're doing!" I don't know if he was talking to his wife, or Ol C.W., 'cause they both had their hands all over each other behind the SS and I think they might have actually been kissing when the older guy looked back and caught them. He immediately stormed to the back of the car and grabbed Ol C.W.'s hand and flung it from his wife's hip. "Git your hands off of her, that's my WIFE, mister!" I was about to bust up laughing when I saw the guy pull his right hand back. Now I don't know, maybe he was quicker when he was younger, but I don't think he even got his hand all the way back before Ol C.W.'s fist connected with his jaw. I about shit myself when I saw half his teeth fly out of his mouth! It was unusual, because they all came out together, in one piece, instead of flying out like separate dice in a
Yahtzee game, the way it's supposed to happen. "Muf TEEF!" he yelled. With that, he scrambled to pick up what turned out to be dentures from the parking lot and began cleaning them off and cursing at Ol C.W.
"Ya fufker! Ya beffer hope fese ain' broke -- I ain' efen finished payin' for 'em yef!" Ol C.W. was laughing so hard, he was nearly doubled over. I swear, I think the older guy could've kicked him right in the face right then if he'd jumped on the opportunity. But he was too busy picking little bits of cinder out of his dentures. His wife was just sitting by the back of the SS, fanning herself. I think the excitement got her a little warm. Ol C.W. regained his composure and said to me "well, let's go, that's enough fun for this stop, don't ya think?" We were walking the short distance over to our bikes and I couldn't help but say something. "Geeze, man, did ya have to deck him like that! What if he'd had a heart attack man, we could be in real trouble!" But it didn't do any good. Ol C. W. just laughed and looked at me and said "look, you wanna be a biker? Then sometimes ya gotta kick a little ass!" "Can't I just be a motorcyclist?" For some reason, Ol C.W. thought that was funny as hell. I wasn't going to push the issue, 'cause I sure as hell didn't want to get on the bad side of Ol Navy
e left right away, figuring Millersburg's finest might very well be on their way and I didn't want Ol C.W. to hurt them. We got into New Philadelphia at about 3 p.m.We had no idea where Razorback lived, but
we knew his real name, so we looked him up in the phone book. We got an answering machine and Ol
C.W. told him "we're in New Philadelphia and we're coming to get your ass! And if you don't come with us, we're gonna do burn outs all over your front lawn." We got the address out of the phone book and went to a gas station to ask how to get to Stacey Street. We had to take the bridge back over the Tuscarawas River about half a mile and it was just off the main route. Of course, we couldn't exactly remember the house number, so we had to cruise up and down the street looking for Razorback's name on one of the mailboxes. We didn't see it anywhere, but I saw a fella washing an old Yamaha Virago, so I asked him if he knew Razorback. He looked at me kind of puzzled. "Yeah, I know him. You a friend of his?" "Well, kind of, we were supposed to go riding with him today and we missed him at our meeting place." He told us to drive to the end of the street and we'd see a driveway that looks like a dirt road going down to the river. Razorback lived at the end of that driveway. Well, we went where we thought he said to go, but there wasn't anything but an old Chevyvan abandoned on that dirt road. So we rode back and told the guy with the Yam that we couldn't find the house and was he sure that was where Stan lived. "Yeah, I'm sure, but I didn't' say nothin' 'bout no house. I said he lived at the end of the road is all." "Yeah, but there ain't nothing on that road but some old tires and a rusted out Chevyvan." "Yep." "What the hell. You trying to tell us he lives in a van?" Ol C.W. asked. "Yep, everyone 'round here knows, stay away from the old van down by
the river, because that's where "Razorback" lives. We use storied 'bout him to make the kids behave -- "better watch it, Razorback'll get cha for bein' bad! he, he he." So, back to the van we rode. This time, though, there was a hell of a racket coming out of the fucker. At first, when we were still quite far away, I thought the van was running and that it didn't have any exhaust. But, as we got near the damn thing it became apparent that there was a motorcycle inside, obviously with no baffles, and somebody was revving the engine. By the way, if you want your 1500 to sound like a thousand hogs all revving at once, put it in a Chevyvan, open the front windows of the van, and rev the hell out of it. You won't be disappointed. Between revs, we could hear somebody laughing, cackling really loud, inside. Ol C.W. banged on the door and yelled into the open passenger window "Razorback! That you?" "Go Away" someone yelled from inside the van. The motorcycle engine shut down and it got so quiet you could hear the river going by.
Now Ol C.W. stuck his head a little inside the window. "Damn it Razorback, is that you or not! We came to pick your sorry ass . . " He could have finished the sentence, but then that Jim Beam bottle would
have shattered on his head, instead of the front windshield of the van. "Damn!!" Ol C.W. said. "Stick your head in there and see if you can see him, would ya?" "Huh uh." "Aw hell, this is ridiculous." Ol C.W. got his head about half an inch inside the window the second time when we heart that metallic sliding and locking sound that is the universal language for what Razorback yelled next: "Git outta hear! I got a shotgun! Now go away, she ain't home, ya hear!"
Ol C.W. pulled his head out of the window like it was a beehive and grinned back at me. "I think he's drunk." "Yeah? Ya think so?" "Well, that and he's probably high on exhaust fumes. I wonder how damn
long he's been in there runnin' that bike." "I dunno. Can we go now?" Ol C.W. looked at me a huge grin on his face. I think he just then realized that I was scared shitless. "Sure, we can go. Hell, he's too drunk to ride anyway. It's this haze, I'm telling ya -- I told ya it was gonna be a weird day." We rode away with the sounds of Razorback's big 1500 still shaking that van down by the river. We headed east, following Route 39 toward the Ohio River. We were driving through still more farmland when I saw a bunch of cows in a
pasture along the road. I signaled for us to stop and we both pulled over to the side of the road. "I got an idea," I said. "Bout time! I thought I was going to have provide all the fun today!" I told Ol C.W. I thought we should get one of those cows, put it between our two bikes, and then take a picture of us and call it "Shing, Ol C.W. and their Kaws." He agreed that such a picture would be a hit with the group, so we
opened up a gate and drove our bikes just inside the fence. I started to try and lead one of the cows over to our bikes, but Ol C.W. stopped me. "Not that one! Get a cute one, for chrissake!" Not knowing which cow was a cute one, I told Ol C.W. to go ahead and pick one. He pointed out a big brown one and I went over and started to try to lead it over to our bikes. Cows in pastures don't have collars or anything, so it was kind of tough. I tried leading it by the ear, but the animal didn't seem to thrilled about that, so I resorted to
hitting it on the ass with a stick and trying to move it in the right direction. On the first swat, the animal took off at a trot, right toward our bikes. Piece of cake, I thought. But then, it stopped right as it got to our bikes, looked at both of them, and then procedded to mount my poor little 800. The rear shock bottomed out immediately as the damn thing started humping my bike. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open while Ol C.W. rolled on the ground laughing. "What the hell's up with this stupid cow?!!" I screamed "Hey!!! COW!!! Get OFFA MY BIKE!!" When he could stop laughing long enough to breath, Ol C.W. told me "There isn't anything wrong with that Cow --- 'cause it's a bull!" "Well tell it to quit ******* my bike!" "Your bike? You mean Elsie? I think he likes it!" Much more laughter. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed the bull by the tail. He liked that even less than the ear and I got a hoof in the thigh that sent me reeling. I got up just in time to see that I had succeeded in getting the animal off my bike. (I learned later, from Ol C.W., that what really got that bull off my bike was coitus with a hot exhaust pipe.)
But now he was pissed off AND horny, and he was taking a very unhealthy interest in me. Yes, it was that love/hate thing in his eyes for sure and I was on my feet and behind a tree in about half a second.
"Why ya runnin'? Whattsa matter, don't ya think he's cute! Bahahahaha
Finally, Ol C.W. started up his 1500 and the cow turned toward it. Ol C.W. taunted him and soon was leading the animal down the dirt road through the pasture at a trot. He yelled back to me "Get your bike outside the fence and hold the gate open for me and wait!" Once Ol C.W. and the bull were far enough away, I got from behind the tree and did just that. They went over a little hill and a minute later Ol C.W. came back with the bull running about 30 yards behind him. As Ol C.W. went through the gate, I slammed it shut. The bull stopped short of the gate and eyed us from behind the fence. "Aww, look at him, you broke his heart." Ol C. W. told me. "Did ya get your picture?" "No. Let's just leave, alright?" "Boy, you are some biker." I tried not to let on how much my leg hurt as I got back on my bike. We got back on the road and headed toward the Ohio River. We got there at about 6 o'clock and I was dead tired from being on the road since 8. Along the way, we ran into about 20 guys on old classic bikes, most of them British, in the town of Carrolton. They invited us to camp with them nearby, but I had a date later that night and Ol
C.W. promised his wife he'd be home, so we had to pass. We all said we'd be at the Vintage Bike show at MidOhio July 11, though, so it was well worth stopping. We got back from the river to I77, which takes me home, at about 7:45. That left me roughly 20 minutes to make it the 90 miles home in time for my date. Needless to say, I wasn't going to make it on time. I told Ol C.W. that, but I didn't seem to get too much sympathy. He seemed to think I should just forget the whole date thing and ride half way home with him and take another route home. "I'm stoppin' in Amish country . . . !" he said, trying to tempt me with the allure of my sweet Rachel. I actually thought about it for a second before saying "Naw, I can't, I gotta get home." So we parted ways at I-77 and I headed north into the evening soup of bugs and humidity and the haze of Mexican pot fields. I looked back just once as I was getting on the highway. I saw Ol C.W.
cruising west, head tilted back, nostrils flared, big smile, big wave. Great guy, great day, great ride.
Ya shoulda been there!
Shing
Hi Gang,
Let me start by saying this post is rated PG 17, if not R, so if you're going to be offended by colorful language, please delete now and don't ride my ass later. Sorry, but sometimes you have to use questionable
language to describe events if you live offensively to begin with. Oh, and none of this story should be considered credible in a court of law, under any circumstances. Some Ohio VROCers attempted to organize a ride Saturday, or at least three of us did. That would be me, Ol C.W. and Razorback. The whole
thing was Razorback's idea, and he was the one who didn't make it, of course. In other words, Ol C.W. and I spent the day doing about 500 miles in the Buckeye state yesterday, spreading fear of VROC wherever
we went. Sunday found me sore. But it's not from having a poor seat, that's for sure. In fact, if the rest of me felt as good as my ass does right now, I'd be in good shape. And how often can you say that. No, its a
cow, a girl named Sarah and her friend Rachel, and some old guy who owns a really titty '69 Chevy SS Convertible that have my bones and muscles achin' today. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We started by attempting to meet at 10 a.m. Our designated spot was "the first rest area south of Route 30 on Interstate 71." Folks, as the originator of this particular portion of our plan, let me be the first to tell you that this is an asinine way to start out. With all of us assuming the rest area would be 10 miles or so from 71 and 30, we were fucked from the start when it turned out to be 50 miles away. I got to 71 and 30 at about 9:45, thinking I was in great shape until I saw that sign that said "Next Rest Area 52 miles." It may as well have said "twist your right hand." So, I got to the rest area a little before 10:30 and Ol C.W. was already there. I turns out this rest area was 8 miles from his home in Delaware, but of course he claims to have ridden up to Rt. 30 and then back already that morning. Ol C.W. is 6' 4", about 220 lbs and he has the words "Navy" and "Seal" carved into his biceps. What's worse, the word "Navy" was spelled wrong once, crossed out, and recarved with the correct spelling! So I figure he was telling the truth. Now, a word about Ol C.W.'s bike is in order. (BTW, he insists on me using the whole damn name "Ol C.W. every time I type it, which is a
real pain in the ass. I am seriously considering giving him the name of either "psycho" or "blinky" for personal use.) He has a '96 Classic, Blue and white with flake paint, no badges, new carb, baffle-punched
exhaust, lowered. But none of that is the creme de le jeans. Up front he has this awesome Harley Road King headlight nacelle installed with beach bars that are a mile wide. It is truly a beautiful effect both on and off the bike and it would not be difficult to find Ol C.W.'s bike in a crowd. You feel like you're in a movie as soon as you sit on it and start it up.
Anyway, it's 10:30 and this is valuable smoking time, so we sit on a picnic table and light up with some free roadside coffee. It was hazy, real hazy, all morning. I noticed on the way down that looking at the
sun with sunglasses on, it looked like a full moon shining through a dark gray and yellow sky. Now, Ol C.W. was looking up at this haze, with look of concern. "Gonna be a weird day," he says. I'm thinking, no shit, as I look at the biceps. "Whatdya mean?" I ask. "That haze. That's from pot fields burning in Mexico, coming up on that El Nino or something." "No shit? I never heard about that." "Yep." So we smoked and looked at the haze, and checked out some Harleys that were parked and looked at the map to decide where we should go. We decided to wait til 11 for Razorback, wondering if something had come up and whether he'd make it all. We were roughly in he middle of the state, and the gray lines leading east and south, toward the Ohio river, were the sqiggliest. As 11 approached, and still no Razorback, Ol C.W. said "let's go see if we can find him" and we started looking at gray lines that led to New Philadelphia, where Razorback lives. Routes 3 and 39 went there, and then contiuned on to hit the Ohio River at Wellsville and it was pretty squiggly. At 11, we headed toward Route 3, Ol C.W. in front, me right behind. I pulled up beside him a couple of times and noticed he was riding with his head tilted back and his nostrils full open to the wind, like some sort of hopped up air intake for a muscle car. He'd look over at me and point up, "the haze." Other than that, it was a nice, calm sane ride through some pretty country. We got to a little town called Millerburg, which is smack dab in the middle of Ohio Amish country. So, figuring we should take the opportunity get some of that famous Amish grub, we pulled into the nearest KFC to eat. I don't know, maybe it was better, but it tasted just like the KFC back home to me, pretty disappointing really. As we finished up our two piece dinners, Ol C.W. asked if I wanted to ride his bike for awhile and, looking out the window at it there was no way I could resist. I ride an 800 and had never ridden a bike as big as a 1500 before. The intimidation lasted only about 2 minutes and the need to own one set in about 30 seconds after that. We rode for about 45 minutes and then pulled off to the side of the road to switch back to our own bikes and, of course, have another smoke. In the 10 minutes we sat there, no less than three different vehicles stopped to ask us if everything was okay. Two of them were trucks with guys as ugly as we were, but the third was an Amish buggy with two girls in it. Their names were Rachel and Sarah and they were in their mid to late 20s, I'd guess. Rachel wanted to know if our "machines had gone lame'' and whether we needed any help. We told them no, we were actually just taking a break and enjoying the beautiful country. Well, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, Ol C. W. was asking Sarah is she'd ever gone more than 30 mph before. She and Rachel giggled at this and told us that neither one of them had ever gone any faster than a horse could run. "Well, I got better 'an 60 horses in that machine there, and if you want I could show you what it's like to ride all of 'em at once," Ol C. W. replied. Sarah said that sounded like fun, but she wondered if either of our machines could pull a wagon full of hay the way her draught horses
could. Well, to make a long story short, it turned out that their mom and dad were away at some barn raising or something somewhere and we spent the next two hours riding motorcycles with two women who must be part of some sort of reform movement in the Amish community. Well, maybe it was only a half an hour on the bikes, I don't really remember. I remember Ol C.W. pulling up along side of me with Sarah on the back of his bike yelling "She wants to show me her quilts!" with this big smile on his fae. I'm not going to go any further with this little anecdote, but I will say that if a good looking Amish girl ever wants to take you home to look at her quilts, by all means, do it. Sarah must have liked something about Ol C.W. -- had to be his bike -- because he eft with his very own new quilt strapped to his sissy bar as we left. "I don't
know if she gave me this to keep, or if I have to wash it and give it back to her!" he joked. And we were back on the road. We continued up Route 3 and 36 to Mount Vernon, then took Route 39 to Millersburg. There, we were passing a tire dealership with a Hot Rod show when I looked in my mirror to see Ol C.W. twirling his hand in the air signaling me to turn around. "Can we stop? I've always had a weakness for hot rods!" he said. "You're the boss," I replied, and into the tire dealership we went. There were only about 10 cars there, but all of them were cherry. There was a sweet Dodge Challenger that looked like it could pull the front wheels, a 72 Monte Carlo, a couple of 30 something Ford Coupes and a few other gems, including a 1969ish Chevy SS Convertible. The SS was owned by older couple, I'd say in their late 50s to early 60s. He was polishing his fenders and she was sitting under a big umbrella listening to country music on a little radio. I think it was George Strait, but you'd have to ask Ol C.W. to be sure. Turns out, he's a professional
line dancer and two-stepper as well as a biker and whatever else. I'm talking to the guy about his SS and Ol C.W. is talking to his wife about country music. I'm still talking to the guy about the SS, and Ol C.W.
is talking to his wife about dancing. I'm still talking to the guy about the SS, and now Ol C.W. is dancing with his wife behind the car. Right about then the guy with the SS looks up with a start and hollers "What
in the HELL, do you think you're doing!" I don't know if he was talking to his wife, or Ol C.W., 'cause they both had their hands all over each other behind the SS and I think they might have actually been kissing when the older guy looked back and caught them. He immediately stormed to the back of the car and grabbed Ol C.W.'s hand and flung it from his wife's hip. "Git your hands off of her, that's my WIFE, mister!" I was about to bust up laughing when I saw the guy pull his right hand back. Now I don't know, maybe he was quicker when he was younger, but I don't think he even got his hand all the way back before Ol C.W.'s fist connected with his jaw. I about shit myself when I saw half his teeth fly out of his mouth! It was unusual, because they all came out together, in one piece, instead of flying out like separate dice in a
Yahtzee game, the way it's supposed to happen. "Muf TEEF!" he yelled. With that, he scrambled to pick up what turned out to be dentures from the parking lot and began cleaning them off and cursing at Ol C.W.
"Ya fufker! Ya beffer hope fese ain' broke -- I ain' efen finished payin' for 'em yef!" Ol C.W. was laughing so hard, he was nearly doubled over. I swear, I think the older guy could've kicked him right in the face right then if he'd jumped on the opportunity. But he was too busy picking little bits of cinder out of his dentures. His wife was just sitting by the back of the SS, fanning herself. I think the excitement got her a little warm. Ol C.W. regained his composure and said to me "well, let's go, that's enough fun for this stop, don't ya think?" We were walking the short distance over to our bikes and I couldn't help but say something. "Geeze, man, did ya have to deck him like that! What if he'd had a heart attack man, we could be in real trouble!" But it didn't do any good. Ol C. W. just laughed and looked at me and said "look, you wanna be a biker? Then sometimes ya gotta kick a little ass!" "Can't I just be a motorcyclist?" For some reason, Ol C.W. thought that was funny as hell. I wasn't going to push the issue, 'cause I sure as hell didn't want to get on the bad side of Ol Navy
e left right away, figuring Millersburg's finest might very well be on their way and I didn't want Ol C.W. to hurt them. We got into New Philadelphia at about 3 p.m.We had no idea where Razorback lived, but
we knew his real name, so we looked him up in the phone book. We got an answering machine and Ol
C.W. told him "we're in New Philadelphia and we're coming to get your ass! And if you don't come with us, we're gonna do burn outs all over your front lawn." We got the address out of the phone book and went to a gas station to ask how to get to Stacey Street. We had to take the bridge back over the Tuscarawas River about half a mile and it was just off the main route. Of course, we couldn't exactly remember the house number, so we had to cruise up and down the street looking for Razorback's name on one of the mailboxes. We didn't see it anywhere, but I saw a fella washing an old Yamaha Virago, so I asked him if he knew Razorback. He looked at me kind of puzzled. "Yeah, I know him. You a friend of his?" "Well, kind of, we were supposed to go riding with him today and we missed him at our meeting place." He told us to drive to the end of the street and we'd see a driveway that looks like a dirt road going down to the river. Razorback lived at the end of that driveway. Well, we went where we thought he said to go, but there wasn't anything but an old Chevyvan abandoned on that dirt road. So we rode back and told the guy with the Yam that we couldn't find the house and was he sure that was where Stan lived. "Yeah, I'm sure, but I didn't' say nothin' 'bout no house. I said he lived at the end of the road is all." "Yeah, but there ain't nothing on that road but some old tires and a rusted out Chevyvan." "Yep." "What the hell. You trying to tell us he lives in a van?" Ol C.W. asked. "Yep, everyone 'round here knows, stay away from the old van down by
the river, because that's where "Razorback" lives. We use storied 'bout him to make the kids behave -- "better watch it, Razorback'll get cha for bein' bad! he, he he." So, back to the van we rode. This time, though, there was a hell of a racket coming out of the fucker. At first, when we were still quite far away, I thought the van was running and that it didn't have any exhaust. But, as we got near the damn thing it became apparent that there was a motorcycle inside, obviously with no baffles, and somebody was revving the engine. By the way, if you want your 1500 to sound like a thousand hogs all revving at once, put it in a Chevyvan, open the front windows of the van, and rev the hell out of it. You won't be disappointed. Between revs, we could hear somebody laughing, cackling really loud, inside. Ol C.W. banged on the door and yelled into the open passenger window "Razorback! That you?" "Go Away" someone yelled from inside the van. The motorcycle engine shut down and it got so quiet you could hear the river going by.
Now Ol C.W. stuck his head a little inside the window. "Damn it Razorback, is that you or not! We came to pick your sorry ass . . " He could have finished the sentence, but then that Jim Beam bottle would
have shattered on his head, instead of the front windshield of the van. "Damn!!" Ol C.W. said. "Stick your head in there and see if you can see him, would ya?" "Huh uh." "Aw hell, this is ridiculous." Ol C.W. got his head about half an inch inside the window the second time when we heart that metallic sliding and locking sound that is the universal language for what Razorback yelled next: "Git outta hear! I got a shotgun! Now go away, she ain't home, ya hear!"
Ol C.W. pulled his head out of the window like it was a beehive and grinned back at me. "I think he's drunk." "Yeah? Ya think so?" "Well, that and he's probably high on exhaust fumes. I wonder how damn
long he's been in there runnin' that bike." "I dunno. Can we go now?" Ol C.W. looked at me a huge grin on his face. I think he just then realized that I was scared shitless. "Sure, we can go. Hell, he's too drunk to ride anyway. It's this haze, I'm telling ya -- I told ya it was gonna be a weird day." We rode away with the sounds of Razorback's big 1500 still shaking that van down by the river. We headed east, following Route 39 toward the Ohio River. We were driving through still more farmland when I saw a bunch of cows in a
pasture along the road. I signaled for us to stop and we both pulled over to the side of the road. "I got an idea," I said. "Bout time! I thought I was going to have provide all the fun today!" I told Ol C.W. I thought we should get one of those cows, put it between our two bikes, and then take a picture of us and call it "Shing, Ol C.W. and their Kaws." He agreed that such a picture would be a hit with the group, so we
opened up a gate and drove our bikes just inside the fence. I started to try and lead one of the cows over to our bikes, but Ol C.W. stopped me. "Not that one! Get a cute one, for chrissake!" Not knowing which cow was a cute one, I told Ol C.W. to go ahead and pick one. He pointed out a big brown one and I went over and started to try to lead it over to our bikes. Cows in pastures don't have collars or anything, so it was kind of tough. I tried leading it by the ear, but the animal didn't seem to thrilled about that, so I resorted to
hitting it on the ass with a stick and trying to move it in the right direction. On the first swat, the animal took off at a trot, right toward our bikes. Piece of cake, I thought. But then, it stopped right as it got to our bikes, looked at both of them, and then procedded to mount my poor little 800. The rear shock bottomed out immediately as the damn thing started humping my bike. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open while Ol C.W. rolled on the ground laughing. "What the hell's up with this stupid cow?!!" I screamed "Hey!!! COW!!! Get OFFA MY BIKE!!" When he could stop laughing long enough to breath, Ol C.W. told me "There isn't anything wrong with that Cow --- 'cause it's a bull!" "Well tell it to quit ******* my bike!" "Your bike? You mean Elsie? I think he likes it!" Much more laughter. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed the bull by the tail. He liked that even less than the ear and I got a hoof in the thigh that sent me reeling. I got up just in time to see that I had succeeded in getting the animal off my bike. (I learned later, from Ol C.W., that what really got that bull off my bike was coitus with a hot exhaust pipe.)
But now he was pissed off AND horny, and he was taking a very unhealthy interest in me. Yes, it was that love/hate thing in his eyes for sure and I was on my feet and behind a tree in about half a second.
"Why ya runnin'? Whattsa matter, don't ya think he's cute! Bahahahaha
Finally, Ol C.W. started up his 1500 and the cow turned toward it. Ol C.W. taunted him and soon was leading the animal down the dirt road through the pasture at a trot. He yelled back to me "Get your bike outside the fence and hold the gate open for me and wait!" Once Ol C.W. and the bull were far enough away, I got from behind the tree and did just that. They went over a little hill and a minute later Ol C.W. came back with the bull running about 30 yards behind him. As Ol C.W. went through the gate, I slammed it shut. The bull stopped short of the gate and eyed us from behind the fence. "Aww, look at him, you broke his heart." Ol C. W. told me. "Did ya get your picture?" "No. Let's just leave, alright?" "Boy, you are some biker." I tried not to let on how much my leg hurt as I got back on my bike. We got back on the road and headed toward the Ohio River. We got there at about 6 o'clock and I was dead tired from being on the road since 8. Along the way, we ran into about 20 guys on old classic bikes, most of them British, in the town of Carrolton. They invited us to camp with them nearby, but I had a date later that night and Ol
C.W. promised his wife he'd be home, so we had to pass. We all said we'd be at the Vintage Bike show at MidOhio July 11, though, so it was well worth stopping. We got back from the river to I77, which takes me home, at about 7:45. That left me roughly 20 minutes to make it the 90 miles home in time for my date. Needless to say, I wasn't going to make it on time. I told Ol C.W. that, but I didn't seem to get too much sympathy. He seemed to think I should just forget the whole date thing and ride half way home with him and take another route home. "I'm stoppin' in Amish country . . . !" he said, trying to tempt me with the allure of my sweet Rachel. I actually thought about it for a second before saying "Naw, I can't, I gotta get home." So we parted ways at I-77 and I headed north into the evening soup of bugs and humidity and the haze of Mexican pot fields. I looked back just once as I was getting on the highway. I saw Ol C.W.
cruising west, head tilted back, nostrils flared, big smile, big wave. Great guy, great day, great ride.
Ya shoulda been there!
Shing
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