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rad802 Member
since 2008-04-19
Posts 279KY U.S.A. 
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My earliest memory is of my sister and myself sneaking out through the front window of the house and riding our tricycles around the driveway. This was, as it turned out, to be the pattern for my life. My first love was music, more specifically Beatles music. I can remember standing on a street corner in Bombholder Germany in 1964 singing a Beatles song when an American couple stopped and gave a coin. I don't think they knew I was American also. It is the only time I ever sang professionally. At the time I was seven and my love for the Beatles was all consuming. The first time I rode a motorcycle was in the California desert while camping with some friends. At the time I was about thirteen and the bike was a Honda trail 70 or 80. I did fall over but only once or twice and more importantly, no-one saw me. About the time I entered high school my step father's brother gave us a Vespa 150. It was a good little bike and never gave us any trouble unless you tried to do a wheelie. The back fender would hit the ground and the shock would knock the rider off the bike. Then it would continue down the street without the rider. At the time I lived in Fountain Valley. Some of my friends lived miles away but this didn't present a problem. I would simply use the track streets and run with my headlights off. If I saw a cop I would jump off, kill the engine and start walking the bike. This worked well for a couple of years. That was all the poor Vespa lasted but it was not the bikes fault, it was me. When I was sixteen I got a Honda 160 scrambler for $250. I had my driving permit and life was sweet. No more walking or taking the bus. Unfortunately, I received two tickets and had my privilege to drive revoked. We moved to Anaheim and I turned the little Honda into a custom bobber but no-one else shared my enthusiasm for bobbed Honda 160's. Around this time I had started working with a man named Ray cleaning Sambo's restaurant at night. This was a difficult time for me because I was always tired working 5 or 6 hours a night and going to high school in the day time. The one shining moment in all of this was the night I saw my first old Indian motorcycle. We pulled into the Sambo's off the 5 freeway in Santa Fe Springs and there it was sitting in the parking lot with it's gorgeous rainbow painted valanced fenders. It was love at first sight. These fenders were designed by some old geezer around 1940 and as it turns out, he just happened to make them perfect. You cannot make these fenders any prettier. The only direction you can go would be uglier like the new Indian fenders. I said to my boss Ray "did you see the guy who was riding this bike" and he said to me "he's at the counter, you can't miss him". I walked up to the man at the counter and said to him "where did you get that bike" and he just smiled and gave me a Starklite Motorcycle business card. Sometime within the next week I went to visit the shop and I was spellbound by all the beautiful bikes They had two bikes for sale that I thought I could afford, one was a 1946 Chief and the other was a Sport Scout. I went back the next week and said "I'll take the Sport Scout" but it was sold so I bought the 46 Chief. I began paying off this $1500 bike with about $50 a month plus $5 for storage but after a few months a friend of mine named Jerry paid the balance and I then spent a few years paying him back. Wilson Plank, who now owns the shop in Fullerton, rolled the 46 Chief out the back door and asked me if I wanted to be shown how to ride it, I said "no thanks" and off I went. The very first time I drove into the high school parking lot, the prettiest girl in school who had never even spoken to me before, ran up to me and asked me for a ride. I thought to myself "I could get used to this".  It is not a good idea to ride a bike like this on a suspended license, by the time I got my license back, I had been given 12 tickets for driving on a suspended license. The same cop got me a few times. In 1976 the Indian was stolen out of the parking lot where I lived. I went out to ride it and it was just gone, for about a year I had dreams that I was riding the bike but I would wake up and remember that it had been stolen. Then one day while I was taking a nap in the afternoon, a friend came over and told me " I saw your bike" my brother had let him in and when I heard this I was standing before I had really woken up. "Where" I said, " "about a mile away", said Richard. So off we went, when we got to the house the sun had just gone down but the light in the garage was on, I peered through the one inch gap on the right side of the door and there was my bike. We drove around the corner and called the police, "how do you know it is your bike" they asked and I told them " I can see the discolored spot I repainted on the top of the rear fender. The police woke up a judge around midnight and got a search warrant signed, then woke the guy up around three in the morning. When I picked the bike up it would not run, I had to walk it home three miles and then found that the battery was hooked up backwards and the oil pump had lost it's prime. I was back on the road, no more bad dreams. In about 1978 I took the Indian apart because I felt that the bottom end was getting too sloppy. The bike sat in boxes for 18 years. The years from 1978 to 1990 were the lost years of cool motorcycles for me, I had a Kawasaki 350 enduro, a Honda 750K, even a Honda Shadow. These bikes were for the most part, just transportation. I also started having the dreams again where I am riding the Indian around and I wake up only to realise that the bike is in boxes in the shed. A worthy legacy is the irrevocable consequence of dreaming. Rick A. Delmonico [This message has been edited by rad802 (07-30-2009 06:11 AM).] |
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crosscountry83 Member
since 2009-07-30
Posts 345 |
That's sad, but neat too, sounds like you had a real passion. I can't wait to read the next parts. You like the Beatles? I do too! I like the Who, and the Kinks, and Bad Finger also though. Most my high school peers are missing out on great music.... Your an amazing writer, keep it up. Rileigh |
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