Personally I blame the film ‘Easy Rider’ in general but the think the real fault lies with the rock anthem by Steffenwolf called ‘Born to be Wild’. Since the early seventies I must admit that I have been a ‘closet’ Harley Davidson fan and have yearned to ‘head out on the high road looking for adventure’. However, for most of my life this wish has been greatly frustrated by the fact that I possessed neither the ‘loot’ nor the ‘licence’ to own one of those magnificent gleaming roadster machines. Thus, I was restricted to pedalling around as fast as possible on a rusty old bicycle so that my molecules and that of my bike began to become intertwined as predicted by Flann O’Brien in his book ‘The Third Policeman’. In fact, I probably personified the optimum fusion of sustainable energy between bike and bloke long before the ‘Greens’ were a twinkle in their mothers eye. However, it left me strangely unsatisfied and it was not until my humble family swapped houses with a family in Sante Fe, New Mexico in the eighties that an opportunity presented itself to redress the situation.
Upon arrival there, we were thrilled to become the proud possessors of a beautiful Adobe House just north of Sante Fe with two cars, a grand old barn and 4 dogs. It was truly magnificent to behold. Ok! There was a slight problem in adjusting to the dogs which consisted of two young Doberman pincers, (untrained and with an inherent taste for blood sacrifice), a cross bred of part Irish wolfhound of seeming similar age to myself, and something resembling a coyote wild dog. But the ‘piece de resistance’ however lay inside the barn where our owners had given us the keys to a pair of ‘His and Her’ Harley Davidson bikes for our use. Wow! All my fantasies of heading out on the high road to Las Vegas (New Mexico not Nevada!) to ‘sup’ at the Grand Plaza Hotel would soon be a reality I thought. At last, I would follow in the footsteps of Doc Holliday and other misunderstood ‘desperados’ like myself, and the realisation of my dream seemed to be only a ‘rev’ and ‘roar’ away.
Within a few minutes my good wife and I entered the barn to inspect our new metallic marvels. Soon, I sat astride one of the bikes, having been able to mount with the aid of a wooden stool I found nearby. However, far from ‘burning leather’ I found to my dismay that in fact the leather was burning me! Because the sun in New Mexico is so strong in the summer and had been shining directly onto the leather bike seat, I found my ass was soon hot as hell. The expletives emanating from me were so extreme that my status as a Hell’s ‘Angel’ might be open to question. Nevertheless I crouched over the bike in a pose reminiscent of what I thought Marlon Brando had adopted in a familiar movie still.
Just then one of our younger girls, who was about five at the time, entered the barn in an agitated state and shattered my illusions. Why do children always have to spoil adults innocent fun! ‘The ‘dopeyman’ dogs are biting the old hound’s nuts’ she exclaimed and ‘the ‘coaty’ dog is screaming for his supper’, she said. Furthermore, I’m sure that I heard my wife mutter under her breath that they were not the only ‘dopeyman’ round here. I’m afraid my moment in animated suspension waiting to hit the road vanished in a flash never to return. As John Wayne, might say, ‘it soon bit the dust’.
However, it is now many years later and the old knees are not what they used to be. Nevertheless I managed to salvage a little model Harley Davidson toy bike in a local store in New Mexico at that time which, as can see from the photograph accompanying this little nostalgia trip, I keep on a table beside me in the hope that I might one day relive by frustrated dreams. The old problem is that my little grandchildren now want to push it round the floor without any thought for its aesthetic or emotional value. Children have no respect for model machines!
As my ‘god wife’ (Lady GoGo) still deep down shares my dreams, I have given here a little figurine as a memento of our New Mexico lack of adventure and also to keep her hopes alive by depicting what I feel is a reasonable representation of what she might look like on such a bike today. (see photo). So I am off down to my local ‘saloon’ to quietly assess what I consider to be my last chance to realise my dreams next year when I hope to return to the Wild West. To many people therefore I may not exactly be an Angel, but I am going to ‘ride the high country’ on a Harley Davidson some day just for the Hell of it.
Upon arrival there, we were thrilled to become the proud possessors of a beautiful Adobe House just north of Sante Fe with two cars, a grand old barn and 4 dogs. It was truly magnificent to behold. Ok! There was a slight problem in adjusting to the dogs which consisted of two young Doberman pincers, (untrained and with an inherent taste for blood sacrifice), a cross bred of part Irish wolfhound of seeming similar age to myself, and something resembling a coyote wild dog. But the ‘piece de resistance’ however lay inside the barn where our owners had given us the keys to a pair of ‘His and Her’ Harley Davidson bikes for our use. Wow! All my fantasies of heading out on the high road to Las Vegas (New Mexico not Nevada!) to ‘sup’ at the Grand Plaza Hotel would soon be a reality I thought. At last, I would follow in the footsteps of Doc Holliday and other misunderstood ‘desperados’ like myself, and the realisation of my dream seemed to be only a ‘rev’ and ‘roar’ away.
Within a few minutes my good wife and I entered the barn to inspect our new metallic marvels. Soon, I sat astride one of the bikes, having been able to mount with the aid of a wooden stool I found nearby. However, far from ‘burning leather’ I found to my dismay that in fact the leather was burning me! Because the sun in New Mexico is so strong in the summer and had been shining directly onto the leather bike seat, I found my ass was soon hot as hell. The expletives emanating from me were so extreme that my status as a Hell’s ‘Angel’ might be open to question. Nevertheless I crouched over the bike in a pose reminiscent of what I thought Marlon Brando had adopted in a familiar movie still.
Just then one of our younger girls, who was about five at the time, entered the barn in an agitated state and shattered my illusions. Why do children always have to spoil adults innocent fun! ‘The ‘dopeyman’ dogs are biting the old hound’s nuts’ she exclaimed and ‘the ‘coaty’ dog is screaming for his supper’, she said. Furthermore, I’m sure that I heard my wife mutter under her breath that they were not the only ‘dopeyman’ round here. I’m afraid my moment in animated suspension waiting to hit the road vanished in a flash never to return. As John Wayne, might say, ‘it soon bit the dust’.
However, it is now many years later and the old knees are not what they used to be. Nevertheless I managed to salvage a little model Harley Davidson toy bike in a local store in New Mexico at that time which, as can see from the photograph accompanying this little nostalgia trip, I keep on a table beside me in the hope that I might one day relive by frustrated dreams. The old problem is that my little grandchildren now want to push it round the floor without any thought for its aesthetic or emotional value. Children have no respect for model machines!
As my ‘god wife’ (Lady GoGo) still deep down shares my dreams, I have given here a little figurine as a memento of our New Mexico lack of adventure and also to keep her hopes alive by depicting what I feel is a reasonable representation of what she might look like on such a bike today. (see photo). So I am off down to my local ‘saloon’ to quietly assess what I consider to be my last chance to realise my dreams next year when I hope to return to the Wild West. To many people therefore I may not exactly be an Angel, but I am going to ‘ride the high country’ on a Harley Davidson some day just for the Hell of it.
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