Dam!

Ah, a play on words…you really didn’t think I’d use foul language on the blog, did you? 

The real deal...or a dam fake?

I spotted this photo on our good buddy Cyril Huze’s motorcycle blog with my morning coffee earlier today.   Cyril’s blog is one of the best motorcycle blogs in the world, and if you’re not following it, you owe it to yourself to take a look.  

So, back to the photo…it shows a Chinese guy riding across the top of a dam, and because it’s a Chinese motorcycle photo, it’s the obligatory pose showing an entire family clinging on to the bike for dear life.  I don’t know if it’s real or if it’s been Photoshopped, but a few minutes of research shows that it’s all over the Internet. If it is a Photoshopped photo, a lot of folks bought into it.

But whether or not the photo was faked isn’t what grabbed my attention. Nope, that was something altogether different.  When I was a kid growing up back in New Jersey (a very rural New Jersey in those days), I did almost the same thing.  I didn’t ride a motorcycle across a dam, but it was a local challenge to take off your shoes and socks and walk across the dam at the “Old Mill” (there had been a mill there decades ago that burned to the ground, but the dam remained).

A couple of years ago, I stopped at the Old Mill and grabbed a photo…yep, it’s still there…

The scene of the crime...the Old Mill

Those were fun times.   The Old Mill was a few miles from my house, and the big adventure when we were kids was to ride our Schwinns to it (wow, I wish I still had that bike!) and generally fool around when we got there.    Walking across the top in your bare feet was exciting.  The water was only about 4 inches deep as it rushed over the top, but that top was coated in algae and it was slick!   And 4 inches of rushing water carried a lot of power.   Pauly, Zeb, Verny, my cousin Bobby, and me…those were grand times for youngsters back in the day, riding our bikes and pretending they were motorcycles.   My Schwinn had chrome fenders, and I used to imagine it was a BSA 650 Lightning.   Fun times, like I said.  Hard to imagine it was over a half century ago.

And speaking of my cousin Bobby…I looked around for a handy photo of him and the only thing I had quickly available was the coffee cup in front of me.   Bobby was out here about 18 years ago, I snapped a photo of us by my Harley, and I had one of those shopping mall kiosks put the thing on a coffee mug…

Bobby and yours truly on my favorite coffee cup

Sorry for the poor image quality…when you get one of those mugs made they tell you not to put it in the dishwasher.  I don’t do too well with rules.   I guess you can see that in the dishwasher-faded image above.

Bobby’s about 5 years younger than me, and we were thick as thieves when we were kids.  So how does all of this figure into that photo Cyril published with a dam?   Well, here goes…

When we were kids, my Dad had one cardinal rule I probably heard the first day I was born and at least weekly from that day forward.   It was simple:  Never mess with firecrackers.  

Dad lost two fingers when he was a kid fooling around with firecrackers cutting them up to pour the contents into a pipe to make a bigger firecracker.   You know the nutty things kids do.   The result was a spontaneous ignition and when it was all over, my Dad had two fewer fingers.   Hence, the constant drumbeat:   Don’t mess with firecrackers.

Well, you can guess where this story is going.  I couldn’t wait to mess with firecrackers.   One day, Bobby, my friend Verny, and I rode our bikes to the Old Mill, and what do you know, Verny had a whole bunch of firecrackers in his saddlebag.  Wow.  The forbidden fruit.   He even bought matches.   Boy oh boy, was that fun…lighting the things and throwing them out over the water.   Bam!    Bang!  Pow!  It was like being in a Batman TV show.   Awesome fun.

Boys will be boys, and Bobby was the youngest.   It wasn’t too long before Verny and I were lighting the things and throwing them at Bobby.    We were all laughing and having a good old time.   Even Bobby.   He thought it was fun, too.  Right up until the time one of the firecrackers landed in his collar, right behind the back of his head.  To this day, I can still see it.   It seemed to happen in slow motion…the little inch-and-a-half Black Cat slowly tumbling through the air, its fuse sparkling, and then lodging for a second in Bobby’s collar.  And then…BOOM!

All laughter stopped at that point.   Bobby froze, not making a sound after the detonation.   The firecracker literally blew all the hair off the back of his head.   It looked like an orangutan’s butt…bright red and bald.

Bobby came through it okay.   Me, not so much.  I knew what would happen when my Dad saw this.   It was a death sentence.   Verny knew, too.   Wow, were we ever in trouble.

So after we all calmed down, we came up with a plan.   Maybe if we gave Bobby a haircut, it wouldn’t look so bad.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.   A quick trim and no one would notice.   Ah, if stupidity were only money…I’d be the richest man in the world.

We rode our bikes over to Verny’s house, found a couple of scissors, and went to work.   After a few minutes, we realized what a sorry state we were in.   Instead of just looking like a kid who had all the hair blown off the back of his head by a firecracker, Bobby now looked like…well, a kid who had all the hair blown off the back of his head by a firecracker who had a really bad haircut.   We were cooked.

All three of us rode to Bobby’s house, where my Uncle Herman (my Dad’s brother) took all of this in.  Herman had been there when Dad had the accident that cost him his fingers (which, when I think about it, would have been about 80 years ago now).   Uncle Herman knew what the outcome would be if my father ever found out about what we had done…I wouldn’t have made it to adulthood, and you wouldn’t be reading this blog.   Herman did me a whale of a favor…he and Bobby stayed away from our house until Bobby’s hair grew back.   Herman, you’ve been gone for decades now, but trust me on this…I’m still grateful!

So, that’s my dam story (with, as you’ll notice, no “n”), and it was set in motion by Cyril’s blog.

I’m headed over to the Scooter plant this morning, folks.   After more than 3 years of hard riding on my CSC 150 (the old Baja Blaster), a bolt finally vibrated off the bike.   I’ll be picking up a new bolt and Loctiting it in place later this afternoon, and then I’ll have my knees in the breeze again.  That ain’t too bad…one bolt in 3+ years of hard riding all over California and Mexico.   On my Kawi, stuff falls off a lot more often than that, and when I had that old Harley (the one you see on the coffee mug above), bolts and other stuff fell off on nearly every ride.

The Baja Blaster...my great running and long riding CSC 150!

Later, my friends…ride safe and stay tuned…and don’t mess with firecrackers!