atomsplitter
Living Legend
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2007
- Messages
- 4,299
- Location
- Keller, TX
- Ride
- 23 Rocket GT, 20 Bobber Blk, 22 Speed Triple RS
So, it was with some regret that I aimed my improved XS into the side of that Buick with my only solace being that it would hopefully come to rest in the driver’s lap. I can recall the sensation of flying in an amber haze (not too surprising since I wore an amber face shield on my open-face helmet). And then I did a series of weird wakeups. First, in a grassy ditch. When I woke up, I managed to pull my helmet off. Back to sleep. Then I woke up and I heard but didn’t see some old geezer and he was saying something about “you’ll be OK.” That prompted me to ask if he was the bozo of record that had pulled out in front of me. I never heard his answer to that question because I fell asleep again. I then woke up again being carted up the hill in a bed, this was turning into a bad dream. I fell asleep again. I awoke again as I was being unceremoniously dumped into the back of an ambulance. I don’t recall falling asleep but I woke up in the ambulance because of all the racket from the siren and lots of jostling, bouncing, and road noise. I noted on that one particular occasion of my wakeups the lack of consumable atmosphere within the confines of the ambulance. When I brought it to the attention of the nimrod sitting in the ambulance with me, I was rewarded with a nose cup put over my face that supplied my eyeballs a steady stream of cold gas that refused to enter my lungs for some reason but did help to dry my eyes out until the lids stuck shut. I must have fallen into slumbers again because I woke up again as I was being jostled out of the ambulance and then again in a cold hospital room. I was beginning to think my problem was narcolepsy.
About my third wakeup call inside the emergency room after another jostling to get me out of the ambulance, my brother Mark appeared bending over me. That was a total mystery, as I couldn’t recall phoning him, or even seeing him the past couple of days. While I was trying to gather my wits to explain rationally to him that I had just been launched into low Earth orbit for no good reason and without benefit of a rocket booster some lunatic in a lab coat started saying something about me and getting a standing chest x-ray. I would have ignored him, but he was talking directly to me. I suggested as politely as I could muster that he go stand in front of the machine and let me know how it turned out. He insisted I do it myself. I think he was a crack head before crack heads were invented. At any rate I asked him politely as I could given the circumstances if passing out and hitting the floor would cause any more damage to my body when (not if) I slammed into the terrazzo floor for his stupid chest x-ray. He reassured me that it was a hospital; and they can fix whatever else I broke. Nice bedside manner.
When I got out of the hospital and had recuperated sufficiently to return to work my boss, a really nice guy but somewhat given to a dark sense of humor had prepared a special t-shirt in my honor upon my return to active duty. On the front was a cartoon of a guy that had fallen ass down into a toilet so the only thing showing was the top of his head and his shoes and a hand clutching the end piece to a roll of toilet paper. The caption read “One of those days.” On the back of the shirt he had stenciled the phrase, “Yamaha Wipeout Artist.”
Epilogue:
Looking back on it from the perspective of 50 years later I have to admit that first bike was an adventure on the learning curve, both as a rider and as repair technician. I learned a lot of what not to do from those experiences while not being able to shed the motorcycle bug. Since that first Yamaha, I've owned all the Japanese brands and found them all to be well engineered and usually easy to maintain, but none of them stirred my soul like Triumphs have and still do. That's why my garage is full of them and not Hondas.
About my third wakeup call inside the emergency room after another jostling to get me out of the ambulance, my brother Mark appeared bending over me. That was a total mystery, as I couldn’t recall phoning him, or even seeing him the past couple of days. While I was trying to gather my wits to explain rationally to him that I had just been launched into low Earth orbit for no good reason and without benefit of a rocket booster some lunatic in a lab coat started saying something about me and getting a standing chest x-ray. I would have ignored him, but he was talking directly to me. I suggested as politely as I could muster that he go stand in front of the machine and let me know how it turned out. He insisted I do it myself. I think he was a crack head before crack heads were invented. At any rate I asked him politely as I could given the circumstances if passing out and hitting the floor would cause any more damage to my body when (not if) I slammed into the terrazzo floor for his stupid chest x-ray. He reassured me that it was a hospital; and they can fix whatever else I broke. Nice bedside manner.
When I got out of the hospital and had recuperated sufficiently to return to work my boss, a really nice guy but somewhat given to a dark sense of humor had prepared a special t-shirt in my honor upon my return to active duty. On the front was a cartoon of a guy that had fallen ass down into a toilet so the only thing showing was the top of his head and his shoes and a hand clutching the end piece to a roll of toilet paper. The caption read “One of those days.” On the back of the shirt he had stenciled the phrase, “Yamaha Wipeout Artist.”
Epilogue:
Looking back on it from the perspective of 50 years later I have to admit that first bike was an adventure on the learning curve, both as a rider and as repair technician. I learned a lot of what not to do from those experiences while not being able to shed the motorcycle bug. Since that first Yamaha, I've owned all the Japanese brands and found them all to be well engineered and usually easy to maintain, but none of them stirred my soul like Triumphs have and still do. That's why my garage is full of them and not Hondas.
