I published the following story in 2011 in my first book (now out of print) so for those interested, here it is again..... "Yamaha Wipeout Artist"
I was sitting with Monte the other day, we were talking bikes and when we started riding and other sundry bits to while away our time at lunch. Since neither of us was feeling particularly proactive about work, reminiscing over rides of the past seemed like a good way to let the clock roll to 12:30. Unfortunately we worked in a cube farm and someone always manages to break the post lunch reverie with something pressing, like real work, so we were forced to kill the rest of the day being productive (much to our chagrin).
This led me to thinking about my first real bike, a 1974 Yamaha XS 650. It was 1976 and I was in the market for a car at the time and was shopping at some of the local dealers for a decent used vehicle. Since I was in college at the time I could only afford something sporty and fashionable found at one of those ‘corner’ car lots. Usually these types of dealers have a plethora of cars suitable for the scrap metal pile as well as some that are not so good. I was in need of some reliable transportation and hence was maintaining a jaundiced eye peeled on the local used car market.
On my drive to school in Manhattan, KS I would go through Ogden, Ks on the east side of Fort Riley. Ogden was a military community in that there were mobile homes out numbering homes on foundations by about 60 to 1. The drive through town center had some bars, liquor stores; auto parts shops, more liquor stores, bars and a car dealer at the far eastern edge of town. It was to this dealership I wandered in one afternoon in October looking for some transportation. The cars were all pretty unspectacular. Mostly he had vintage 1960’s hardware and a few repossessed 1970’s models. It was my habit in those days to pull the dipstick to see if the dealer had bothered to change the oil. On the repo cars they had indeed, and that made seeing the shiny bits of metal floating in the oil on the stick easier to see. It was during this hunt around his lot he took me to his shop to show me some cars not yet serviced. When we got into that building I noted some motorcycles sitting off in the back of the shop.
One bike that caught my attention was a XS 650 Yamaha. It looked positively huge compared to the other bikes. That’s because the other bikes were 250cc and 350cc street machines. I was enthralled and asked how much he was asking for the bikes. He quoted me prices and that put my brain into high gear. Somehow the whole quest for a car disappeared in a haze of daydreaming about riding around on a motorcycle. It was the call of the open road the mesmerizing effect of owning a ‘chick magnet’ the power to weight, the freedom, the exuberance, and the fact I was in my twenties and completely deranged. All those things added together to make my purchase decision leap from four wheels to two. The only real obstacle of course was actually paying for it.
I was on the G.I. Bill going to school and I was working part time at a sporting goods store in downtown Manhattan. The money from the government came in 12 months a year and the money from the job came in every two weeks, so as a college student I was comparatively wealthy because I could afford more than Ramen noodles. But the excess of largess wasn’t so extensive that I could plunk down the coin of the realm on a used motorcycle without first saving a bit. As any college student will attest, if you are at the end of the month and have more than loose change jingling in your pocket, you’re either dreaming or wish you were.
So I went on a savings campaign to purchase that XS 650, that included not eating lunch (which went really well with not eating breakfast), not paying for exotic luxuries like car insurance and putting as many hours at the part time job as possible thus reducing the annoyance of attending class. All this put my coffers into the black pretty quickly and by mid March I was in a position to actually buy that XS. The fly in the ointment would be if they had sold it during the intervening months. So it was that I again traveled to the dealership on the outskirts of Ogden and inquired if they still had any motorcycles. Indeed they did, and low and behold they had an XS 650. It was the same bike only now covered in a thick blanket of dust. And the price? Well that was the same as well, so I had enough money to actually make the deal, sign on the dotted line, acquire, possess and own the bike. I was ecstatic, I was thrilled, and I was an idiot.
During my lusting, saving, planning, scheming, plotting and starving to acquire the bike I had not actually learned how to ride a motorcycle. I had gotten out of the US Army with a laundry list of qualifications for driving everything from a forklift to a 5-ton tactical tractor-trailer fifth wheel and everything in between. When I applied for a driver license the Kansas Highway Patrol dude asked if I wanted a motorcycle endorsement on my license, I said ‘sure’ only because I liked the idea of someday riding a bike. But at the time I had as much hope of owning a bike as Richard Nixon did of becoming Pope. So I had the license in my pocket and zero skills in my hands so I was ready as Custer for a Lakota Sioux meet and greet. I was of course relying on my memory of riding motorcycles when I was in middle school and high school. Those experiences were garnered from friends that had motorcycles and would stop by to show off their rides. They would let me putt-putt around the street in first gear to show how great it was. During those halcyon trips I was riding bikes as small as 90cc and as massive as 185cc. Heady indeed.
Our next-door neighbors at the time were an eclectic family from the old South. And they had four boys, all of whom had mopeds as kids then graduated to motorcycles when they got into high school. So I got to ride behind people that rode. My older brother Mark spent a summer in Junction City, Kansas working for my uncle (his too) and took all his earnings and invested it wisely into a 1966 Honda CB350 Dream. I rode ***** to school for an entire year on the back of Mark's Honda. So I was imminently aware of how to ride (with the possible exception of actually using any of the controls). I knew how to lean with not against, I understood holding onto the seat strap and not the driver. I had mastered the stop so helmets don’t click and all manner of what the passenger is supposed to do. I was readily equipped for the front seat by golly.
So in late March 1976 I found myself signing the papers for a used 1974 Yamaha XS 650.
After we concluded our deal, money had changed hands and paperwork signed for title we strolled from the office across the highway to the shop to roll the bike out and get it running. To this point I had not actually even seen the bike running and it only then crossed my mind that maybe I should have actually spent a little time making sure I was buying something I could actually use. The lusts for ownership had given me such tunnel vision that logic and common sense had disappeared in my myopia for simple acquisition. Owning the bike had surmounted the reality of riding the bike. To ride the bike meant the motor had to run (unless I was willing to paddle walk it everywhere). So now was the moment of truth. The guy put the key in the ignition and switched on. The green neutral indicator came on (a good sign). He hit the starter lever, nothing (not so good a sign). He turned the ignition off and back on and tried again with the same result.
