Motorcycle Road Tale - Just Ridin'

This is from one of our staff - Johnny P.

You know, ridin' is ridin'. But some ridin' is way better than some other ridin'. I ride to and from work 99 percent of the time. I ride to the store for take-out or for a six-pack. I ride to swim, I ride to grin. I ride to glide, I ride to hide. I ride, I ride, I ride. . .

Last December I started keeping track of my miles and have more than 22,000 so far. Some of the better ridin' I get to do though is on a day when I have no where to go. I'm sure you know the ones I mean - when my only decisions for the day are left, right, straight and where my next meal will be devoured. Recently, I had the pleasure to talk with this nice guy at a gas station who was taking a break from just such a "nowhere" ride. He was an older guy with short cropped, white hair, a sun-tanned face and that "nowhere to be" look in his eye, sittin' on a bench in front of the store sippin' coffee, smokin' a butt and lookin' out at the dirtiest bike I'd ever seen. As I strolled past him I leaned in and said in a joking manner, "Ya know, Ocala Harley washes every bike with a service."

"Nah, I didn't know that," he said while blowin' smoke. "I haven't sat still in one place long enough to know."

"Oh? It kinda looks like you've been mud boggin' with your bike, bro," I said.
"Nah, just a lotta ridin'. I just got back from the 4-corners and didn't take time to do much but piss, eat and sleep along the ride back. That was a grueling ride back."

Turns out his bike is an 2004 and already had 136,000 miles on it. Good God! I paused, back tracked a few minutes and asked, "The four corners you say? The rally out west?"

"Nope," he replied, still draggin' on his smoke. "My own '4-corners'. From here in Palatka I rode diagonally across America to the northwestern seaboard then it was south to Mexico, back to California, then up toward Canada over to the northeastern
seaboard and then south and back home to Florida."

I sat down on a bench across from him and listened for an hour as he took me on his ride. I now know the weather, the people, the places, the smells, and the feelings the excitement he experienced. I also learned about the exhausting nature of doing just such a trip on a motorcycle. We sat there and while he talked I just listened in amazment. As we said our goodbyes, ride safes and what have you, he gave me his card and asked me to make sure he gets on the mailing list for Dixie Biker. You see, his daughter maintains his mail box for him and sends him packages while he's on the road and she always packs a few Dixie Bikers in with each shipment. When he told me that, I was hit with a flood of memories of my own.

Thoughts of the road stories Billy Bob used to share with me when I was just a kid popped to the surface of my brain. Billy Bob is married to my mom, and I've known him since I was nine or so. He told me every tale there is to hear about riding. In the 60s, when he was old enough to get his license, and before he went off to the service, he took off on a 3-year tour of the North American continent. The stories he shared with me seemed simple and exciting at the time. Basically, as I remember the tales, he would ride till he was broke, pull into the next farm, work for a few days then ride off again. Then it was repeat! For three years. Way cool.

So when this guy, Jim's his name, was telling me how his daughter takes care of stuff while he's away, I got very happy, but then somewhat sad, too. It kinda hit me that we can't do that kinda ride ever again. "Shit just doesn't work like that anymore," I thought as I remembered Billy Bob's road tales. "There are just way too many things to take care of when you're that young." I just write it off as something I'll never be able to do; I'll just never have the time or the chance.

Yep, that's what I thought. . . till I met Jim that day. Then I realized that I'll have a second chance at that type of ride. I'll just have to do it when I'm all
done with all the shit I gotta do now. Until the time I can take a month off to make my own 'four-corners" road trip, I'll just do 'one-day-rides-to-nowhere' every chance I get!