Saturday, June 17, 2006

Holy Crap 12 days

Happy Birthday Mom!

As a side note, Blogger is not letting me post pictures at the moment, so Pictures will come soon. We swears it!!!!

Sorry everyone for the lack of posting. Jeez i find myself saying that more and more these days. Anyway, I've been passing a class for a friend of mine, and that has taken more time that i expected. But now that he is done with that, we can spend more time together, which will be awesome, and less stressful. DAMN business stuff is boring.

So I did kindof a neat thing today. After living in wyoming for so many years, and seeing all the bikers on their way to sturgis, I got used to the sound of harleys cruising down CY and Poplar being obnoxious. It was always a wierd feeling to see the mass of 20 or 30 bikers coming at me, and I was always secretly jealous of the friendships and the stories these folks made on their bikes. A lot of people talk about the freedom a bike gives you, and I always wondered what the hell they were talking about.

I've been bitten by the bike bug.

Turns out, you can rent a harley for a couple of hours, or a whole day, or a week, or whatever, and ride it around, and return it without the guilt of a wife going, [in dad's grandma voice] "What the hell did you buy that bike for you son of a bitch. We cant afford that. You can only ride that 6 months out of the year! Stupid bastard." Plus, if you are apartment dwellers like ourselves, you can rent the bike, and give it back without worrying about where to store it. It's a $20,000 dollar bike, you don't leave it in the rain.

I used to think rental was kindof dopey, because I only thought about rallys, you know, people renting a bike for a week, going to a rally, reciting that they loved their bike, and everything about it, then giving it back. Dopey assholes. But, it's not just for rallys....

Mom brought up the idea that there is someone in our family who loves to ride, my dad, but he never gets the chance, and hasn't been able to ride in a long time. And it's fathers day. So, mom went to d-town, and left me, little red head me, in charge of renting and procuring the motorcycle on my own. Ha. Now, I'll admit, I'm not a biketard. I know the parts of the bike, and what they do. And i can ride around the parking lot on steves bike with him holding on and the training wheels on. But what the fuck do I know about picking out a bike. Seriously.

So I go to the harley place, and i walk in, little me, and the people there were really cool. I approached the rental guy and he said, without missing a beat, "what kind of bike do you like to ride." Well, thanks. not for me. I explained I was looking for a bike for my dad. Blah blah blah. so I was just kinda looking, not really sure about renting. He points me in the direction of this beautiful maroon one, and I was like, oh yeah. This is gonna be a great thing. So, we start the paperwork, turns out the maroon one, the Stud, is not available. So we go back to looking for bikes. We find the stud's brother. He's just as fit, but more beautiful. I picked out this blue one, didn't know about the pipes and what have you, but picked it out none the less, and rented a motorcycle from 9am till noon the next day. HA! I get the bike in two days and I have to keep this shit secret, which is not easy. I wanted to tell him SO BAD.

So then comes the trouble of suprising him. It took so much. Well, here's the deal. I was gonna take him to breakfast but the road the harley shop is on is deserted except for a U-Haul place and the harley shop, and a closed huddle house. It was so hard to get an excuse to go over there.
The night before, Steve and I had been working on his presentation until 5am, so i went home, and tried my best to wake up about 8, and dad was like, "what are you doing awake?" I got myself up, and asked him if he wanted to go for a drive with me over to west ashley (it's actually in north charleston but it threw him off just as well.) He said sure. I told him to put pants on and shoes (i didn't think about boots) and we'll head out. He said, is this a father's day suprise? i said, yeah... He said, oooooooooh. He was guessing all sorts of things!!! Alligator farm (the pants really threw him) walking trails, car show, all sorts of shit.
So, we are pulling around to the harley place, and kinda going by, and he goes, "the U-Haul place? Did you ship my car out here?" No.... So I pulled into the harley lot, and said, "dad, wanna go for a ride?" He said, his actual words were, "Wha.... Sure!" I said okay! We pulled into a parking place, and he said, "Oh my god, Did you rent one?!" I said yeah!! Ladies and gentlemen, never have I seen a man so suprised. He was so thrilled!!! So we went in and went through the muddle crap of renting blah blah blah... But when dad got on the bike, he looked like it was his. And it was. I felt bad because the first bit of the ride was a little rough, he only had his glasses, and the helmet he got a was a little wierd, well it was really wierd, but we went home, got our shit together, and off we went, dad and I, on the back of a blue motorcycle.

I never understood what it was all about. But I get it now. This was just dad and me. We had lunch together, and talked about the bike, and went down all the beautiful roads we wanted to go down, and go over the bridge together, (sorry about the photo in front of your face dad.. Oopsie!) we went downtown, which, i don't know that I had ever seen charleston that way before. it was so different. It was so bumpy! It was so wonderful, a lot because it was on a bike, but mostly because I was with my dad.

Dad drove me back to steve's work where my car was parked, and we parted ways. He got back on his bike, and I got a call from him at work at 7:00 at night, and he said he put over 100 miles on it. Today when we turned it in it had 205miles on it. What a kickass time.

We woke up again today, took my car over to the harley place and then i got on the back and we went to the beach to meet two of dad's friends that he hadn't seen in a while. Dad's helmet was being wierd, and that made it hard, but next time we'll know better. I had so much fun, and I think he did too.
We turned the bike back in today, and kinda looked at other ones. There are so many types you can rent, it'll be fun to come back and do it again.

So they can have the bike back, but they can't take away the memories I've just been given.
I love you dad!
Happy Father's Day.

2 Comments:

<$I18NCommentAuthorAdded$>

I am so glad you have had a chance to share such an amazing feeling with Dad. He is an outstanding driver and he makes it fun. Its sad that motorcycling is so dangerous because of other drivers who dont respect them enough to learn what to do to make it safe for all of us. I am immensely jealous but immensely thrilled that you got to do this. Your writing was so great, I can hear your voice and it made me cry. Dad is such a unique and talented guy I hope this is one of many experiences you two can have. So Are we saving our money for BIKES FOR EVERyONE???? I guess we better ask Santa.
mom

10:53 AM  
<$I18NCommentAuthorAdded$>

That is the best father's day gift ever. I felt all mushy while reading it, good job Kiddo!

10:20 AM  

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