When he was young my father rode a motorcycle.

Thursday, May 17, 2001

When he was young my father rode a motorcycle. Perhaps, that should read that he bonded with a motorcycle. With that touch of recklessness that made it so impossible for him and the other men in his family to do things in a quiet everyday manner, my father honed his skills beyond the point of no return.

He could ride the motorcycle standing up, he could ride the motorcycle standing on his head on the saddle. And every manner in which he rode it gave critics throughout the town and county a chance to opine that he was a damned crazy young fool who was gong to sooner or later break his neck.

The closest he came to it, I believe, was when in pursuit of my mother he decided to teach her how to ride the machine. They were married in the fall of 1911 so you can understand that riding a motorcycle wasn’t a common accomplishment for the young woman of the era.

My mother, though, was not typical of the women of her generation. While her friends who didn’t get married taught school or became nurses, she learned typing and shorthand. Learned it so completely, too, that at the time she put away her career to marry my father she was making a high salary than my father. Something he always bragged about.

One thing her affluence enabled her to do was to wear silk stockings, much more expensive in those days, rather than the rather drab lisle commonly worn by many of her contemporaries. She wore her silk hose when she drove the motorcycle and there is no doubt in my mind that the divided skirt she wore was short enough to do full justice.

She enjoyed the motorcycle and she and he who would become my father had many little trips. He was proud of her, but cautious, too. &uot;If you decide to turn,&uot; he warned her, &uot;Be sure to tell me so I can adjust for balance. It won’t hurt me if the cycle overturns, but it might hurt you.&uot;

Unfortunately the day came when a dog ran out in their path and my mother swerved to avoid hitting it.

&uot;I was under the motorcycle when it upset,&uot; my father told me with some bitterness. &uot;Did she come back to see if I were dead or hurt&uot; Not her, a cold-hearted wench as ever I’ve seen. She trotted over to the curb, sat down, pulled up her skirt and wailed that she had a run in her stocking.&uot;

They still had a motorcycle when I was a child. I never knew my mother to drive it then. She sat sedately in the sidecar and held me. Sometimes my father just took me for a drive. I enjoyed it greatly and was particularly interested in the manner in which he started the machine, by turning the end of one of the handlebars. I was only a little past four years old at the time, but it looked simple.

I might never have made the experiment, but my good friend, the little boy next door, did not live in a family that had a motorcycle. It seemed to me that he was miserably deprived.

My father was at work, and my mother was inside the house. I invited Wesley to join me in the sidecar, twisted the end of the handlebar as I’d seen my father do and was rewarded with the magnificent put-put of the motor as we took off.

My family home stood on a high hill sloping steeply down to the alley. There didn’t seem to be anyone around as we got underway, but rather a crowd had gathered by time we soared to our fast clip. My mother inside ordering groceries for the week, heard the neighbors screaming, flung the receiver at the phone and missed.

She reached the yard just as the front wheel of the motorcycle caught on the stake marking the division between the property next door and ours. We balanced there long enough for the adults to swarm around us and remove us from the sidecar. I was a little disappointed. I’d counted on a longer ride.

My father put the motorcycle up for sale the next day and it went out of my life forever. It was about that time, too, I think that parents in the neighborhood, seemed to rather hover around when their children were in my company.

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.