Summer of '47
Summer of ’47
EDITORIAL
IT WAS AS THOUGH I WAS SEEING MYself—not today, but 40 years ago.
As I sat at the traffic light waiting to turn left, my motorcycle’s engine burbling happily beneath me, I glanced over to my right and saw a little boy and a little girl, both no more than five or six, staring at me through the back-seat window of a brand-new Toyota. The little girl sat down and went back to reading a big book of some sort as soon as my head turned in their direction, but the little boy remained transfixed, preoccupied not with me but with the flashy Honda VFR750 I was sitting atop. It was apparent from the gleam in his eyes and the look of wonderment on his face that he had been totally captivated by the sight of the colorful, stunningly styled VFR.
Fm sure this little boy hadn’t the vaguest idea of what he was looking at. He didn’t know that it was one of Japan’s latest techno-wonders, that it was powered by a 100-plus-horsepower, 16-valve V-Four engine, that its aluminum-beam chassis had been developed on racing circuits all around the world; to him, the redwhite-and-blue Honda simply was a two-wheeled time machine, a magical device that could take me anywhere I wanted to go, any time I wished, and at speeds greater than even his uninhibited mind could fully comprehend. And as the light turned green and we went our separate ways, I couldn’t help feeling that my chance meeting with that boy had left a lasting impression on him.
Obviously, this was not my first encounter with a youngster who had been spellbound by a bike I was riding; it’s been a regular, sometimes daily occurrence ever since I started motorcycling some 30 years ago. But this time was different. I felt I knew exactly what was going through that little boy’s mind, because the whole scene was a virtual duplicate of one I had experienced when I was about his age.
To the best of my recollection, it happened 40 years ago, on a sunny summer day while my cousin Carole and I were riding in the back seat of my uncle’s brand-new car, a 1947 Chevy 4-door. Which means I was barely six at the time. While we were stopped at a traffic light, I heard a curious rumbling outside, so Carole and I climbed up and knelt on the seat to get a better look. What we saw was of no interest to Carole, who quickly sat back down and quietly continued coloring in the book her father had just bought her. But what sat idling on the other side of that window was something I had seen many times before but had never paid much attention to, something that would forever alter the course of my life: a motorcycle.
To this day, I don’t know what kind of motorcycle it was. A Harley would be my best guess, but still only a guess. I do know that it was very, very big (aren’t all motorcycles when you're six?) and very, very red (which might help explain my predilection for motorcycles painted that color), and that it sounded tremendously powerful even when sitting still.
As I stared through the window, awe-struck by the mystical machine rumbling beside us, my mind kicked into creative overdrive trying to imagine all of the wonderful things its rider must do with it. It must be the fastest thing on earth, I thought, able to go like the wind and take him where cars and other vehicles could not go. I decided, right then and there, that a more exciting way to go places couldn’t possibly exist, and that some day, some way, I would have a motorcycle of my own, and do with it all of the special things that only a motorcycle can do—whatever those things might be.
Of course, none of this is news to anyone who has logged more than a few miles on a streetbike; you can’t ride very far without encountering little boys (and, yes, sometimes little girls, too) who fall into a hypnotic trance when they get near anything with two wheels and a motor. They’re the fouror fiveor six-year-olds who stare longingly when a bike pulls alongside their mom’s car at a traffic light, who wave from the rear seat of the family station wagon at any motorcycle that rides along behind them, who walk up and gently, almost reverently, put a hand on a parked bike, as though touching it will somehow bring them closer to the magical experience of riding the thing. These kids don’t care which type of bike you ride, or about the brand name on the gas tank. They can become just as intrigued by a purposeful-looking dual-purpose bike as they can by a dipped-in-chrome chopper, as awed by a Winnebagoclass touring rig as by a zoomy sportbike. It’s a motorcycle, and that’s all that matters to them.
My encounter with that particular boy on that particular day did more than just bring back old memories, however; it made me realize that, when it comes to little boys and big motorcycles, things really haven’t changed in 40 years. The bikes themselves have changed radically, of course, as have society’s attitudes toward the people who ride them. But when a little boy and a shiny motorcycle come together, today, as always, there’s magic in the air. And as always, those encounters make indelible impressions on young minds, impressions that often result in those little boys growing up to become motorcyclists.
That gives me great hope for the future of the sport, especially now. Because even though motorcycle sales are down and the industry currently is mired in some of the toughest financial times it has ever suffered, I still see just as many little boys being mesmerized by motorcycles as I ever have. And as long as that’s happening today, there’s sure to be a steady supply of new riders tomorrow.
Paul Dean
