I quit three quarters of the way through my first year of college, hopped on my ’65 Triumph Bonneville and left the East Coast. I didn’t really fit in out East as you might imagine; I felt like a goose in the hen house. I was needing mechanical reapirs by the time I reached Kentucky. That’s where I should have gone to college, there were horses everywhere and those people really like to have someone around who can help them with horse problems. The women there have a certain charm that makes a young man feel special, that really impressed me. I had close to a thousand dollars in my pocket when the weather became hot and sultry, I kissed several close friends goodbye, headed Northwest and caught I 70 in Indianapolis. The weather wasn’t much cooler but I knew the mountains would start sooner or later, I headed West and planned on getting some relief fairly soon.
Before long I realized just how big this country is and riding one of those old fashioned motorcycles helps to reinforce the lesson. I headed North out of Denver because the Denver traffic seemed erratic and dangerous. The next day, I was riding West of Sheridan following gravel roads and admiring both Montana and Wyoming.
I saw a small ranch arena with a young woman working some 2 year old quarter horses, she looked like a barrel racer. They had an old hand pump well in the ranch yard, I pulled up and asked if I could get a drink and fill my canteen, she was exasperated but said to help myself. I sat under a Cottonwood and decided to watch the horse training in the shade. She rode a two year old and just barely kept from getting bucked off. I didn’t say anything, that’s not my style. The next horse was a sorrel filly, my dad always told me to watch those redheads; if they were anything like sorrel fillies, I could understand why he said that and why all the ranch hands would laugh at the joke.
She got the saddle on with a struggle, but when she tried to bridle the filly with a snaffle, the filly stuck her toes in the dirt and spit the bit, it wasn’t going to happen. I was about to leave when she asked if I could help her put the bridle on. I climbed over the corral fence and said, “I can get the bridle on, but you will have even more problems if I do.”
She looked at me as if I were a moron, “What do you mean?”
“Look at these bumps under the jaw,” I lightly touched he protrusions and look at the swelling along the bridge of the nose. She hasn’t shed her two year old caps and they are infected and sore. This red filly will buck you off and kick you on the way down for being so thoughtless; in her mind, she’ll think you’re hurting her intentionally. I gently took the upper lip and lifted it up. The four middle incisors, all impacted milk teeth, were all impacted and smelled bad enough to drive a bull dog out of a butcher shop.
“The vet just looked at the teeth and said they were OK.”
I looked her in the eye, real close, “Well, you tell me: did he miss a few things?”
“Can you help me out? she wont even let me touch her mouth”, she asked.
“Look, I am at least five times stronger than you. Touch the underside of your forearm and then run your fingers across your cheek.” She did as I asked, I then took her left hand and ran my fingers gently over her forearm and then brushed them lightly across her cheek. She was at least seven years older than me, but now she was intrigued by the lightness of my touch. The speed and strength of a man is only useful if the situation becomes desperate, other wise I will never touch this horse with more force than I used to touch your cheek. “Here let me show you something.” I draped the lead shank over my index finger and began to dance with the horse, that is getting her to follow my lead, in a few minutes, I had her taking each step with me slow or fast, she would would stride forward or back and pivot on the hind quarters or turn on the forehand with only me moving my body. The rope never tightened or slid off my finger; these were classic Barbwire Johnny moves that I had learned well, a long time ago.
“That’s enough, I’ll pull the teeth, put a hackamore on her and ride her without the saddle and have her green broke for you to ride her safely for $60.00 in three hours.”
“You can ride?”
“If we can get a rope on it, I’ll ride anything with hair and four legs!”
“How about you spend a month and get all three of these youngsters started and turning for four hundred? that’s top wages in these parts.”
“I’ll do the teeth, trim and shoe the feet and get them going for $600.00, you can pay by the week, if you don’t like the way they’re going, run me off with no hard feelings.”
“I’ll give you $500 and not a dime more.”
“Done”, I started to spit in my hand to shake and seal the deal, but realized I was dealing with a pretty woman and held off before I made a breach of etiquette. I had the lead shank over my shoulder and the chestnut filly had her muzzle in my back. I told the ranch woman to watch and walked away with the filly following me all over the corral. The lady laughed and introduced herself as Rose and showed me to the bunkhouse that would be my new home for a few weeks.
After the first week, I was running out of things to ask of the horses that was appropriate for their age group. I started taking them up into the mountains and jumping from horse to horse as they became tired or winded. The mountains were beautiful and the high meadows had millions of different colored wild flowers. I could see why people would fall in love with the Big Horn Mountains. I only rode with a saddle once in awhile to get the horses used to the feel, in the mountains I just rode bare back. Of course many people saw me and the moccasin telegraph soon spread the word about the guy riding a group of two year olds in the mountains bareback.
After my first week without being run-off, I was invited into the main house to partake of dinner with Rose and her father, Bob, a World War II fighter pilot from the Pacific. We hit it off really well and since most of my family were either Navy or Marines we seemed to have a kinship, from the beginning. Every once in a while he would invite me to his study for a shot of whiskey. On one of these nights, he told me had severe back problems from the war, he could walk well enough, but he couldn’t do ranch work; he then proceeded to inject himself, I assumed it was heroin, I have no way of knowing. I’ve never seen it before or since. I felt sorry for the man, he was a well respected rancher who was disabled and with only a hard working daughter trying to hold together a cattle ranch and I was there drawing top wages for a job that was already finished. I was not proud of myself.
After three weeks, I told Rose I was going into town for a meal and a beer. She probably thought I was older, for I was not yet 18. A result of applying to college a year early, a result of my time sequence problem courtesy of a bull that kicked me in the head at the Hudson’s Hope Rodeo a few years earlier. I didn’t know if I would be served or not, but I needed a change of scenery. Rose told me to have a good time in town and to be careful on the Triumph.
In Sheridan at the local cowboy bar, everyone started buying me drinks and wanting to know if I was Rose’s boyfriend. I assured them I was a hired hand and that was all. A few guys wanted to say rude innuendos, but my stern glare made them become interested in other things. I danced with a young girl from the reservation, we fell in love and locked belt buckles till morning. After breakfast, I was showing her and her brothers how to train paint Indian ponies. They weren’t real classy horses, but sturdy enough to carry the mail; they were easy, and they would have made good pack horses in the North Country.
Since Sunday was my day off, I rode back to the ranch after dark. Rose met me in the ranch yard and was madder than a hornet in an outhouse. She quietly told me to follow her to the bunkhouse and asked me where I’d been. I told her I met a new friend and stayed at the reservation. She asked if it was Josephina and I said,”Yes” thinking nothing of the information; realizing that the moccasin telegraph was still functioning here in the civilized world, I still wondered what all the fuss was about.
“Do you realize my dad’s sister came over to meet you today and we were all humiliated; because, you didn’t show up for dinner.”
“No one told me anything about it; besides, why is a lady coming to the ranch to meet a hired hand anyway?”
“Don’t you realize the opportunity that is here for you? My dad likes you! Do you know how many cowboys there are around here that would like to own half of this ranch! Do you realize how many cowboys would like to be married to me!”
“I never thought about it.”
“You damn fool.” She pushed me backwards onto my bunk and we had a passionate evening. I wont say it wasn’t exciting and sensual, but I didn’t look upon Rose as a girl friend. She was seven or eight years older than me and I had always treated her with the respect that you show to a boss. She was way stronger than I had imagined a woman could be in the throes of passion, probably as a result of always trying to do a man’s work on the ranch, it was a little overwhelming. In the wee hours of the night she kissed me and quietly walked back to her own bed in the main house.
I didn’t sleep the rest of the night and at daybreak, I started my Triumph and headed South East, three days l later I was in Bossier City Louisiana, one of the wildest towns I have had the pleasure of visiting.
It isn’t the fact that I was overwhelmed by an older woman, that part wasn’t all that bad, but I didn’t like the idea of being chosen to take over someone’s ranch by being the sexual object of a woman, made worse by the fact that I had never been let in on the plans. Free choice is important to Freedom Loving Americans and having someone take it for granted that you are going to like this new life they have picked out for you is not my idea of Freedom.
President Obama has his Socialist sycophants, ideologues, and Useful Idiots that are so anxious to take on the yoke of Socialism; however there are many of us that are not all that anxious to assume this new Utopian Identity and accept Obama and other Elites who happen to be his close friends to direct every detail of our life. Make no mistake, they intend to direct and dictate every facet of your life, until you all work for the state and do nothing without permission from the state.
Personally, I’d much rather wake up before dawn and ride out on a horse or a motorcycle, before giving anyone the right to tell me what to do and how to live my life for the rest of my life here on earth.
A professional horseman for over 50 years, Skook continues to work with horses. Skook has finished an historical novel, Fifty Thousand Years, that traces a mitochondrial line of DNA from 50,000 years ago to the present. The story follows a line of courageous women, from the Ice Ages to the present, as they meet the challenges of survival with grit and creativity. These are not women who whimper of being victims, they meet the challenges of survival as women who use their abilities without excuses or remorse, these women are winners, they are our ancestors.
Fifty Thousand Years is available in paperback and e-book, it is getting great reviews. You can purchase a copy here; Visit me on Facebook.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dylantheauthor
Skook, not that I didn’t like your more conventional posts, but I sure like your writing in this particular format, a welcome relief after the intensity of the election stuff. On your inspiration I am working on one as well. All the best!
Disturber
All right, Disturber:
Powder River, let’er buck
Too thin to plow
too thick to swim…Let’er buck Yahoo
Don’t keep us in suspenders too long
SKOOKUM: very well done again, I enjoyed the subject too. bye
Wow, . . . ringing thundering bells with the ‘65 Triumph Bonneville, Skook – my first love affair with a motorcycle, shortly followed by the Trident when it was introduced in the late ’60s, but the Bonny had a special place no other matched. All great memories. Thanks.
Very nice, Skookum!
Skook, really enjoyed the story. Great job. My first loves were motorcycles, not much into horses though, but definitely relate to the Freedom of riding. Had a 68 Bonnie with a T140 750/5 speed. Man I loved that bike, wish I still had it. Been nothing but a Sporty and Bonnie man my entire adult life. Once again really loved the story and the point of it.
Another great story, Skookum. I’m amazed, though, at how many people in your past were ready to hand you the farm — instead of trying to sell it to you! That chestnut filly wasn’t the only one with her nuzzle in your back, you goof. You’re just better at reading a horse, I guess. Not that it mattered, since the feeling wasn’t mutual.
Al, traveling on a bike and a horse are similar, even down to the problems and responsibilities. BC is a little like the rest of NA was before wire fences, up there your only fences are wild rivers and impossible mountains: when you travel down here, you are limited in most areas to gravel roads.
The old bikes broke down a lot and had blow outs on a regular basis, especially in the days of inner tubes: you need to nail shoes on a horse every four weeks if you are traveling fast and you need to find feed and water every night with a horse, instead of gas stations every 75 miles, back when gas was .25 a gallon. The station owners were never impressed with bike owners filling up with 60 cents.
Back then, a guy could middle finger salute the world and take off on a bike and take what the world has to offer. Now with commitments and responsibilities, freedom on a bike is a few hours at a time thinking about the days back then, at least for me. The only consolation, bikes are a lot more reliable, horses are the same.
Tooth, if you work with horses in North America, ninety percent of your customers are women and half the men are gay. I don’t relate well to gay men, we just don’t share the same interests or have much to talk about. I’m not anti-gay, but I’m sure if they could find a gay man to do what I do, I’d be replaced.
In Europe and South of the border all the way to Argentina, nearly all the riders are men: I don’t know what happened to the men in North America, it is an enigma, for sure.
All of this is kind of bizarre for someone who grew up in a world of men, men with the bark still on and proud of it.
Yes, I am much better at reading horses than humans. I grew up with a small circle of friends and acquaintances, almost all of them were men. When I was younger and nothing but muscle and young without a protective layer of fat; women were always laughing at me for missing out on opportunities with other women that were sending signals. Signals that I didn’t begin to perceive.
Horses are usually direct with no lies or innuendo. Spoiled horses are the enigma, for they view humans as handmaidens and can have a nervous breakdown if you don’t relate to them as a sniveling and overly affectionate coward. Most horses crave attention from those they respect and can’t stand attention from the faint hearted. So many of my customers live in a perpetual state of fear; yet, they crave being with horses and riding them. I suspect they have personality problems.
Wild rivers and Grizzlies present more rational fears to me; actually, you don’t need to fear them, but you damn well better respect what they can do.
JR and Al, The Bonneville was such a fast bike, I figured they could never invent a better one. I never turned down a race, either a drag race or a road race with a car or mc and lost very few of them. It was truly a different age without such good radios in the police cars.
If I had the funds, i would buy or restore an old bonny 60’s Bonny to relive the memories on Sunday afternoon and to just look at and admire the lines. I loved that bike.
I have raced a few Jap bikes on the track, they are great bikes, but without the romance. I still have a 91 Sportster (Then Came Bronson) the only TV show I have ever watched and a 97 Road King. I have just about given up riding because of people running stop signs and red lights and the illegals being able to operate their rust buckets without insurance or licenses in California. I have a vintage Mercedes in the yard now with the hind end smashed by an illegal without insurance, it was hit over a year ago by an illegal alien after I came to a complete stop at a stop sign, a concept that is incomprehensible for illegal alien drivers to understand.
I plan to start riding bikes again when I move from Southern California and the illegals don’t own the road. Seriously, they wreck a thousand dollar car without insurance or license and a month later they are back on the road. I know the scenario from watching the ones who have worked on my farm, I have seen the system from the bottom looking up.
Yes like Whitman I have hired illegals in the past, but I can no longer risk the money to keep the farm in production, so it is no longer an issue with me, except for their peculiar driving habits, they often drink heavily and drive on the weekend, so much so, that it is just safer not to drive at night on the weekend, especially on a bike.
@ Skookum, my Grand Father and my Father always green broke horses bareback, not for lack of saddles but for training the mount for the weight of a rider. The saddle came later as the horse became used to being ridden. I was taught that way as well. The Sioux heritage. Excellent horsemen of the Plains.
“Personally, I’d much rather wake up before dawn and ride out on a horse or a motorcycle, before giving anyone the right to tell me what to do and how to live my life for the rest of my life here on earth”
… I concur… js
OT, I never thought of it like that, but that is a good way to look at it. I lwys thought the back had to be strengthened to carry a rider and then a saddle. A rider will always fit a back, a poorly fitting saddle or a back that isn’t strong enough to carry a saddle, contributes to those habitual buckers.
Of course when I was colts while working, I’d spend a lot of time finding a pack saddle with kidney boards that fit the each back well and use two saddle blankets and pack the colt with 15 to 20 pounds. None of them ended up sore in the back and in a few days you could climb aboard for a few hours and then get on a different one for the rest of the day. They were too tired to buck and they learned to navigate the trail while they carried a light pack.
On their first kill site, I rubbed my hand over their muzzle with blood on it so they could not escape the scent. I then tied them to a tree close to the older pack horses: they watched in horror as the quarters and trimmings in panniers were laced on to the older pack horses that were quite nonchalant about the whole affair. I tried to arrange it so they saw this several times during their two year old year; because, next year it would be their turn.
All the horses I started in the mountains turned out well, except for my best saddle horse, she could pack as well, but every cold morning she would buck as high as a wagon wheel. No one else would ever get on her, except for kids, she loved kids. She would always buck towards other people and the campfire and never close to trees, if I started coming unlaced she would ease off until I was back in the middle of the saddle. It was actually fun, unless the night had been so cold my body was stiff, then the bucks really hurt; otherwise, she was an excellent mount climbing mountains, facing grizzlies, rampaging bull moose in the rut, or crossing wild rivers. I don’t know whether I made a mistake with her or whether it was in her DNA and it could not have been avoided by a better horse man.
I read cavalry accounts of the Sioux and of how they were amazed at how the Indians rode and fired their bows and rifles how their mounts performed with no apparent means of control: the cavalry officers lamented the occasional mount that was shot by a trooper with his own revolver or how the occasional ear was lopped off with a saber. Being a horse soldier was a tough business.
I learned to ride jumpers from one of the last of them. Now sadly, it is all in the past and will soon be forgotten.
Jesse, I suspect the veneer of civilization and political correctness covering you is fairly thin. Keep it that way, my friend!
Damn that was good-I didn’t want it to end-will you please put together several hundred pages? Tying things up at the end is fine and dandy but the middle of that story was fabulous-so make the ends the tie in to the title of your book, something like “Cowboys and Lefties”(actually there are a 100 words you can sub for lefties or “An American Cowboy”(are you Canadian? doesn’t matter though) or “Cowboy Idealism is Unfencable”
I made that last word up
Skook,
Since you’ve raced Japanese bikes, you have no doubt driven the V65 Magna road monster which, when introduced in the ’80s, was the fastest bike on the planet. Its smaller sibling, the V45 Magna road bike, however, with lower saddle, lower centre of gravity, lighter weight, beautifully engineered suspension, and more nimble, made for the smoothest, well mannered and easiest to ride bikes I’ve ever owned.
Since childhood, my dream had been to ride the California’s coast road on a bike. Bringing reality to the fantasies I’d created from from photographs, occurred on a V45 Magna, starting at Morro Bay, just North West of San Luis Obispo and following on Hwy 1 hugging the coast as much as possible all the way up to Eureka. Through the winding twists and turns, hairpins and straightaways, the perfectly balanced motorcycle allowed me to easily manage the gyroscope of the wheels through gentle adjustments of the throttle. Ease-up and it leaned for you into the turn; throttle-up and she straightened up to the vertical. With boots resting up on high foot rests, and leaning back on a rolled sleeping bag for lower back support, the motorcycle enabled maximum enjoyment of the most spectacular rides this world offers.
Along the road, the experiences from the back of a bike are made so much more present and penetrating. The brine heaved into the air by crashing waves hits the senses awake, as the sun dazzles, reflecting off a million fluttering waves. Getting off the bike, stretching the limbs, and walking into Katie’s for pancakes in Carmel, or turning West off the highway into Mendocino being lured by the smell of garlic as the town’s restaurants prepare dinner for the evening’s first sitting, or riding into Fort Ross, the 1812 Russian settlement on cliffs overlooking the Pacific, and whose governor finally just gave up and went home because no one cared, – each moment on the journey is savored with just a little more flavor, and more often, a lot more, from the back of great bike.
JR, I only rode Big Sur one time, but I slept on the beach, went skinny dipping with beach bunnies and had a ball, except for the price of gasoline. Now I cruise the Ortega to San Juan, run Molllholand at 3 AM, and do the Anza hop to Palm Springs on the 74. I always run in the middle of the night to avoid the Keystone Cop pile ups of sports cars and bikes. I know all three runs well and always do a dry slow run first to look for debris and radar. Great fun without going to the track. Besides, no one has asked me to go skinny dipping in a long time.
If I get back in the chips, this will be my next bike. I have only done club racing, I am too big to be serious, but I have the itch and a 150 mph for me is really cruising.
http://www.ducati.com/media_gallery/superbike_1198_sp/index.do
A very nice piece of wordsmanship, neighbor- I hope you’ll keep it up and serialize it.
Regards,
The Heavy Equipment Guy…
MM. I have started. The job of lifting the story from the archives and positioning them is larger than you might think. I will edit then so that the book is not obsolete when Obama finishes his term, which I am predicting will be before the two year mark in 2012. The investigations that are to commence after the first of the year, will be the one thing that the arrogant narcissist was not counting on and the one thing that will bring down his administration and I am not referring to his birth certificate. You can’t register a poodle just because it looks like a poodle, no matter how well the poodle can read a teleprompter, you must have documentation if you want to have a registered poodle. If you don’t care, you can say he’s pretty close, but you can’t say he’s a registered poodle and you can’t take him to show at the poodle show. That’s the rules for a damn poodle, but that isn’t Mr Arrogant’s biggest problem. Those will unfold this winter.
Anyway, I will continue to put it together and to write new chapters. If someone comes by and wants to publish it, I will deal; otherwise, I will publish electronically, through Amazon or one of the others until my finances recover. You never know, I already have picked up a horse mag job of staff writer, so things are happening.
Thanks for the interest, it helps inspire me for the tedious work ahead. Skook
I’ve never owned a Ducati, since I’m not into racers, but that is one splendid amalgamation of hardware.
I’ve come close, but never hit the 150 mark on a bike, though I’ve crashed through that speed with some of my bigger four wheeled friends, taking the more chickensh*t approach to risk. I do remember doing a steady 140 on my bike for a very long stretch along a two laner in Northern CA, until my mind pulled me out of the analgesic trance I’d slid into, and said “This pavement is shallow. If you hit a rut from peeled asphalt, or a small stone, you’re really screwed.” I eased-off on the throttle, but the exhilaration far exceeded that of hitting much higher speeds in a sports car. To this day that ride remains a sweet dream.
May that Ducati materialize for you just around the corner. As for skinny dipping, well, that’s for once upon a time for me – no room for scaring the very young grandchildren.
NOW Y’ALL SLOW DOWN , we dont want to loose any of you here; Y’ALL HEAR?
. . . But Bees, with Skook on that 1198 Monsterbike, it will provide him so much more with which to load his writing quill. 😉
Some one mention road racing motorcycles?
I’m a four time road race class champion (Suzuki750, Yamaha R1, and Aprilia RSVR).
I also created and ran a road racing school teaching high performance motorcycle riding techniques.
Wanna play?
TSgt Ciz,
My hat’s off to you. Besides the heroes who wear the uniform, there are few that I’ve had much respect for, and the Superbike Racer is one. On a very different level of course, but respect nonetheless.
Having experienced a little bit of reasonable speed, I can appreciate somewhat, the impact that Real speed (200+mph) might have on the senses of the rider astride the superbike, and I respect those who throw themselves into that game seriously, making a living from it. One hell-of-a-way of making a living.
I have two Husqvarna off road bikes at the house. They get infrequent use but are very keen.
TE 630s that are very good in the high country there. No road racing for me, Thank You.
I came off Jump Status a year ago and Terminal Velocity is as fast as I need to travel before I open my chute. I had HALO Training years ago and I loved it. But as my USAFA Second Year Cadet Daughter used to tell me, “But Daddy, only Fools jump from a perfectly good Aircraft!”
Jana green broke her Mare with a blanket and a hackamore herself and her Mare, Mata, named after an Author here, is a gentle Morgan filly that accepted a saddle with no great protest. Mata’s Momma is my Morgan Mare, Molly, that I trained for cutting, hunting and not dressage, steeple chase or any other such foolishness. We have working horses here that work cattle, not for sulky racing or any other purpose than ranching. Skookum’s equine skills are admirable and more than I learned but his ability to do the ‘tell’ on non-urban life surpass most folks abilities as does his experiences.
Great ‘Tell’ here Skookum, as always. There are Deployed Troopers that count the days until your postings here. It gives some of them a touch and taste of Home.
NOW ONE more, WE need some photos of all of y’all, that would be so nice,
how many more do we need to create a club, we have here experts 150, 140,
TSgt Ciz a time race road CHAMPION; gezz that’s flying.
bye very interresting
Ciz, if I remember correctly you are from the North West. Do you still ride on public roads or solely race courses. Do you ride in the rain? I went down in the rain years ago when I ran into a few leaves on a rainy day, that was quick; consequently, I only ride in the rain to get home, but if you live where it only rains five or six days a year, it doesn’t happen very much.
Some of the racers I’ve met wont even ride on public roads. I’d love to hear your comments. I love bikes, but I hate dodging cars.
Skook:
All of your stories are a treat, but please at least some of the times don’t remind us of the incompetents in office to segway too. We enjoy just the stories without a political lesson.
Please don’t take that the wrong way; most all writing you do is appreciated. I would just like to breath the air in those old stories without the stench of Obama coming into my nostrils.
JR, I’ve never owned a Ducati either, but they supposedly have their maintenance intervals and problems corrected. They sound great and look really good. A couple of ears ago, I pulled up next to one at a stop light. A teenager was riding it and the bike looked to have less than a hundred miles on it. I was admiring the bike and the kid got so nervous he fell over. Geez… A $20,000 bike and he drops it at a red light. They don’t weigh that much so I didn’t help him up, I figured he must have been embarrassed, so I just rode away when the light turned green, wondering if he was like Arnold and didn’t really have a Moto license.
I just want to go to track days, if I don’t get too old before I get back in the chips. I think Ciz could burn up The Streets of Willow where I used to go. Oh well. But those track days can fool you, you never know who will show up and be blistering the track. Watching those guys improves your riding. I can’t imagine what it would be like to race against them.
The Road King is way more nimble and easy to ride than you would think by looking at it, but don’t think you can tip it way over and look at it while you are stopped. At 800 plus it just keeps going over after a certain point. Thats what those so-called crash bars are for, dangerous in a wreck, but great to keep from scratching the paint when you let it fall. (I’ve yet to put my feet on them, a rider must maintain a certain degree of dignity)
jlfintx: I’ve heard that remark before, but we must remember that this is a Conservative Political Blog. I thought this analogy worked better than most.
I will try to figure some new Conservative angles and leave out the Arrogant Narcissist for the time being. Perhaps it is time to concentrate on our own people and a positive attitude. Thanks for the idea, jlfintx. Good thinking!
@TSgt Ciz:
I know how to drive a Gator. Always put the seatbelt on but do drive it without a helmet. 😉
@ilovebeeswarzone:
I second that, photos would be great, would love to have a face to put with these outstanding people. We did that at another place I once posted at although we exchanged photos privately. That would be fun.
@jlfintx:
I can agree but, Skookum ties it in so well and his mission is to educate us of the present by using his past and he does it so well. We just have to try to be as tough as he has been. Not saying we can, but we must try. 😉
MISSY: hi, if I may now on,advise the helmet from now on, It take less than a second to hurt your head, and you got only one and she sure is full of sparks,
bye
OLD TROOPER 2: hi, MAY I ASK, how fast is terminal velocity?
IT look quite fast with the word TERMINAL in it. bye
OT, I thought falling was a continuous acceleration of 8.6 meters per second squared. I didn’t know about terminal velocity. I know a little about high altitude low oxygen, but please explain this terminal velocity and describe the shock when the chute deploys at that speed.
My chainsaw is a Husky 480 and it is a workhorse.
I’ve never ridden a real dirt bike, but I used to take my Triumph through the forests, it was an early dual purpose bike. LOL
When I drove to Indianapolis, I stopped at a park with a gentle creek flowing through it with some dry creeks through the park. I used the dry creeks to launch my bike int the air and land on the rear wheel. It must have been on the weekend because there were many cars pulling off the road to watch the poor man’s version of Evel Knevel perform his daring jumps. Jumps that are very tame by today’s standards, but in the mid sixties, the people who lived in the city that is the home of the Indy 500 thought it was a good show. That was the pinnacle of my MC career. Eventually, while people were having picnics and drinking beer during the show, a park ranger told me that if I didn’t get my MC out of his park, he would arrest me. I thought he was being prejudicial against MCs and Free Enterprise, but I left quietly and headed West.
OT, I will churn out some more outdoor stories for our Patriots!
@ilovebeeswarzone:
I don’t drive it on roads, just on the property and it probably wishes it could go faster than I let it.
This is what a Gator is:
http://www.deere.com/en_US/ProductCatalog/HO/series/HO_gator_xuv_series.html
@ ilovebeeswarzone, Here it is. Not to worry.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml
With Combat load it is EXACTLY 580 Feet per Second. Years of that is just a commute to work for guys like me. Don’t bother with the math. Out the door and on the ground in the blink of an eye. Some of Us chose to do that. Never a regret but my Daughter still shakes her head and laughs.
HALO Jump here…
For you moto and car guys:
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/11/04/morgan-threewheeler-return-harley-power/
OLD TROOPER 2; that is DARING for sure, I bet you have good lungs to have sustain such AIR WEIGHT. bye thank you for the lesson.
@ilovebeeswarzone:
I saw the book cover from Oliver North’s latest book last night and wondered if OT ever had the opportunity to hitch a ride on the OUTSIDE of a helicopter.
Have only bought one of North’s books, but this book is a need to have. I hear it has lots of photos, maybe it will have one of OT but we won’t know it’s him:
MISSY yes I will get the book, it will be a good read, thank you.
I also think your GATOR is very nice to have around, and you can attach other stuff
needed in the garden. bye
Skooks, you gotta post something on Keef Obamaman( Olbermann) =that dog don’t hunt. It’s going viral and a ton of laughs. Libtards are threatening MSNBC with a boycott, if they don’t reinstate him as chief bomb thrower on Countdown. What a tremendous week!
Skook – This is well written, so much so that I felt compelled to give it another read. Memoirs can be powerful pieces of prose. Keep up the good work.
To Antics and the rest of you kind freedom loving people, thanks for the kind words, it would be foolish to thank each one of you individually, so I’ll let this suffice. You given me confidence to improve and continue. To tell you the truth, when I read your commentary, I find myself saying “I wish I could be that smart or I wish I could have figured that out. You are truly an inspirational bunch.”
Skook
Skookum,
Yes I am in the “North Wet” and it is indeed pissing down on us as I type. The wife (Stormy) and I together have 4 road bikes. Three are retired race bikes. When I have a running steed I ride it on the road, unless there is snow and ice on the road. And then I am more concerned about the cars hitting me than I am of dumping the bike.
Stormy got her nickname from her penchant for riding in the hurricane force storms for the adventure of it. She was pretty damn quick on her 125GP race bike too.
We have run Willow Springs, Laguna Seca, Sears Point, Thunderhill, Portland International Race Park, and Seattle International Raceway. Thunderhill is my absolute favorite. If you want to do a track day I highly recommend you try Thunderhill and ride with PSSR.
Racing in the rain is something of my specialty. There are some on bike videos on YouTube from my bike.
It’s not a good race as it turned out the bike was having electrical issues from the rain and was well down on power. That is a Ducati 1098 that I am battling.
The indicated speeds are 10% low so 160mph is actually 176mph.
Pictures can be found in my profile along with shots of some of the toy in the toy box, the wife and the dog.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1480582681
The biggest affect racing had on my street riding is it made me a lot more selective of *who* I ride with. I can be cruising along dancing with the Dragon in perfect time and balance an nary a twingling nerve and some clown will be nearly killing himself and everyone around him because he thinks he’s in a race and keeping up with me.
Ironiclly enough, when I was a kid in high school my step father was a Farrier and I used to help do corrective shoeing in the mornings before school. We raised Quater Horses and the odd Appy and Arabian. I used to saddle break horses until I was breaking a sun-dipper that pulled my groin muscle so bad I was in fear I might never procreate. Soon after I went into the Air Force and began doing a far better job at trying to take myself out of the gene pool.
Ciz, that is some serious rain racing, my heart was in my throat. I salute you sir. Impressive! There is a lot of unique talent around here, that’s a fact.
Vet day coming up. Worst enemy. Canadians!!!!!!1
Kinda late responding again on this thread, but the stories and comments have really got me in a nostalgic mood. Man what I’d give for an Ice cold 10 cent bottled Coke and a couple of 26 cent gallons of gas. Yeah “Then Came Bronson” was my favorite show. My favorite episode was the one, when he was in the Desert racing that Sportster. I was so takin with the show I painted the All Seeing Eye on the Gas tank of my Rupp scrambler. I also have the same tattooed on my stomach but unfortunitely its now got a scar right thru it from a bypass. Oh well. Don’t think I’ve ever done more than the TON on a bike. The Triumph only had a tach and the most I could get out of the Sporties at the time was about 105-115. My racing was limited to flat track/ short track 250s and a little motocross. All on rice. Oh a little Anglophile humor Skooks “We we’re Teabaggers (no not those kind) before Teabaggers were cool. 🙄 Keep the stories coming Skooks love it and most of the comments too. If you ever make it to Ga ya gotta ride the Dragons Tail.
Count on me to pick out the most controversial statement, lol. I do have to agree with this statement though. Why this situation exists is one of my great mysteries in life. I do not consider myself to be anti-gay, prejudice or inflamatory toward people of this pursuasion. Yet, I have found myself the object of hate, derided, mocked, and insulted to my face. I have seen peoples lives destroyed by “friendships” and “levels of compassionate understanding” which were beyond my comprehension.
There seems to be an almost irrational concept of “no threat” between a hetero-female and homo-male. It is as if they see “down the rabbit hole” or “are mesmerized by a charm”.
I can understand that the female feels no threat . . . that there is a level of comfort and security that seems to instinctive . . . almost like the “motherhood instinct”.
I have seen the most demure lady become a raging wildcat. I have watched as marriages were torn assunder.
I have tried to explain to a very select FEW that the lowering of instinct and the rise of protection toward a gay man, by a straight female, does in no way reduce the “instinctive hate” that rises up toward the gay man by the straight man, when the gay man infiltrates the life of the staright man.
Maybe I am over sensitive, but it is a scarey thing to see the above when it happens, and I HAVE SEEN IT!!!
Yes Al, I have read about the Dragon’s Tail and will try that hardy trail of hubris within the next few years when I must go there for family business affairs. I will not try to straighten it out: I’ll just concentrate on keeping the rubber side down.
In the 60’s, I didn’t think they could make a better moto than the Triumph; I was so disappointed to hear how fast that Kawasaki was that appeared on the scene I was depressed. Boy was I in for some shocks in the future.
I liked the way you could start the Triumph with the center stand down, walk away and it would take off on the next trip without you. Those were the days. I am lucky to have survived them.
Al, I am still amazed at how the header pipes stayed in or why. You just tightened them to nothing for no apparent reason, yes there was room for improvement, but what a great bike. The riders in Europe were winning everything on them.