Captainkirk's Duster project

Chapter 12

There's something to be said for triumph in the face of adversary. Let’s face it; the powerplant stuff had been a snap for me, compared to some of my classmates. I'’d been a motorhead long before this particular chapter of life had come along. I believe scientists will someday identify a motorhead gene on the DNA “spiral staircase” Double Helix of Life. My mom tells stories of me as a little kid following the neighbor around his back yard with the power mower making “bbbbbrrrrrr” noises with my mouth; …see, my Dad had one of those reel-type push mowers. I knew where the action was. Even then the allure of a single-piston Briggs & Stratton thumping up and down had me mesmerized. By the time I was five I was taking **** apart and trying to figure out how to put it back together. I can just see about 50% of you readers grinning like a Cheshire cat, '‘cause you know exactly what I’'m talkin'’ about, don'’cha? Yeah, you do. You'’ve got the gene too. For the rest of you going “"What the bloody hell is he talking about……?"” Just read the story and forget I even mentioned it, OK? (wink, wink)
I took apart my American Flyer train. I took apart anything I could drag home out of the garbage. By the time I was nine I’'d built a bike out of scrap-heap parts and painted it a deep, pleasant forest-green, constructed in the cool, damp confines of Dad’'s basement workshop. Dad’'s shop was the coolest place on earth (with the exception of Uncle Andy’'s farm.) It was cool, even on the hottest summer days, and had a pleasant, dampish smell; not musty, like a dank, dark cave, but rather a pleasant, earthy kind of smell. Dad had this plethora of heavy metal drawers full of nuts, bolts, washers; you name it, it was there. And there was every tool that Ward’s Powr-Kraft had ever made, I swear! It was the perfect place to incubate a young, developing motorling-cub and I took full advantage of it. Plus, there was the added advantage that mom & dad let me roam free in there… as long as I didn"’t hurt myself, or break or lose any tools. The rules were pretty cut and dried.
Now, back to the bike; I sanded and rattle-canned the rusty old rims a bright, glossy Rustoleum White ( mainly because that was the only color there in the shop), long before this was considered cool, and shortly thereafter had the coolest (and fastest) Stingray on the block. I felt like a pint-sized James Dean… or Steve McQueen. This bike reeked badass!
And then on Bodyman Mike’'s birthday, his mom & dad took us to see this movie……. Evel Knievel.
And so we started in with the jumping.


The jumping began innocently enough; first we built a simple ramp, probably about a foot tall; enough to jump a single garbage can laid on it’s side. We had a dogleg back road leading up to this field. The ramp was a straight run off the straight part of the dogleg, so we could get a good running start on the road leading up to this field, which would then dogleg right. We would continue straight, up the ramp, and jump into the field. The soft grass of the field would allow us to land and provide cushion in the case of a mishap, or botched landing…… (not that we would ever need it....yeah, right)
Actually, the first couple of attempts went fairly well. Once we had developed a sense of balance and learned to keep the front end up, it became easier and easier to gain altitude and distance. One garbage can graduated to two, and the ramp angle increased as the height grew to two feet, then three. The jumps extended to 6 feet, then seven, and beyond. And this began to separate the men from the boys (well, the younger boys from the older boys, anyway). The first one to ball it up was Danny P., Mike’s younger brother. He caught a handlebar in the gut, bent a wheel and went home crying. Donny was the next casualty, loosening a tooth and giving himself a black eye in the process. The smaller kids went home, and the table stakes went up.
By this time it was impossible to land on your seat, banana seat or not, sitting down. The correct procedure was to stand up as you launched, lock your down-pedal knee, and flip the rear of the bike sideways, landing on the rear wheel and using your knees as the shock absorbers. Those of us remaining became pretty proficient at doing this and would spend hours practicing in the back field, after the road traffic had died down for the evening. We had a pretty good thing going until Billy came along.
Billy was an older neighborhood kid who was, shall we say, "“special"”. He talked like the cat had his tongue, (actually, as if the cat had eaten part of his tongue) and possessed all the intelligence of a dirty wooden tent stake. Being “"special”", he was treated differently by people and as a result was used to getting his way; in actuality he was a bit of a bully because of it. So when Billy came around and discovered us jumping our ramp, he immediately insisted on giving it a whirl and would not take “no” for an answer, when we tried to talk him out of it, insisting that he, too, “Biwwy”, would “Dump the Wamp”.
Have at it, Billy.
Well, there we were, with our custom Stingray-type 20” bikes and a couple hundred jumps under our belts, and here was Billy the Bully, with nary a jump under his belt on this huge Schwinn bike. Face it; the kid could barely ride a straight line. He rode all the way down to the very end of the street and came barreling towards our rickety little ramp, legs flailing wildly and the bike wobbling back and forth like some bizarre circus act, resembling a praying mantis on steroids. It was much too painful too watch, and far too entertaining not to.
Houston, we have a problem.
The Eagle has landed...……on his head.
We were in stitches. We were rolling on the ground in gales of laughter while Billy flailed around like a fish on a dock hooked to a..….bicycle? If we'’d had a video camera, I’'d be living off the royalties yet today. Billy flailing around, blood gushing from his bloody nose and shrieking unintelligible “"special"” words in that language only a mother could translate. His front wheel was bent over almost double, spokes poking out like a chrome cactus. His handlebars were skewed at an absurd angle, and he was pissed. Wet hornet pissed. Billy was pissed at us and our ramp. And the fact that we were howling and shrieking with laughter didn'’t help …much.
He finally got untangled from the mangled wreckage and began chasing us around in a Benny Hill sort of fashion. When he couldn'’t catch us, he turned his fury toward the ramp that had struck the blow of indignity, then onto Mike'’s garbage cans after making kindling of the ramp. We rode away, leaving him to his destructive ranting, and our ramp-jumping days were over. But we had all learned a little bit about chance, about daring, about pushing the envelope. About free flight, baby. And we kinda liked it.