Bitch Seat

(reposted)

The lovely and talented Joanna called to see if we could go for a putt around the bay; her offer to buy the gumbo was an unnecessary enticement, but where I come from it’s a sin to turn down hospitality.  I mounted the big yella bike and was OTB (over the bridge) and at her door in short order.

How the lady had grown into the full flower of womanhood without having been exposed to bikes is anyone’s guess, but she was surely hooked after her first ride.  And she didn’t just want to be a passenger; she wanted to be a good passenger and that meant learning about every aspect of motorcycling.

Jo put her stuff in the saddlebag (“A girl needs her stuff.”) then grinned up at me and asked, “So, did you Armor All® the bitch seat, again?”

“I don’t have a bitch seat”, sez I.

She’s not the first woman I’ve ever known so it was no shock that she wouldn’t accept a mere fact as an answer.
“Well, Clarke told me the back seat is called a bitch seat and when you ride there you ride bitch.”

Clarke’s a RUB, a nice guy, but a RUB; that is, after his new Geezer Glide’s second oil change, Clarke still doesn’t know which side of the engine the drain plugs are on.

“Clarke’s a RUB,” I told her, “he probably doesn’t mean to speak like ghetto trash (putting it delicately), but he’s a product of a pop culture that marginalizes women.  Back in the day, we referred to riding two-up (as it’s called) as packing”.

“So, what did you call the, uh, passenger seat?”

I looked her in the eye and replied, “The snatch pad”.

After a couple of minutes she had regained some of her composure, dried her eyes, and asked for a description of said pad. Without going into detail, just let me say that her reaction cost us another couple of minutes.
(Yeah, some called it a “P pad” but I always figured it was probably a non-functional
accessory for anyone who couldn’t say “pussy”.)

“Since motorcycling has become more of a genteel sport, or lifestyle”, I told her, “ I usually just use the term, pillion, as they do in the British Isles.  The word is Irish, as am I, and can mean either passenger seat or passenger ”.

This talk of passengers and their seats brought me back to my purpose for being there.  I backed the bike out onto the parking lot and signaled Jo to mount up.
“So, you have a snatch pad, not a bitch seat; I can’t be a biker bitch, so does that mean…”
I lifted an eyebrow.
You got to love a gal who has the capacity to blush.

Next:  Jo renames my snatch pad “the coochie couch”.

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Easter in Texas

Easter was on the horizon and the luckiest girl in Flour Bluff was making noises about riding and camping over the weekend so, naturally, the leaky rear tire I’ve been trying to nurse a few more miles out of, gave up the ghost. A replacement was ordered with hopes it would be delivered in time for the weekend. It turned out that our girl kid, the lovely and talented Olwen, was able to visit and while she’s put a lot of commuter miles riding two-up on her mom’s Magna, the roomy Valkyrie is her perch for recreational outings.

The new tire arrived Friday afternoon and was mounted on the rim by close-of-business; unfortunately, the tire was mounted backwards. Saturday morning, it was remounted and by Saturday afternoon I’d managed (along with cleaning, greasing and a few false starts) to get it all buttoned back up. In the meantime, Jill and Daughter (with assistance from Granddaughter) had managed to bake a flock of cookies, so it all evened out.

During the afternoon, my longest-time compadre extended an invitation for a coffee break, so we took the Baby Shadow into town to get up with him. He’s not all that good-looking, so I didn’t take his picture, but I did get a shot of his snazzy 1974 custom Sportster.

[Foto 1]

Easter Sunday, we Eastered.

To begin with, Jill and Granddaughter had an Easter egg hunt. I suspect things are a little different at our house than they are at her maternal grandparents’ house.

Afterward, the girls broke confetti-filled eggs, called cascarones, on each other.

Egg-hunting done, it was time to enjoy the local flora.

Daughter, poor child, hasn’t seen salt water in months so, at her request, we “rode the loop”, as we call the route around Corpus Christ Bay.

Once in Port Aransas, we decided to find “Charlie’s Pasture”, an area long favored by locals for fishing and recreating, and newly declared a Nature Preserve.

This is another favored by the birders who come from all over the world to observed birds both migratory and local. On the way to the park area, we spotted this majestic Blue Crane making it’s way down the ship channel.

It’s good the realtors and developers haven’t managed to scrape and pave this area, as they have so much of the island; declaring it a Nature Preserve is one way to keep them from doing so.

To the right is the new pavilion and information center.

There’s some pretty extensive boardwalk built to smooth the paths of visitors and help protect the environment. We took the short route, once around the park, as the saying goes, and moseyed on over to Paradise Pond.

Things were a little slow, as bird watching goes, but the park, itself took me back to a couple of pre-teen years spent in semi-rural Virginia.

I was quite the turtle catcher, in those days and it was a pleasant surprise that we arrive just in time for afternoon bask-along.

Other critters were a little more shy, barely discernible, even with binoculars.

At this point I was beginning to feel that no breakfast I’d had ; after a coffee break we pointed our wheel towards home.

That eve our whole nuclear pod dined at “Doc’s no-gumbo-having seafood restaurant before retiring to the big Bluff.

Life’s good on the Third Coast.

Bells and Whistles

It was a pleasant summer afternoon and I’d ridden the Baby Shadow into town to do a little rat killin’. Before heading back to the big Bluff I stopped at my favorite (non-corporate) coffee shop, settled the scoot under a tree and parked my ass on the patio to enjoy the fresh coffee and do a little people watching and light lusting.

While seated there, I noticed a fellow ride by on a beautiful Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Even from many yards away I caught a whiff of that ‘new rider smell’. After parking his bike, he walked over to the, otherwise empty, patio and asked if I’d mind sharing my table for a few minutes. He was a clean-cut guy who looked to be on the fair side of 30, probably Navy. I told him to make hisself to home and, and believe it or not, we got to talking motorcycles.

The fellow allowed as how he was fairly new to motorcycling but was all hot, wet and quivering to ride some roads and see the country from behind bars. He spoke of a desire to tour the Texas Hill Country and to visit Big Bend National Park. He asked if I knew anything about a road a friend mentioned called the Dragon’s Tail and I told him of the roads my Missus and I had ridden and what we’d seen.

I told him to strike while the iron is hot. It’s coincidental that I use that expression since he told me that he couldn’t see getting his missus to “ride in this heat”.
My first impulse was to tell him he was married to the wrong woman, to trade her in. If I had known him for twenty years rather than twenty minutes I might have risked making the comment but, instead, told him that cooler weather was just around the corner.

Out-of-towners sometimes remark on the scarcity of motorcycles where I live, an area where a bike can be ridden nearly every single day. I can only chalk it up to pussification. A person can get up in the a.m. go to work, have lunch and return home without ever having been out of an air conditioned environment for more than a minute. If they were to get out on a motorcycle any time except February they’d risk the possibility of perspiration.

Well it’s hardly surprising that some inventive type has answered the need. Along with clip-to-the-windshield swamp misters and camel hump water-filled backpacks, add: motorcycle air conditioning by EntroSys(LINK)

I’ve got this picture in my mind of a fellow on a bike with a 30” windscreen, stereo, airbag jacket, motorcycle air conditioning unit and a sticker on his helmet that reads, “Cars suck!”

Hangin' at the Blue Marlin' Saloon

Things have been pretty slow, here, at the end of the block, but we'd got a call from our friend, singer/songwriter Pete Devlin (aka "English Pete", aka "Pedro") to be musical accompaniment at an event benefiting one of the locals, Saturday. Besides having a good time playing music with Pete, this was also an opportunity to work off a little karma.




We arrived at the Blue Marlin bar a little early and spoke with some folks and looked around.



Bikes were already lined up across the street from the crowded parking lot, the riders inside signing up for the poker run.



.

Decent folk were still in church and motorcyclists had streets nearly to themselves.



Chris, who hosts a jam session at the Blue Marlin, volunteered his sound equipment and tent so, along with high clouds, low wind and temperature (82°F/ 27.7°C), we had it made in the shade.





At sixty past noon, Pete kicked things off, and while some folks were poker running others enjoyed barbecue and shopped the auction items, some store bought or donated, some hand crafted.





We finished and cleared the bandstand only to find that the next pickers were running behind so another talented sing/songwriter, Harley racer and Renaissance man, Dan Brodhag (aka “Dano”) was persuaded to entertain in the meantime.



I don’t get much opportunity to play music with Dan, so when he asked if I’d care to accompany him I jumped at the chance.



I don’t see most of these folks as often as I’d like to so Jill and I hung out and socialized, some.
One of the bikers from across the bay, who is of my generation, introduced me to a young couple he had in tow who are new to motorcycling. The young woman told him she hadn’t known that bikers “do so much”. He’s been showing them around, like that old tramp who schools the young, passing down the traditions; they are in good company.

A good day, all told. We were able to help one neighbor while entertaining others. We’re lucky that way.




Sunday, it rained.

On a Night Like This

The ladies and I agreed that we should ride out to find a restaurant that featured pie and palaver about matters both extraordinary and mundane. We did, and the meeting was fruitful, as was the pie.
Afterward, the Hot Granny decided to call the night a day and head for the barn. Jo, on the other hand, allowed as how she coveted a little wind therapy. Being the proud possessor a tank of gas and five-dollar bill, I felt a moral obligation to help her out.

You got to understand that, despite all the other attractions of motorcycling, there is nothing I enjoy more than a late ride under a clear sky and a full moon. Even having a sweet-tempered hottie on the snatch pad can't diminish the pleasure. Thursday was such a night.

I reckon there is no sight as soothing to the savage breast as moonlight reflecting off of water and we had lots of both as we made the circuit around the bay, "riding the loop", as it's called, locally.
After we boarded the ferry to cross the Intracoastal Waterway, Jo looked over the rail and into the water to spot the huge Redfish that feed in that lighted area. Her enthusiasm for fishing was shared with the deck hand, newly emigrated from Nevada; I'm sure he thought us an unlikely pair.

We dawdled getting through Port Aransas and when I finally had the big yella bike pointed south on the state highway and headed home, it seemed as if we were the only people on the island who were awake.
I had the needle set on 65 mph, the legal speed, and was in that altered state familiar to road riders when head lights, seemingly out of nowhere, appeared in my mirrors.

The car overtook us so quickly that I might as well have been parked. There's no telling how fast he was moving, but what was disturbing was the apparent intention to pass on the shoulder. He was pretty close when I could tell, for sure, that he was going around on the right so I gunned the bike and moved toward the center stripe, jarring Jo out of her reverie just as the car went by.
I flashed my brights without any illusion that the driver cared that he hurt my feelings but, seeing as how my pillion was a little rattled, I couldn't see any advantage to losing my temper. Once sure that the distant headlights in my rear view remained distant, that is, that no one was chasing this moron, I settled down and enjoyed the remainder of the ride.

Now, I got home safe, as you might guess, since I wrote all this stuff down, but it could just as well have gone badly. The cager could have been so engrossed in his phone conversation that he didn't see my taillight till he rear-ended and killed, or crippled, us.

Note that in Texas it's customary to move to the shoulder to let faster traffic pass. Even though the highway was empty there's the possibility that I might have quickly moved right to let the jackass by just as he, illegally, overtook me on the shoulder. It would have been embarrassing to be killed at 3:00 a.m. on an empty road.

Your day can be ruined in a heartbeat, keep your hand upon the throttle and your eyes upon the rail (and rear views).

Real Benefit

This is a casual observation of an event organized by a group of motorcycle enthusiasts, rather than the local mommy brigade.

Saturday a.m., I fired up the big yella bike and headed into town to collect my erstwhile pillion, the lovely and talented Joanna, then on to the motorcycle doo-daddería to get up with the also talented (though less lovely) Darryl (aka: Guitar Boy). While at the accessory store, Jo remedied her lack of riding gloves and also found helmet stickers that tickled her, one of which proclaims that she, indeed, “tastes so good you’ll want the recipe”.
Yes, we were enjoying the day, alright, but we were also on a more serious mission. The previous weekend I’d gotten word that a friend is sick and his club was throwing a poker run and barbecue for his benefit.

We rolled up to the event headquarters, found parking outside of the reserved area and moseyed on in. It was still pretty early in the day but the place was as packed as I’ve ever seen it. A small band was setting up, and men and women were busy with the usual means of raising funds, auctioning goods, selling 50/50 tickets, etc. It seemed only right that we celebrate signing up for the poker run with a cold one and some people watching, so we did.
Jo is fairly new to the game and has had only a couple of opportunities to observe motorcyclists as a subculture but she could tell these folks are not dabblers. If she read their rockers she could also see that they rode in from all over to support the effort.

Groups of various numbers of motorcycles were still arriving as we began the bar hop that took us into Corpus town then doubled back across the bay. City scenery is nothing to write home about but we enjoyed letting the bikes stretch their legs on the causeway. Hanging out with Darryl and Jo is pretty much a hoot, anyhow.

Since we traveled on the slab, I didn't get much in the way of photos but I did get a shot of Rachel, the very cool bartender at the Whalebone saloon who let her beautiful long hair down before posing with me.


Parking was at a premium when we returned to the event ground zero. We finished the poker run route just a few minutes ahead of "last bike in", drew our hands and looked for grub. The barbecue was all et up, naturally, so we bought sugar cookies with a support slogan written on them. It didn’t seem odd at the time but the mental image of bikers having a bake sale tickled the hot granny when I mentioned it, later; its just not a scenario that fits the stereotype.

The patio side of the bar was nearly as crowded as the inside but Jo and I managed to find a spot to hobnob with friends and munch sugar cookies. Directly, Darryl came wandering out, carrying loot; it seems he had the high poker hand. By then, we were all in need of eats more substantial than cookies so the loot was packed in saddlebags, we hugged some necks, shook some hands and rolled further up the road.

All part of a day in paradise.

Aluminum Cleanup

Circumstances have kept me pretty near home base for the past couple of weeks so instead of another exciting tale of adventure and romance I'm to take you into my back yard; it's a good time to pull up in the shade and restart a sidelined project.

The overall project is to clean up my 1995 Honda VT600-C (Shadow VLX), the Baby Shadow, and shining up the aluminum alternator cover and clutch cover is part of that project.

The bike has lived its entire existence on the Texas coast in what is, arguably, the most corrosive climate in the country; the clear coat on the aluminum parts has cracked and pitted, allowing the aluminum to oxidize and discolor in spots.



This clutch cover was cleaned up, a little, before photographing but it's the only "before" picture.
For purposes of demonstration the alternator side will be shown.


I'm going for an inexpensive face-lift without dismantling the bike. I've cleaned the alternator cover with soap and water, let it dry, and it's ready for the old clear coat to be removed. I used a generic gel-type paint stripper and protected the frame with plastic.







I repeated the process to be sure I got off all the old coating, and then applied Duro Aluminum Jelly to clean up some of the oxidation.



After the surface was cleaned up I wet sanded the cover, first with 400 grit,



then with 600 grit sandpaper.



At this point you may want to wet sand with 1000 or 1200 grit sandpaper. I opted to skip this step and finish off with Mothers Billet Metal Polish applied with 4/0 steel wool and a couple coats of Liquid Glass (Ultimate Auto Polish/Finish).



The little Shadow is a workhorse and commuter, rather than a show pony, so I'm calling the quick clean up of this cover a success. At about 5:30 o'clock from the center you can see the reflection of the side stand.

A great show finish can be achieved by polishing with a buffing wheel.

While in Christine...

One summer, as my wanderings took me through the town of Christine, TX, my pillion du jour leaned forward to inform me that she was hot (she was).

I suggested she remove the sweater vest she wore over her long sleeved shirt. Instead, she decided to wear only the vest, removing it and her shirt as we rode through the little town.My rear views were full, I'll tell you, as, I assume, were the eyes of any townsfolk who were not at siesta.

Nothing like that happened this past week.

---

Blowing Smoke

"...I've been a Santa Claus to ev'ry sonofabitch in town..." (Kit Gutherz)

So, I was wandering around on the Net, last week, looking for some way to be amused on the weekend, and came across a couple of local benefit runs. One was in town and the other, near the lake, just shy of 66 miles from my doorstep.

My best compadre, who has to be in that area, pretty regularly, indicated that there had been some benefits going on out there to help out some folks who’d had a run of bad luck.

Saturday morning traffic was light and my ride to the event site was uneventful except for the minute between my engine dieing and the realization that I’d, somehow, hit the kill switch.

Ground zero was a restaurant and bar where I’d played music long ago, when it was the only building on that particular Farm To Market road. Even before the building came into view I could see a large barbecue pit on a trailer, the one my bud said had been parked on the corner for many weeks.
Behind the building, there was a large pavilion tent to seat fans of the night’s headliner band, a dunking booth and a couple of empty vendor booths.

After I parked beneath a mesquite, but before I entered the bar, I read the event flyer. They had a poker run going on, but no afternoon entertainment of any kind, odd in an area where you can't throw a rock in any direction without hitting musical talent.
Musicians and DJs will jump at the chance to be part of a charitable community event.

Just inside the front door ladies sold barbecue sandwiches. Others were folding and stacking event T-shirts or manning (womaning?) the poker run sign-up table.

Not a one shouted, “Hey, come on in, sign up for the poker run and have a cold one!”

I began to consider that, perhaps, the best part of this adventure would be the ride back to town, when who should walk by but “Harleychik”, who I’d met on a lunch ride, some months ago. She introduced me to two fellow Bluff rats I’d never met (though we recognize each other’s motorcycles) and I moseyed over to where they were sitting and got acquainted with a couple of officers of the Latin Ladies MC.

Since I’d blown by the taco stand, on the way out, I decided to try the barbecue. The ladies warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. In fact, someone gave me wristband so I wouldn’t have to pay to eat (I still kicked in the price of the sandwich, for ‘the cause’).

Let me tell you, I wouldn’t let the neighbor’s dog gnaw on meat that gristly.

The goobers who had the pit parked out front advertised Texas barbecue. There ought to be some kind of law preventing that kind of misrepresentation.

Thing is, they operate as a place of business out on that road and if they served those scraps every day they would soon be defunct. Someone suggested that it was, after all, donated meat and you couldn’t expect too much. My response to that:

1. Bullshit. I’ve attended any number of fundraisers and the worst food I’ve been served, on a scale of “sucks-to-doesn't-suck”, didn’t suck. Smaller clubs will serve good chicken or sausage rather than insult their rally goers with third-rate brisket.
2. When you want to help someone, you don’t skimp. That’s not true charity and it won’t work off any karma. Believers are admonished to ‘run hot, or run cold because the half-assed gets spit out’.

It looked to me that still another bunch of the uninitiated tried to use “bikers” as a piggy bank. I doubt they would support our legislative efforts in Austin even if they were aware of them and the volunteers didn’t seem to have any affinity for us as a group.

So, as you might guess, that price of the sandwich and a cheap Made in Honduras T-shirt was all they got out of this old boy. I blew off the poker run and there was no way I was going to spend the day sitting on hard plastic chairs listening to cookie cutter cowboy music on the jukebox while waiting for some other “hat” band to play the same stuff later on.
Instead, I took the long way home along with the other Bluff guy and the Latin Ladies and their friends. That was, for sure, the best part of the adventure.

Three Sisters

A long awaited meeting.

We packed our tent, gassed our scoots and pointed our wheels northwest for the Texas Hill Country. Our purpose was not only to enjoy a change of pace and scenery but also a long awaited meet with Christine, from the Land of Wisconsin.
After renting a Harley-Davidson touring bike at Dallas and riding to San Antonio, she was to meet the luckiest woman in Flour Bluff, and me, at the historic town of Bandera, "Cowboy Capital of the World".

Saturday morning, as planned, the big yella bike and the Honda Magna I like to call, Black Magic, were on the road. We knew a cold front, with accompanying heavy rain, was predicted for later in the day, and that night, but we reckoned we could probably make camp at Kerrville, TX before then.



Though we caught a few sprinkles on the way, it wasn't till we were just 160 miles into the trip, leaving the town of Devine, that we knew how far off the weather forecast was. The dark clouds seem to reach the road and rain was beginning to blind me when I finally found a place to pull over and don my Frogg Toggs. The wind was picking up, complicating things, and the rain was beginning to soak the back of my denim jacket when Jill U-turned and asked if I wanted to return to Devine.



We pulled into a Shell Mart, gassed, coffeed and sheltered from a downpour that flooded the intersection so that a pair of Corvettes couldn’t pass. One of the women driving had been partner in a motorcycle dealership and came into the wash bay to smoke and talk. Since there was no public phone at that particular store she let us use her cell to make a status report to Christine, who had already made Bandera.






When the rain let up, some, and the sky lightened, some, we were back in the wind, a pretty darned cool wind, now.

We made Bandera, quick enough, but, while our friend’s bike was at the appointed place, she was still wandering the town. Since a pay phone robbed me of my last four quarters, we wandered some, too, admiring the unusual cowboy souvenirs displayed in the shop windows.



Finally, after what seemed like a year, we met Christine of Wisconsin. We celebrated with lunch at Old Spanish Trail Restaurant and a quick ride to Kerrville-Schreiner Park, at Kerrville, TX.




The Guadalupe River flows past the park where, during the “season”, visitors swim and fish.



The sun set on weary adventurers who stayed up late enjoying a campfire.



We Meet the Sisters.

Sunday morning, we rode SH-16 from Kerrville to Medina in hopes of snagging some breakfast. This piece of road is everything the famed “Dragon”, through Deal’s Gap, is, only shorter.
The restaurant was closed, as are many privately owned businesses in this part of the world; we didn’t find non-corporate eats till we made our way to the town of Utopia and the Lost Maples Restaurant. Lost Maples’ staff cooks and serves genuine “home cookin’”. This was our jumping off point to ride the State Highways known as the Three Sisters.

One of our first stops was the Lone Star Motorcycle Museum, outside of Vanderpool.




The Texas Hill Country, like any place worth riding to, cannot be brought home in a camera.



It’s not just that parts cannot be photographed, safely, from the pillion of a motorcycle (Jill was photographing from behind the bars, this trip), the peculiar smell of burning cedar cannot be captured, neither can the sight of a hawk swooping close to the road or the roar of tires in the curves.





The ride was fantastic, the weather cool and sunny. While, over the years, Jill and I have covered most of these miles, this is the first time we’d ridden the Three Sisters in their entirety.



Along the way, another rider fell in with us, keeping his distance, but not trying to pass on the straight stretches of road. When we finished the loop we took a break at the Hog Pen, in the town of Leaky. There, the unknown rider told us that his big custom Honda cruiser had just been finished and it was his first time on the loop. He thanked me for letting him tag along and complimented us for being safety conscious and told me, yes, the ride had been everything he'd hoped. I'm glad we could be part of a good first experience on the Hill Country roads.



We had a full and rewarding day and then it was time to head for some eats and another campfire.
During our last visit to Kerrville, Jill and I ate at El Sombrero Jalisco Restaurant. We were impressed so we ate there, again. We were not disappointed.

Riding 250 miles in the beautiful Texas Hill Country on Sunday was icing on the cake of getting to meet Christine in person. I mean, the gal gave me wood, that ought to tell you something.



The ride home started cool and calm and ended warm and windy, hardly remarkable when riding in Texas.
We stopped for a great lunch of sandwiches and pintos at McBee’s BBQ, in Jourdanton, then worked on our butterfly collections between there and the ramp to I-37 and the City.
I guess we just know how to live.


The Road goes on forever