First Kick

    • 513 posts
    January 13, 2010 12:49 AM PST
     Things happen in life that has a defining influence on the path that you are on. They can sneak up on you and have such a profound effect that they can knock you out of your standing quite literally.

     

    Growing up, I was lucky enough to have an old biker who lived directly across the road from me, who put up with me pestering him about how to fix this and fix that. Old Jack was an amazing bloke, grey beard and nearly white pony tail, pale blue eyes that would cut you in half with a single glance. Now Old Jack was a law unto himself, rough and a man who lived life his way without any apology to anybody. He did not suffer fools and could be mean as a bulldog chewing nettles when crossed. My father was killed when I was just four years old and fortunately for me Old Jack decided to fill the role after I got into a little trouble, I guess he felt sorry for me and for my mother when I kept getting brought home in a squad car time after time before I reached the age of ten.

     

    Jack had left Ireland in ’39 at the ages of nineteen and gone to England to fight the just war against the Nazis. He joined the British Army and became a dispatch rider and so started a lifelong lover affair with motorcycles. He served in several campaigns during the war, from North Africa up through Italy and eventually the Normandy invasion and on to Hitler’s Berlin where he remained in the army as a dispatch rider until he returned to England in ’51 where he left the forces to work in a bike shop in London. It was here he was thrown into the heady world of the new rock’n’roll and the world of the ton-up boys, the Ace Café and Brighton beach. Because of his genius with the combustion engine, his talents were forever in demand, As a kid I would listen to stories of the beauty of the Norton featherbed frame or the first Tritons or Tri-bsa’s. When Jack was in the mood, with the aid of a little Jameson and a bottle of stout, he would talk for hours about all the things he had seen, and that would be a whole different story.

     

    In Jacks garage, he had his runner, an old Triumph Bonnie from 1968, a little rough to look at but mechanically sound and a selection of bikes that were kept under a tarp that even I was never allowed to look under. I did try to once and he sent me away for a week and told me not to come back until I was able to conduct myself with self discipline and to be able to follow instruction. For that whole week I would watch him come and go on his trusted Triumph and seethe with anger for him sending me away, but I got over myself and went back to listen, to learn and without realizing it but to be given something that I would end up carrying with me for the rest of my life – a code of ethic for life and the necessary tools to make my way in this crazy world.

     

    Back in the spring of  1985, I was just a young lad with just a little over two years riding bikes, I had own two bikes that were bought for patience and had to be worked on before they could even dream to be roadworthy, the first had been a Honda fifty and the second a Kawasaki KE125, the fifty was reliable enough but had no street cred, the traillie was respectable enough but would not go in the rain and would over heat in the summer and was similar to a 3TA Triumph chop I had later in life that I really tried my upmost to get on with but I ended shooting at with a shotgun in a drunken haze of temper one night, but the less said about that the better. So there I was sitting in my mother’s garage working on that poor traillie  unaware that something was about to transpire that would alter my life forever. Old Jack was sixty-five at this stage and getting on, time had taken it toll and he had had to stop riding two years before hand due to severe arthritis and had just started to use a walking stick.

     

    As I sat on the ground looking into the semi dismantled carburetor of my Kwak, I saw Old Jack across the road waving me over and I struggled of the garage floor and limped over with a leg that was half asleep, I must have looked liked some sort of freaky zombie making my way to him because his face lit up with that wide old toothless grin that always meant he had some quick quip or remark ready to throw out.

    “Oh look , it is Douglas Barder!” he teased “**** off !” I replied, grinning like a demented fool trying to stay upright.

    “I need you to do me a favour”

    “Sure” I nodded, “Anything you want, what’s up?”

    He pointed to his shed door and asked me to open it. After pulling back the large sliding door I looked in at the old Triumph sitting there, the spotless workshop and the tarp covered bikes I was never allowed to look at, but burned me with intense curiosity every time I saw them.

    “I need you to get these running again” as he stroked hid beard with his scrunched up arthritic hand, smiling at me because he knew he had just made my day, decade and millennium with just one statement , I was on the way to the promised land, I was about to see what was under the tarp. But being a teenager and trying to be cool, I simply and dumbly replied “No sweat”.

    “I shall brew up then” he turned around and headed toward the house. I felt like I had just discovered the Holy Grail, I was at my own personal Mecca. I stood there staring at the large green, ex military tarp, savoring the moment, trying to remember everything about all the wild fantasies of bikes that would be under it. I walked over to the mound of green, reached out and started to lift the cover off. I tried not to look until I had unveiled the entire treasure. I stood there just staring, here after years of guessing, fantasizing and concocting all sorts of dream bikes was the answer to the puzzle.

     

    In front of me was indeed a golden nugget, well three to be precise, a 3HW Triumph, a Full blown Triton and the jewel in the crown, a 1969 shovelhead Harley, with mini apes and fishtails, sitting there in it’s lovely crimson red. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. I wheeled them around the garage, so I could have space to walk around and take in the detail of each bike, but no matter what I did I kept returning to the Harley. It was like a magnet, it just sucked me in and called my name, It seemed to be whispering to me to start her. “Tea” Old Jack brought me back to reality.

    “Where, when, how?”  I wanted to know every thing all at once.

    “All in good time” was all he would say.

    After much chat with tea that was so black and strong it could nearly have been a soup, I talked him into letting me do the shovelhead first. He was freely giving advice and telling me about the bike as I walked around it, trying to take it all in but not retaining any of it. I was in awe of the tear S&S carb and air filter, the big polished primary drive with swirly engraving on it, the shape of the tank and the curve of the seat, there was nothing I could find to fault the bike, it was just sex on two wheels, every fiber in my young body was bursting with lust and excitement.

    And so I set about to get this thing of beauty going. First off I changed all the oils, plugs and air filter under Old Jacks watchful eye and sage advice, following each instruction as if my life depended on it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him watch approvingly as I spun spanner with the skill he had spent years instilling in me. After seeing to the brakes and oiling this and lubing that the time was fast approaching to start the hunk of Milwaukie iron that was sitting on the bike lift. Taking her down off the bench, my heart was pounding so much I though it was going to explode out of my chest and start leaping around the shed like a little alien life form, well I did smoke a bit in those days.

    It sat there on it’s jiffy stand, waiting, beckoning me, wanting to be brought back to life.

    I had never kick started a Harley before and listened carefully and old Jack imparted his wisdom.

    I went around to the bike and got on it, Old Jack watched with much amusement, what was so funny I thought to myself. I stood there bike between my legs, hand on the bars and took a deep breath. Now was it two twists of the throttle and choke and kick or was it choke, two twists and kick, shit why had I not listened properly. Old Jack could see the indecision written all over my face and helpfully roared “get on with it boy!”.

    Right two throttle, choke and kick I decided. I twisted the throttle all the way back twice, pulled up the choke, stood up on the kicker and jumped down on it with all my ten stone and the as much force as I could muster. I came down left foot on the floor , the right foot pushing the kicker to it final limit but the motor did not fire instead it the kicker came back up hurtling my knee right into my face a the top warp factor of the starship Enterprise , breaking my nose and splattering blood everywhere. As the black spots receded and my vision returned and the searing pain started to ease all I could hear was Old Jack’s wheezy laugh as he stuck a Major cigarette in his wrinkle mouth. I felt like such a fool, I wanted the ground to swallow me up, envelop me and leave no trace. Having made an idiot of myself in front of my one hero just broke me, I did not know whether to cry or be pissed off that he was laughing at me. He lit his stubby cigarette and then told me to that I had just learnt a valuable lesson and never ever try to start a real bike the way I just did, that was “ok for those modern pieces of crap that they build for nambie pambie faggots you hang out with who will move outa bikes when they can afford a jammer!” He did not hold some of my friends in very high esteem and as it turned out he was very correct, out of twenty of us that started on bikes together, only two of us stuck with it.

    So without any fuss I step to the right hand side of the bike and did as I was told blood cascading from my nose, I didn’t care I was mad now, this bitch was going to start or get ******* kicked into the garage floor. I twisted the throttle, pulled up the choke and with my left foot, leapt on the kicker, she coughed, blew two belches of blue smoke out the fishtail exhaust pipes. I let the kicker back up, gave two twists of the throttle and jumped down on the kicker and again she coughed, blew out two plumes of bluish smoke but refused to fire. Old Jack watched on in amusement, grinning at the fact that I was getting mad but was still trying and not trying to wimp out.

    Once again I gave her two blips of the throttle, jumped on the kicker, blood from my nose spraying up into my eyes and all over the shed as I descended on the firing arc. As my right foot hit the floor of the workshop, there was a loud bang closely followed by another and the old Harley burst into life, the noise of her nearly scared the crap out of me, she was actually rumbling to life, the shed filled with that beautiful sound of a v-twin motor running that still excites me the same way every time I start any Harley. The roar from the pipes was deafening, it shook right through me filling me with a very strange feeling of pride, awe and power, that left me feeling like my chest was going to explode and my head was going to be launched off my shoulders like a rocket from NASA to the moon. I have never felt that kind of high in my life before as I stood there with a now blood encrusted face and clothes, a bizarre looking being by all accounts.

     

    Old Jack just look at me with an even wider grin. He got off the stool and gestured for me to follow him and kill the motor.  We went to the kitchen and he cleaned the blood off my face and explained why he had let me make a mess of myself,

    “I could have told you how to do it beforehand but you would have made that mistake somewhere down the line and done in front of people you did not want to do it in front of!”

    He pulled on his cigarette and went on,

     “Now you will never ever start a Harley wrong again, you understand?”

    When he had finished he uttered the best thing he had ever said to me “Go out there and start her up and take her for test ride, don’t brake too heavily as she wide slide out from underneath you, OK?” 

    The excitement returned instantly, holy shit, he is going to let me ride her. I went out to the shed like a dog on heat or as Old Jack would say “Faster than hot shit off a shovel”.

    I primed her, kicked her and carefully took her out on to the road. I felt alive, I felt free, I rode up around the village, back past the park, past the Garda(police) station, rattling their windows with aggressive throttle control, back up the new road and back into the driveway, all in all about five miles.

    I sat in the garage telling Old Jack about my first spin, like I had just ridden in from Outer Mongolia or California to New York. I told him how the bike handled, leaving out no detail, especially the bit about the two cops running out of the station to see what was after disturbing their afternoon nap. He laughed with me and told that today I had become a man, that there was nothing I could not do or accomplish and that I was now the master of my own destiny.

    A strange look came over his face and a kind of sadness into his eyes, and I realized he was both happy for me and what I had just done but he was never going to be able to do that again. All of a sudden I jumped up, grabbed hold of him and hugged him.

    “Come on, we are going out” He looked at me quizzically. I fire up the old shovel, got on and handed him an open face helmet. His eyes suddenly became alive, he was trembling with anticipation, He struggled with his boney old hands to put the lid on and when I over to help he just shouted back some profanity that I could not hear over the bike and then with super human effort, the old man got on to the bike behind me and off we went.

    After thirty miles we were back in the driveway, I set down the side stand and hopped off and got his walking stick and helped him off the bike. We sat for hours in the workshop, him with his bottle of porter and his whiskey, me with my tea, listening to stories that some he had never told before because they were only for men and some that I had listened to all before since I was a boy.

    I always think of Old Jack and the way he stepped into take on the father figure roll and prevent me from becoming a lesser human being. To this day I carry with me the code of being both a man and a biker that he taught me.

    Every time I start a Harley and go for a ride, he is with me.

    Every time I find myself in a difficult situation or having to make a important decision I ask what would you do Old Jack, and in my head I hear him still, some twenty six years later.

    I often wonder what he would make of the modern Harley, indeed I can here sometimes as I push the starter button on my Night Train. He would probably look at me under his grey bushy eyebrows, grin widely and call me a lazy shite!

     

    I can honestly say that when Old Jack passed away a few years later, it was the first time I ever felt pain that penetrated all the way to my very being and blackened my soul a little, for the world was a darker place without him. Old bikers have a lot they can pass on to us and they live on with us every time you fire up a motorcycle, so the next time an old biker sit beside you at the bar or at the table at a bike do, give them a bit of time, you never know, you might learn something.

     

    What happened to the shovel I hear you ask, well that my friends is a story for another day.   

  • January 13, 2010 1:04 AM PST
    Oh Dyna,
    You have me rivited to the screen begging for more. You have a gift of story telling that is amazing. Thank you for sharing this wonderful and touching story of your youth. I can't wait for more!!!
    • 21 posts
    January 13, 2010 1:12 AM PST
    Friggin' awesome , Dyna!!!! thanks for sharing!!! looking forward to the Shovel story!!
  • January 13, 2010 1:30 AM PST
    Amazing story.... you should be a writer. Better get started on the Shovel story - I think you started something here!
  • January 13, 2010 4:59 AM PST
    Excellent...an awesome read!!
  • g
    January 13, 2010 5:07 AM PST

    good story ,well said .

  • January 13, 2010 6:41 AM PST
    it touched my heart thanks
  • January 13, 2010 7:50 AM PST
    very nice read!!!
    • 601 posts
    January 13, 2010 8:41 AM PST
    sidetrack wrote...
    Oh Dyna,
    You have me rivited to the screen begging for more. You have a gift of story telling that is amazing. Thank you for sharing this wonderful and touching story of your youth. I can't wait for more!!!

    You should hear him when he's full of beer, Mark Twain wouldn't hold his coat............nice one Dyna boy, enjoyed it, a chara.

    • 190 posts
    January 13, 2010 8:48 AM PST
    Thats a real nicde read,Dyna. You got the gift of the writer in you. it's be a shame to waste it and not share that story with every ear who is interested.....God bless you dude..
    • 513 posts
    January 13, 2010 8:48 AM PST
    rory1 wrote...
    sidetrack wrote...
    Oh Dyna,
    You have me rivited to the screen begging for more. You have a gift of story telling that is amazing. Thank you for sharing this wonderful and touching story of your youth. I can't wait for more!!!

    You should hear him when he's full of beer, Mark Twain wouldn't hold his coat............nice one Dyna boy, enjoyed it, a chara.
    As long as I don't sing we are grand 

    Sure all I need is a pint of porter and a good story will come out 
    • 190 posts
    January 13, 2010 9:13 AM PST
    here here! I will buy ya the fiorst pint of Guiness! You're a grand ol man!
    • 1161 posts
    January 13, 2010 10:30 AM PST
    HijinxApparel wrote...
    Friggin' awesome , Dyna!!!! thanks for sharing!!! looking forward to the Shovel story!!



       I can't wait!
    • 1040 posts
    January 13, 2010 10:40 AM PST
    Damn man!! Good Stuff!!
    • 513 posts
    January 13, 2010 8:00 PM PST
    What happened to the shovel will be up in a few days, plus a few other stories too.

    Might even do one about rory1 hehehehehe!
    • 1161 posts
    January 13, 2010 8:34 PM PST
    Sweet Can't Wait!
    • 1780 posts
    January 14, 2010 12:35 AM PST
    Dyna that my friend left me in tears......The good Lord has bless you with a wonderful gift.

    Night Drago
    • 7 posts
    April 21, 2010 8:56 AM PDT
    Smiles and tears. Your story...your portrayal of a man, and the influence he had on your being is wonderful reading.
    I thank you for introducing me to Old Jack. Through you, he lives. Now he resides in me as well.
    Carlos (solraC)
    • 513 posts
    April 21, 2010 9:07 AM PDT
    Thanks Carlos, he was the corner stone in my life for a long time.
    • 1780 posts
    April 21, 2010 9:51 AM PDT
    Dyna my crazy Irish Brother since I've been on this site (Dec 9th 2009) I have enjoyed everybody's post, and learned quite a bit about the people on this site, but there are a hand full of Brothers and Sisters that I stand in ah about. I just know I'm in the presents of greatness when I read there post, and You my crazy Brother are on top of the heap. I just don't have the proper words to explain how I look up to you and several others, like a little kid at a baseball game watching the big boys play. You people move me sometimes to tears, and then there are times I'm bent over with laughter. If I was to leave this life today I would feel like I'm a better person just for knowing all you guys and gals. You can replace lost items, you can repair a broken scooter, you can mend a broken heart with time, but Friends can't never be replaced!
    Friends..Family..Brotherhood....Forever!!
    Night Dragon
  • April 21, 2010 10:20 AM PDT
    Dyna, the telling of your story was as eloquent as any I have read. But the real truth in this read is what you have exposed of yourself my friend. The daily guide of Jack in your ear and your obvious admiration of another who shaped you at such a vunerable time, and what you do with those lessons is what this story is really about. I'm sure at some point a blessed soul put into Jack what you have now had put into you and this memorial of a story exposes you for the man you are instead of the hollow, lemming-like souls some choose to follow. My grandfather was a man such as this, and like you with Jack in your ear, I try every day to live up to what they would have us do.........as Carlos said, Jack now lives in all of us who read this and know what it means to have the priveledge to know someone such as he is..
  • April 21, 2010 11:59 AM PDT
    Dyna ~ How do I begin to express my gratitude to you for sharing your heart? I felt as if I were there and watching this very sacred part of your life unfold before my eyes. I feel that I too have a part of Jack with me now. You have honored him so beautifully. Surely his spirit smiles upon you. For you to pass on this part of your story with your incredible talent is a precious gift, for only you were meant to tell this story. How fortunate I feel to know you brother, and that I have been given this opportunity to open my heart and spirit to what you offer. Thank you Dyna.
  • April 21, 2010 12:11 PM PDT
    WOW even for these dryed up and cooked brain cells thats is a dam good reading....it triggers alot ty
    • 2 posts
    April 21, 2010 1:13 PM PDT
    Dyna,
    You do have a way w/ words
  • April 21, 2010 1:31 PM PDT
    Dyna... I will raise one for Jack, and one for you! Thanks for sharing a part of yourself.