HOME IS WHERE YOU HANG YOUR HELMET!

Well, all good things come to an end, or so the saying goes...

After returning 'home' to Jaszkiser HU. putting away my newly cleaned gear, downloading thousands of pictures, assuring all the family that I was

a) Still alive.

b) Well.

c) Better than I had ever been.

d) Hadn't forgotten about anyone.

It was pretty much done.

I met again with Joseph (Little Joe) as he was known locally. He had looked at Piroska last winter during her hibernation period, while she waited patiently for my return. A new rider, still in the final stages of completing his compulsory rider's training, madly in anticipation of getting his permit to ride, Joe had hashed out a deal with me tentatively prior to my last departure to points unknown. We had only to finalize the numbers upon my return, after all... never know right, I could have crashed her off a cliff into the Sea.

There was the final haggling, for him, it was after all... cold hard Forint. For me, I was more interested in the Exchange rate. As it turned out, we both had little to compromise, she was indeed in great shape and as per usual... the currency beat me up.

I would be leaving the country in less than 10 days.

On my last day, Kis Piroska would be delivered to his place of work, where he could practice in the large paved lot until he had secured his MC licence to be thrilled! Joe had some plans of riding outside the country and Little Red would have lots of that experience. Ha... she would likely know the way, after all... we'd covered much of the local bordering countries. Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, The Czech and Slovak republics, and Austria. When they were ready to venture farther afield, she had a pretty good head start.

It was still pretty hot! Sunny blue skies and warm temps, like I'd first experienced upon arrival in July 08. Erzsi and I rode Red to Szolnok a last time for ice cream, passing the Ton on the return. As it turned out, I had to make a last minute trip back into Szolnok for yet another piece of useless paper, or as I was then thinking, One final screwing!!! This time to have Piroska certified as having not been stolen. This bit of paperwork cost me yet another 19,000 F. Never mind that I had the same document completed and paid for when I bought her. Having had it certified previously, you'd think that would be sufficient, wouldn't you... after all, had she been stolen from me, I would have reported that! Just one final reminder of the 'red tape' that pervades much of the Hungarian (and former Soviet Block) reality.

As Charlie Brown would put it... Sigh...

There was a final flurry of packing it all in, I had (not surprisingly) accumulated way too much stuff in the months I had spent over there, some of which had to be donated to the family, the neighbours and the dumpster. A few parting photographs, the wait for Bertie to arrive ("Yes, I'm just passing thru Jaszbereny now...") from BP with the Polo to cart me away. The teary farewells, hugs kisses on many cheeks and the sad reality that some of these people I may never see again. Good friends, family, and those people that have a positive effect on our lives, like my Aunt Bozsi...

As we drove the 107 km to Budapest, one of Europe's Grand Capitals... I couldn't help but quietly reflect on these same roads and where they had transported me. I, after all discovered much more than castles, courtyards and cafes in these 7 months.

In many ways I had discovered my roots, refreshed my dreams, created memories, and cleansed my soul.

Why is that? Sitting on a motorcycle for miles on end? Ensconced in your own little world, part of, but yet somehow removed from it all. I know why I originally chose this lifestyle. Why I had such a strong interest in riding from a very early age.

First of all, there was Butch... and let's not forget Kelly. Ahhhh yes..... Kelly....

And, there was that whole drug scene in the late sixties early seventies. Not to mention the awkward home life I had. My bikes meant Freedom to me, a name I would apply to my Motorcycle business during the 90's. I could get away from it all, and in return, I was rewarded with sights, sounds and memories to last a life time.

Budapest was a blur. I had enough time to open a local bank account at Unicredit for future purposes (never wanting to go thru that ridiculous escapade of my first purchase) and grab a pastry or two, bid farewell to Berti, Agi and surprisingly, cousin Erzsi once again. She came up on the train to see me off!

As the Airbus climbed out of Ferihegy International, the green fields of Hungary slipped away below. Frankfurt of course was a rush rush, wait, rush... and 12 hours after feeling the first surge of acceleration hurtling down that Hungarian runway, the air brakes popped out, along with my ears... and I was home.

After all... I had a helmet hanging there.

The Journey has ended... or has it?

Interesting isn't it. The JOURNEY has ENDED.


























Or has it?










Does it ever really end?













Is not an ending only a beginning to the next ending, which leads to yet another beginning and so on so forth?








Think about it.

































Here I was in Jaszkiser HU. two days after parking Piroska back in the little steel shed. It wasn't a very secure shed, there were lots of gaps where my Uncle Gyuszi (Julius) welded this, bolted that. It wobbled when the door clanged shut, the paint was peeling. As long as the sun shone, you could see through the various gaps.






















Kind of like the beginning and end thing.

























Had this 'Journey' begun on June 18th, 2008? The day I boarded that Airbus. Or was that just the beginning after an ending, preceded by a beginning?




I had ridden this little bike 20,ooo kms.























Twenty thousand Kilometers!


Through intense heat, driving rain, even snow.





Through 22 countries.




Was this the end then?








Listen to this.








My very first bike, a Honda S 90 (for Sport or Super if you were so inclined) for example. After the owner... umm, the previous owner, dropped it off at 13107-133rd Avenue, Wellington (named after some steak or Lord) in the City of Edmonton, that sunny June day in 1968... I took it for a ride.








That very first ride was kinda short.








In fact once I put into action the theory I had developed over the course of my then short lifetime, like how to push on the near horizontal kick start thing, then what that lever thing on the handlebar did ( a thirteen year old trying to remember the 7 minute previous day's instructions) and how to twist that gas thing (geez those old Hondas had a 410 degree, two wristed double jointed curl)... once I'd figured all that out well enough to hear the cough cough, durrr durrrr, cough cough remember to close the lever thing... followed by purr purr... Right after that, after more DRRRRRdrrr... just as I was DRRRRRRRRRing, I pushed yet another lever thing with my left foot... completely forgetting the other lever thing on the left handlebar (very important!!!) and in the time it took to reach (at Honda 90 warp speed) the single metal garage door, about 10 feet directly North, the Honda's front wheel 'reached for the sky' (somewhat akin to the Duke quietly speaking to some deserado while calmly pointing a Winchester at said desperado's belly) at a forty five degree angle, only to be stopped dead? and dying (but still drrrring) by the immovable object of the steel door attached to the garage, attached to a concrete foundation!








AS I extricated myself from under the SUPER? 90, the engine now back to it's happy purrr purrrr, oblivious to my predicament, contemplating how I'd gotten here... knee torn from my blue jeans... knuckles scraped bleeding, huge dent in the garage door about 4 feet off the ground... I contemplated if this 10 feet... this utterly exciting, alive, scared from my little wits... ten feet, were to be my first and last.








See what I mean, about beginnings and endings.


Well Dad didn't beat the crap outta me, I think he quietly took out his frustrations, knowing he had been a boy once too, and instead beat the crap outa the dent in the steel garage door. All the while sucking that cool tobacco smoke from that EXPORT A calmly into his lungs. It was after all, 1968.


If you click on the one and only pic I have of Honda and I, in those heady days of the late 60's... you may see I have adorned my helmet with shooting stars and my wheels with two bumper/tank stickers, which read; Ban The Bra and Cure Virginity.

Hey, give me a break! I was after all, thirteen!!







Since that humbling beginning, I've had many adventures on two wheels, many journeys. All with a beginning and all with an ending. Much as I know it will, I hope it never ends.














There's a reason I'm known as Dr. N. after all... and it's certainly not because of my medical expertise.






"Yes, I believe it's a fractured tibia Dr. Kildare, do you concur?"




















So... here I sat on the swing (thing) at Cousin Erzsi's place in Metro Jaszkiser, rocking back and forth, 250ml of a cold Hungarian half liter beer in hand, sun shining brightly, happy that I was home and in one piece. Contemplating how I had gotten here, after such an inauspicious beginning, from there.





I wandered over to Uncle Gyula's shed, well cousin Elizabeth's shed, swung the security bolt (A bent piece of metal) and stepped inside. She was covered in grime, dirty, the chrome pipes gray with road smudge, windshield thickly bug spattered, yet to me... she was still a tempting Japanese born, Italian raised, siren of beauty. Sure, not the latest or greatest, but simple, comforting, lovingly 'oatmealish' and in my mind at least, just as beautiful as when she'd been born in Hamamatsu 16 years before... indeed 'sweet








So, was this the end?





What do you think?



ps:

1) I apologize for the quality of some photos, they are taken from ancient albums :)

and

2) That little Triumph sitting atop the Big Triumph, is my very first motorcycle. Built by Reliable (good Brand Name eh) and nearly as old as I, that little bike has been with me since age 4 ish. Indeed she has travelled all over the world with me.



























You know what THEY say....






Now I've heard Mama Cass sing, and I don't for a moment think it's over...

HAPPINESS, SADNESS!

It was over!

Thirty eight years I had waited. Always something else intruding. Many times, responsibility, pressure from parents initially, spouse later, the abstract anvil of life in general...

Hey, at least I had ridden the Wilds of Baja (and Los Angeles) the Cabot Trail (about a hundred times) the Arizona desert, the west coast, the Blue Ridge Parkway, rural Ontario and Quebec, every province in the Country, been coast to coast, the Forestry Trunk road, The Angeles Crest highway. I'd been to Kapuskasing, Tehachapi, and Valencia. Mistakenly thought I was being pulled over for speeding, by heavily armed, armour clad Police in Oka! (30 police cars, Man I thought, they take this speeding thing seriously here!!)

I was married at 20 to a woman I knew wasn't right (not enough intestinal fortitude on my part) became a Father (still my greatest accomplishment and Joy) at 25, (and again at 28!

Maybe will again at 55 :)

Against enormous odds, I'd fulfilled life long dreams of bringing the National Motorcycle Training Program to Fort McMurray, then a humble (?) unknown little town. Moved across our Great Country, facing long lines of Eastern traffic, then heading West to the "Promised Land" in '81.

Opened my own Motorcycle shop (Freedom Cycle) at age 26. Then a second... and a third. I've raced MotoX, suffered frost bite on the ice oval, rode trialers for years, started the whole YSR racing craze in Canada, then rode my YSR to T.O. with Rob (see earlier Blog) and Paul MaCausland, then lead singer for the popular CDN band "Haywire"

Well actually, I rode my YSR to Toronto, those heartless bastards left me on the road the third day without even a spare change of underwear, or a spark plug... When I arrived safely (nearly got sucked under the wheels of a semi on a short stretch of the 401 outside of Bowmanville, the ultra high gearing pushing the short end of the speedo needle to 40Kph!) I found them at the Landing Strip getting rip roaring drunk, paying naked women for lap dances and generally behaving like I wanted too! When Rob's Visa was denied, I picked up the $600+ tab for the days frivolities. You'd a thunk those two clowns would have at least treated me to a lap dance... I mean by one of the girls. Not Paul or Rob.

Rob and I were great friends and fun competitors duking it out at Shubie or downtown Moncton (had several square blocks of the city closed off to race YSR's) or Burlington.

My Old friend Hance Lor_ (name with held to protect his innocence) Who would wander into my shop looking at a new helmet/saddlebag/tool, and would exclaim in his fashion... "I'd sure like to have that new Shoei, hmmm... lemme see.... that will cost me..... 14 two fours!"

Yep... I had waited to ride Europe for thirty eight long years, and admittedly, some of that was from fear, My fear.

If there is a Capitol T Truth I had learned in my life, it was this: Life is short, fear is only a perception, Dreams can and do come true, succeeding in life's Goals is a combination of good Karma, luck, the alignment of the stars... and guts. Never, and I do mean Never give up!

I as a young Machinist apprentice in the Oil Sands, worked with a guy that everyone called "Gunnie". He was a tail gunner on a WW2 bomber flying nightly over the European Continent to drop bombs on German targets. Gunnie didn't talk much but the odd time on night shift, when it was just Journeyman and young apprentice, he would relate some story of the war or his life. Gunnie was a sad man. After the war ended, he just could never find that adrenalin thrill ever again. It was as if his life stopped at age 22. My late night talks, where I mostly listened, taught me a very valuable lesson. If he were alive today I would Thank Harold 'Gunnie' the tail gunner. A lonelier place I could not imagine than being locked into a turret, in the rear of a Lancaster, with puny little bullets the diameter of your pinkie, to throw out towards a Focke Wolfe spitting 20mm high explosive shells at you in pitch blackness...

I learned from Gunnie that he regretted his life. He wouldn't actually say so outright, but you could see it in his eyes, vacant as he spoke, looking into the distance (or the past)

"I wish I woulda'. If only i had..."

This was a powerful message to learn. I vowed I would never look back and say those words to some impressionable young person... ever.

And here I was... 20,000 kms, two sets of tires, twenty two countries and a thousand... no, a million memories and experiences to relate to you, to my kids, and to my inner soul, my lost inner child.

My ride was over, well nearly over (wink). THE ONLY QUESTION REMAINING WAS ... should I drink this last Rolling Rock?!