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...