i like to snuggle, but i LOVE to straddle...

a motorcycle.

sheesh get your minds outta the gutter!

many a time i have expressed my love for motorcycles - particularly Cushmans. Cushmans are motorcycles that were built in the 1930's to the early 60's. I. Love. Them. Mimi & Papa joined the Texas cushman club when i was all of 3 years old. Instantly, they fell in love with the group and Papa quickly went to restoring his first Cushman. Well, technically it was his second...he had one as a kid. Anyway...they traveled the country with this club of theirs and when i was 6, i started going with them. My cousin's Jeremy & Tyler would go too because my grandparents got my aunt kathleen & uncle h.a. to join the club. So, off we would go in our little convoy of 2 motorhomes and 2 cushman trailers. we were the "hardly dangerous" bunch...

over the years, papa bought, restored, and sold somewhere around 35 cushmans. he sold the same one to the same guy, twice. i fell in love with these machines early on, but as a child i was a big ol' scaredy cat. i certainly didn't want to drive my own, and i would ride on the back of one, but refused to go up any hills. i was afraid i would slide off the back. i was a moron. Papa drove way too fast for my liking (and he once accidentally burned my leg while i was riding with him) so i would usually ride behind my aunt kathleen. tyler would ride behind my uncle h.a. and jeremy (bubba) mimi and papa would all ride by themselves.

one day at a meet in the big town of Joy, Texas, bubba told me to get on and we'd go for a ride and go catch a turtle. after riding with him (and acquiring a pet turtle we named RoadKill), i refused to ride with anyone else. he even got me over my fear of hills (after alot of coaxing). i remember he didn't have a bar on the back of his seat for me to hang on to and he didn't have any passenger foot pegs, but we made due. Eventually, we started riding Mimi's because she had those two luxuries on her's. That lasted about 2 meets until she finally bought some foot pegs for bubba's cushman and i learned that i really didn't have to hold on.

fast forward 3 years. papa restored a cute little 1940 step thru just for me. it was a soft canary yellow with a shiny black leather seat and a bumble bee painted on the hatch. i loved it. so, he showed me how to give it gas, which one was the brake, and how to turn the gas the opposite direction to kill it. keep in mind, i had never ridden by myself. so i put my helmet on, hopped on, and he told me it was just like riding a bike. I gave it some gas, went about 2 feet, hit a bump and fell over (i realize now it was because i was going too slow). well, i picked it up off of me and went to turn it the way he told me to kill it (cause i was SO done) and i'll be damned if i didn't end up running over my own foot with it. That was it. no more riding alone for this 9 year old. i'd stick to riding with bubba.

so, fast forward about 3 more years. bubba got a girlfriend. a girlfriend who was jealous of his girl cousin riding with him (eww i know). honestly, i think she was just jealous of the fact that we were so close. we were practically best friends. misty started going to meets with us, and that meant she was riding behind bubba. so, i rode with papa (when i realized fast was fun) or my aunt kathleen for a couple of years, but it just wasn't the same.

one day, i was at mimi & papa's car lot and i heard papa start up his pride and joy - his black hot rod 1956 silver eagle - the first cushman he restored all those years before. he hollered at me to bring a helmet, which i thought was kind of odd because, well, papa refused to wear a helmet unless mimi was around. so, i grabbed a helmet and went outside. he got off the cushman, looked at me and said "get on this and ride down to the end of the street, and come back" just very matter-of-fact. I of course remembered the last time he told me to do this on my yellow step thru (which he sold after a year of me refusing to ride it).

The black one was a much bigger and much much more powerful machine. and it was papa's baby. so in my mind i'm thinking "shit, what if i do something to it!?" i gave papa the "umm i dunno about that" look and he got that look on his face and told me "i saiiiid get on it and ride!" so i did. i puttered down to the stop sign, turned it around (by walking it), and puttered back as slow as i possibly could. he looked at me, said "good! now go faster and this time, change gears" shit. not only did i have to go faster, i had to push the clutch and shift gears. i just knew that would be the end of me. but i did it, and when i got back to him he said "now go ride around the neighborhood till you get the hang of it. come by and honk every now and then so i know you're ok. i'll be listening for ya" and that was that. and i was hooked. this new freedom was overwhelmingly cool and so much fun. i was riding a motorcylce! i went to the car lot and rode every single day the weather would allow me to.

I've never understood why papa always had such confidence in me. when i was 9 he figured i could ride a motorcycle by myself (and i know i could have), when i was 10 he figured i could drive a car anywhere in town (and i did), when i was 13 he trusted me with his favorite toy (and within a couple of months started calling it mine instead of his), and when i was 16, he made me drive the 42 foot motorhome with a trailer carrying 4 cushmans behind it. every time i doubted myself, but he never once did. i miss him telling me "i know you can do it, so do it."

all this reminiscing to get me to this weekend. the annual west texas fair & rodeo meet was this weekend. the big country group gets together in buffalo gap for food and fun. we ride in the parade on saturday morning. since mimi sold my cushman last year, i didn't ride in the parade - though i had many offers of an extra. it just didn't feel the same without my papa there. after the parade, we all had lunch together and told stories about papa. there was a ride scheduled for 2:00, so I took larry up on his offer and rode his extra on the ride.

two and a half hours. 70 miles. 90 some odd degreees. bugs hit my face at 50 mph. my ears were ringing from the noise. i had the ugliest helmet hair. my hands were numb. my ass hurt like hell. my thighs were sore from straddling that beautiful machine for so long. and i loved every single minute of it. just me and the boys (a bunch of 60+ year old boys) and the open road.

the people still in the club have watched me grow from that frizzy haired kid to the frizzy haired woman i am today. it's like i have 40 sets of really cool grandparents, all wanting me to come see them and to take care of me. since papa died, they've really taken it upon themselves to keep me involved in the club. i may only see them a couple times a year (since i don't have a motorhome or cushman to travel with).

but when i do, it always feels like going home.

p.s. pictures from this weekend to come...