Don't trust what the calendar says, it was created by us, and we create many rules about time, space, distance and change. Meanwhile, nature and the universe do what they want.

The Last Day of Summer By: Beemer Dan The last day of summer for me is representative of emotions and memories. I was 19 when I got my first bike, it was around this time of year that I learned to ride. The days were just barely beginning to cool, I was just barely beginning to shift out of first. I recall that time as the evening of my innocence, my last days as a care free teenager.

My youth wasn't actually that care free and innocent, but in comparison to now it really seems as though it was. My first bike was a Kawasaki KZ400ltd, 1979. It was the perfect starter bike after a few modifications; clubman bars, a chopped seat, W1 tank badges, K&N air filters and chrome footpegs. Black with gold pinstripes and shiny chrome fenders it resembled a bike of decades before. Hints of old BSA, Ducati and the early days of Japanese two wheelers. The whole experience of learning to ride was tough for me, I didn't take alot of risks aside from mosh pits and psycho girlfriends. I hadn't ridden a bicycle in six years and I had never learned how to drive a car. I had a brother who was very patient in teaching me the bike and how to ride it, for the first three days I popped the clutch almost every time. Eventually I learned how to get the Kawi going and managed to hold on. I also was lucky enough to have many friends adept in the ways of motorcycle repair. I didn't know a spark plug from a kickstarter, they made sure I was schooled in such things. As I learned to keep up with the rest of the pack I found my little Kawasaki was a bit under powered by comparison. I would always be about a half a block behind in the city and a half a mile behind on the highway. I was also rather inexperienced in comparison to the others, something that took time and perseverance to make up for. Riding alone in those days was a different story though, I didn't have anyone to keep up with and I didn't have anyone critiquing my riding. It was pure freedom, and eventually I began to push the limits of what my Kawasaki could do. Shortly after I stopped putting my feet out at the corners (yes, I did that for a couple of weeks) I began to gain confidence in myself and the machine. I had chrome Harley footpegs that were comprised of two halves of a threaded metal sleeve and a chrome peg that screwed over it. These pegs were much nicer looking than the stock Kawasaki rubber ones, but the had the unfortunate design flaw that in a tight corner the peg would scrape, unscrew itself and go shooting off into nowhere, leaving my foot hanging on a small metal nub bolted to the frame. I went through alot of these pegs, sometimes a few in a week, I think I still have a couple spares in a box somewhere. One day, late November, thanksgiving to be exact, My cousin Issac and I decided to ride to Castle Rock....for pizza. It was a mission of the utmost importance, because it had no goal, other than to ride like hell. A couple of friends in a Dodge wanted to follow along with a camera. So we warmed up the bikes and hit the highway, hyped up like a bunch of school kids on recess. We kept it around 85 on the way up, the dodge barely able to keep up and falling behind on more than one occasion. We weaved the cars like they were stationary road cones and played tag across the five lane interstate. It was early afternoon, the sun was warm and responsibility was something we'd left behind. We took turns mimicking each other, me sticking my fists in the air and my legs out in front like I was on Issacs chopper and Issac gripping his empty front turn signal posts and kicking his feet back to the rear footpegs. We weaved the white line at 90 for a few miles and then stood on the pegs with our hands flailing in the air. Issac blasted away at full throttle and I was hard pressed to keep up with his 1100 Yamaha. I used the fork tubes to steer and lying flat across the seat and tank I was able to get the few extra miles per hour I needed. I caught up to Issac to see him standing on his seat with one hand on his apehangers "surfing" the bike down the highway. With tears streaming from our wind-blasted eyes and huge grins on our faces we pulled off onto the Castle Rock exit. When we arrived we found there were no pizza joints open, it being thanksgiving and all. Riding through town at 45 felt like 5mph, our ears ringing and faces numb from the highway. We finally settled for pizza at a gas station just out of town, it was a few hours old, but it tasted terrific. The crew in the dodge finally caught up, laughing at us because we were eating greasy gas station pizza with bugs stuck to our faces. We joked about the crazy antics on the interstate, the photographer had snapped some great shots of us riding like nutballs. After a couple of smokes we saddled up for the ride back, it was almost 4pm, and we didn't want to be late for thanksgiving dinner. The ride home started out much the same, mutual grins on our faces as the Dodge became smaller and smaller in our rear view mirrors. The traffic was a little thicker, but this was no worry to us as we rode the white dotted line and weaved through the cars. Issac forged ahead faster than I could keep up, soon he was right on the horizon about a half a mile ahead of me. I tucked in again, topping out around 98mph, the cars were like shiny blurs as I rocketed past them. Still I was a ways behind, in a final attempt to catch up I tucked my head under the left side of the bars to get the aerodynamics a little better. After a few minutes I noticed strange red flashes reflecting off of my front wheel rim. I sat up and saw a CHP cruiser in my rear view lit up like the Las Vegas strip. Hoping he was after someone else I pulled to the side of the road, no dice, I was screwed. The trooper walked up to the bike and I handed him my paperwork. "Do you know how fast you were going?" he asked. What a dumb question, he was close enough when he pulled me over to see my head was under the bars and I was obviously not paying attention to the speedometer. " I was just going the speed of traffic" I replied, I'm still not sure where I got that lame excuse from. "You were pulling the doors off of cars" he said as he looked through my insurance, registration, state ID and drivers permit. "Where's your license?" " Uh, that's my permit, but I'm with a licensed rider." I begged. "Yeah, we got him four miles up the road at 104mph." The moment could be described by the classic phrase: 'Oh shit'. The trooper went back to his car to run my ID as I lit up a smoke, this was not good at all. I sat there on the bike with nightmarish visions of my bike getting impounded and spending the four day weekend in the pokey. After a bit the trooper walked back to the bike and said I was lucky, at twice the speed limit (110mph) your bike gets impounded and it's off to jail, Issac and I had barely slipped out of that consequence. The bad news was he handed me back my paperwork and asked me to sign a speeding ticket, a six pointer. In retrospect I feel I got off pretty easy considering he could have nailed me with reckless driving, lane splitting, tailgating and no drivers license. I soberly rode away at 55mph, it was time to find out how Issac was doing. When I caught up he was ready to get back on the highway, we had the same 'Oh Shit' expression on our faces. The ride home was quiet and slow, we exchange looks of frustration and guilt, our first speeding tickets. When we got off the highway I yelled over "HOW MANY POINTS?" He shook his head. "YOUR TICKET, HOW MANY POINTS?" I yelled again over the engine noise. "NONE" He replied, "DIDN'T GET ONE". "BULLSHIT! HOW BAD IS IT?" I barked. He continued to deny that he got a ticket, I was sure he had though. We got back home and decided not to tell our mothers, no sense in ruining a perfect home cooked meal with lectures about responsible driving. Thanksgiving dinner was terrific as usual, just the thing to heighten our spirits. Afterwards we helped clean up and then went out to the bikes to kick back and have a smoke. Issac took a drag, holding the smoke he mumbled " Nine points, I don't want to talk about it." I looked over to see him lying across his seat and tank on his back, resting his head on the triple tree , he let out the smoke and stared up at the chilly autumn sky. "Six points for me" I yakked back " I guess I better get my license soon eh?" We laughed as we sat on our bikes, stomachs full of turkey, and talked about the ride. Things turned out OK, the DA reduced our tickets to three points and the Judge, a rider himself was kind enough just to make us pay court charges in the amount of forty dollars, instead of giving us the several hundred in fines we thought we were in for. The photos that the guy in the dodge snapped didn't turn out at all, our only momentos of that ride are the memories and the tickets, that's enough for me though. There were many more rides that fall, and many more good times. Those memories drift through my mind as I ride during this time of year, taking in the warm sun and the last days before the leaves turn, The last day of summer.