KID

Those Less Fortunate

I never saw him wearing anything except a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and the ubiquotus boy’s footwear of the time, black and white Keds tennis shoes. He was a year or so older than I, but pale and smaller, with a shock of floppy blond hair. He lived with parents I never met down the river road a bit closer to the Sangamon than my house. He didn’t go to school either, a wondrous achievement in my nine-year-old estimation, not having to deal with the boredom, peer pressure and politics of grade three.

I first saw him as he came walking up the road past my house, as I was in the yard struggling to realign the handlebars of my Huffy heavyweight, knocked out of shape by a minor crash into the ditch in front of Randy Clinton’s house as I attempted to avoid running over his mother’s yappy little dog. He, the boy, not the dog, stood in the road and watched my labor for a moment. I said, “Hi, Kid,” and he smiled and came closer. I never even knew his name, but I did realize that he was different. Kid was not like the rest of us.

He didn’t talk much, but he smiled a lot. And he hung around, but not like Danny Kobel’s demanding little brother, Mud. Kid was not intrusive. If anything, I found him to be an inducer of contentment. He spent most of the afternoon watching me fix the handlebars and then the fender, asking no questions, saying little, but smiling as if observing the feeble reconstruction of the front end of my Huffy was more than just a way to pass the time, but something both fascinating and uplifting. When I asked him what he did instead of going to school he said, “Sometimes I set, sometimes I mess around. I got a pogo stick.” We parted company near dusk, Kid walking away down River Road into the deepening gloom.

The next day was a school day, and when I arrived home I found him propped up against the big Elm tree on the edge of my front yard. We sat and leaned against it for over an hour, talking a little and enjoying Spring during a time when sitting outside in the grass did not bring worries of ticks, stained clothing, or dangerous passers-by. Upon questioning, he confessed to me that his father worked and his mom “done the dishes.” He had no brothers and sisters and had moved to my hometown from another small metropolis called Farmer City. He was never around on weekends, but for the balance of spring, unless it was raining, when I’d come home from school Kid would be waiting.

During summer, when I wasn’t occupied with the other members of my little group of river rats and small town troublemakers or doing farm work, sometimes Kid would go fishing with me. My grandfather had spent considerable time and effort teaching me the art of bank fishing with cane poles, the necessity of quiet, and the value of patience. I was good at it. On our first venture to the river, Kid confessed he’d never gone fishing. I was astounded. Everybody had gone fishing. Everybody I knew fished. But not Kid. On our walk, I explained the rules. Don’t stomp up and down the bank. No loud talking. Don’t throw anything in the water. Sit still, watch your line or your bobber, shut up, and wait. He blew me away. His patience and ability to not only be still, but to sit absolutely motionless, was amazing. The only giveaway he was even conscious was that smile.

He was not perfect, however. He could never manage to put night crawlers on the hook without sticking his thumb, and he couldn’t see the line well enough to deadline fish for channel cats. But he had the self-control it took to watch a bobber dance sideways against the current and disappear into the muddy depths without panicking and attempting to set the hook too soon. He understood that he could not help carry the cane poles because they were my grandfather’s, and if one got hit against a tree and the tip broken off, it was an eighty-mile round trip to replace the type of cane pole he favored. An eighty-mile trek in a 1949 Plymouth was not a journey to be taken lightly. I did, however, allow him to carry the carefully prepared doughball and the diligently collected worms. The first fish he caught with me, the first one he ever caught for that matter, was about a ten-pound carp, shining golden in the sun on a line suspended from a twelve-foot cane pole…a feat requiring considerable will and strength. He got it done, tackling the carp as it flopped around in the weeds on the bank and, with instruction, even got the limp piece of clothesline I used as a stringer through the gill and mouth of the fish and tied it off on a tree root at the waterline. Had I made such a catch, vocal celebration would have been inevitable, but not Kid. Just that smile.

 That autumn, a week or two from Halloween, he was gone. No Kid waiting under the big Elm anymore. I learned later that his family had just moved away. He and I had never cut corn out of beans together, never ridden bikes or played baseball with each other, never fired .22’s, exchanged secrets, ridden horses, smoked stolen cigarettes, or a dozen other things that my brat-pack and I had done. I can’t even say we were really friends, but I missed him. My grandfather, who appreciated children as much as any adult I have ever known, spoke of him once.

            “Aw, he warn’t quite right, David,” he said. “But I believe he was a fine boy.”

I hadn’t thought of Kid in fifty years, I suppose, until the other day a television show brought him to mind. My granddad was correct. He wasn’t quite right. He was slow, didn’t go to school, and all that, but it strikes me now that education, income, acquisitions, and achievement cannot bring any of us what Kid just naturally had. Peace. I knew it then, even if I didn’t realize it. It was right there in that smile.

 

“C’MON BOYS, OVER THE TOP”

 

Kill the Bass Drummer

I want to start this piece by saying that I have a great deal of respect for those men and women who have served, or are serving our country in the military. My grandfather fought in France and Germany during World War 1, my father on Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal in World War Two. My wife, the coveted Laura, recently spent over four years in Afghanistan. I, myself, spent a full day and a half in the United States Air Force. I certainly appreciate those who have given even more than their lives, who have had their minds disrupted, deleted, or even destroyed because of the horrors of war.

At age fourteen, I took employment as bass clarinetist with the Elk’s Band, a group of fine concert musicians who played in various locations around central Illinois and west central Indiana. Our repertoire consisted of classical pieces, the occasional show tune, and patriotic numbers by John Phillip Sousa and his ilk. One fine Sunday all forty-two of us climbed aboard the bus and headed for Danville, Illinois, to play a concert at the VA hospital. The director rose to his feet as we neared our destination, and cautioned us about the upcoming venue.

“We’ll park at the back of the auditorium,” he said. “Go directly inside. Do not look around, do not leave the group, do not talk with any of the inmates.”

“Inmates?” I thought.

“I’ll pass out playlist when we get set up. The program will be very docile. When its over, pack up and get back on the bus as soon as possible. If there is any trouble, stay together. There’s safety in numbers.”

“Safety in numbers?” I wondered.

I was sitting next to the bassoonist, long a member of the band, who explained that this particular Veteran’s hospital housed men who had, for whatever reason, lost their mental stability while in the service of their country. The Elk’s band had not played there in over eight years. The last time they had played there the director had called for some Sousa after his first two rather placid selections failed to elicit applause from the five or six hundred onlookers. When Stars and Stripes Forever lumbered into the section where the trombones come on strong descending down the scale, an overly excited worthy in the fifth or sixth row, moved by the stirring performance, leapt to his feet.

“Kill the bass drummer!” he shouted, and charged the stage.

A large number of his compatriots, equally moved by the music, buoyed by his fearless assault on superior numbers, took up the cause and joined in the rush. Cries of “Over the top, boys!” and “You wanna live forever?” filled the air. Dozens of veterans of the first and second world wars and Korea, attacked the musicians. The band, with most of their clothes, some of their instruments, and none of their dignity in tact, made it out the back door to the waiting bus. Injuries were minor, but the band refused to come back for eight years.

We played the concert. An hour and twenty minutes of things like “Sheep May Safely Graze and Pasture,” a truly boring experience. The audience never moved or reacted in any way. Back on the bus and out of danger, a Dixieland jam broke out, and we boogied all the way home.

Four years later a college professor I had a huge amount of respect for told me he believed it was in my best interest to leave higher education before I learned how not to think. I took him at his word and dropped out of college. Certain members of my family took exception to my escape, and pressured me heavily to return to the halls of higher learning as soon as possible. I enlisted in Danville Junior College. The year before, Danville Junior College had installed its campus on the grounds of the same Veteran’s hospital where sheep could safely graze and pasture. So could the students, the college propaganda said. The more troublesome inmates of the institution (veteran, not student) had either died off, or had been transferred to other locations. The population was down to about eight hundred patients, only outnumbering the seekers of education by about twenty percent.

I went to Danville Junior College for a while, passing through the large iron gate, locked and heavily guarded after sundown, off limits to the vets during the day, moving through the depressing stone buildings, going to class with students who felt and sometimes acted, like prisoners. It was not a happy place. A friend there, Jerry Bailey, decided once that since the mental patients out numbered the rest of us, if majority rule was in effect, we were the ones who were insane the minute we stepped on campus. As time went on, I became convinced he was right.

One afternoon, Bailey, me, and two other misfits were walking down the long sweeping drive to the front gate, two abreast, and just naturally fell into step. Down the road we marched for nearly a quarter mile. When we reached the gate and stopped, we noticed nearly a hundred of the vets were right behind us, in a column of twos. They also had fallen into step, increasing in numbers as they followed us to the street. There was no guard, the gate was open, freedom beckoned. Three of us freaked. Bailey, some years my senior and a Viet Nam veteran, remained calm. He looked over the column quietly.

“Ten-hut!” he shouted. They snapped to.

“Ha-bout hace!” They turned.

“Howard-harch! Yo lef, yo lef!” The entire assemblage marched away, back up the drive.

Bailey looked at me. “Rank tells,” he grinned. “I was a corporal!”

On that day, in that place, with that company, the boy was a full-bird Colonel.

DOCTOR, DOCTOR

No Patience With Patients
            He bit his lower lip in pain and stared at me with nearly hate-filled eyes. His assistant, not quite hiding her amusement, handed him a wet towel to soak up some of the blood that ran from his forearm.
            “Looks like ten to fourteen stitches to me,” she said, barely controlling her grin. “You probably ought to sit down. You look a little pale. I’ll sew it up when your blood pressure stabilizes.”

            Jessica crouched on the stainless steel table and purred.

            Jessica was my cat, a bobcat to be exact. She was about six months old, and I had brought her to the veterinarian’s office for routine shots. Bobcats need them, just as housecats do. The veterinarian was Delmar Dawe. Well, that’s not exactly right. At best, Delmar was a vetinary. Primarily a large animal vet, Delmar also had an office for his small animal practice just off the highway in almost-Arkansas, Missouri. He wasn’t much of a vet, but he was the only game in town. He was the only game for over thirty miles in any direction, and he was an authority on handling all kinds of animals. He’d tell you so.

            When I’d arrived at his office, the receptionist/assistant, a lovely young woman named Etta, was fascinated by the bobcat. She cooed and petted, stroked and purred at Jessica, and Jess returned the attention, a real hound for affection. Delmar was unimpressed at dealing with a bobcat. “A cat’s a cat,” he said, as he prepared the shot.

 

           “Etta, I’ll stretch her, you give her the injection.”

 

            I spoke up, mentioning the possibility of a squeeze cage, trying to impress Delmar with the fact that bobcats, even half-grown ones, were wild animals, capable of extreme feats in time of stress. He ignored my advice, grabbed Jessica by the fur on top her butt, and the hair behind her head, and pulled her out to her full length. She rotated inside her skin, sunk her fangs three quarters of an inch into his left wrist, and opened up two six-inch tears in Delmar’s right forearm with her rear claws. He screamed and released her. She crouched, eyeing him coldly while she waiting for his next move.

            Bobcats one, Delmar nothing. 

            Delmar came to the ranch on one occasion to float the wolf-teeth on a four year-old gelding. Floating wolf-teeth is a brutal procedure that requires using a wood rasp to file down a set of teeth to keep them from interfering with the bit when it is in a horse’s mouth. Horses are bigger than most of us and are prone to resists this treatment. To maintain control, a “twitch” is used. A twitch is a two-foot length of quarter-inch nylon rope secured to the end of an eighteen-inch dowel. The rope is slipped over the horse’s upper lip, the stick is spun, tightening the loop of line about a bulge of muzzle, and the horse is thus restrained, while the vet reaches into his mouth, and files down, or knocks out, the teeth in question.

            Observing Delmar casually perform the application of the twitch one afternoon, I watched as he forgot to remain at arm’s length during the procedure. The horse found the twitch to be unpleasant, threw is head violently upward jerking the dowel from Delmar’s grasp, causing it to strike him briskly on the nose. The crack of the blow could be heard throughout the barn, leaving Delmar sitting in the hay attempting to staunch significant blood flow from his broken beak.

            Horses one, Delmar zip. 

            Then there was the good-natured German shepherd who became so outraged at Delmar’s cavalier insertion of a rectal thermometer that he whirled on the table and delivered a massive bite to Delmar’s left wrist. Delmar suffered no injury from the attack, but his brand-new Rolex wristwatch, in spite of its three thousand dollar price tag and its solid stainless steel case, could not resist the crunch of the doggy’s massive jaws. As Delmar sat holding pieces of the watch in his hand, Etta had to leave the room to laugh. Jobs were scarce in almost-Arkansas, Missouri.

            German shepherds one, Delmar zilch. 

            A five hundred pound Charolais heifer is one of the waspiest animals on the planet. They have the speed of a leopard, the kick of an ostrich, and the mind-set of an L. A. Banger. We had fifty-six of them to vaccinate and called Delmar. The heifers, penned in a small corral, were driven down a chute and into a headgate for treatment. Delmar became dissatisfied with the way we were handling the cattle and jumped into the pen to show us how it should be done. He rapidly approached the nearest heifer, who lashed out with the speed of a striking snake and kicked him squarely in the crotch. The poor man folded like a pair of deuces into the muck at the bottom of the pen amid raucous laughter from all of us on hand. I took compassion on him and led the bent and broken man from the corral and eased him to the ground.

            Heifers one, Delmar nada. 

            He sipped from a cup of water I brought him and regarded me through bloodshot eyes.

            “Ya know,” he winced, “I was gonna be a doctor for a while. A human doctor.”

            “Why didn’t you?” I asked.

            “Aw, hell,” he grunted. “I just can’t stand people. I really like animals, though.”

            Humans one, Delmar. . .well, you get the drift.

 

 

CLOUD

Day of the Dummy

 

I have spent some time of my life on top of horses. Current aches and pains would indicate too much time, but I wouldn’t change anything. In the late 1970’s I made my living now and then on horseback, working on ranches in terrain too extreme for gasoline powered vehicles. To “cowboy” is a romantic dream that reads significantly better than it lives. Twenty dollars and two meals for a fourteen-hour day, while using horses owned by the cattle company, isn’t the easiest way to make a paycheck.

Stock horses are a mixed bunch, the best of which are usually snapped up by the full-time hands for semi-permanent use. The dregs are used by the “day hands,” misguided fools like me hired as needed for roundups, calving season, and the like. The selection of horses inflicted on us constituted a mixed bag of quirks and bad habits.

Dottie was a small chestnut mare of easy temperament and generally good attitude. From time to time, however, Dottie’s tiny mind would compel her to walk into an available stock pond and lie down. Her rider’s protests and efforts to the contrary would go unheeded, leaving the cowboy soaked to the skin in drenched clothing and water-filled boots. This was an unpleasant experience, especially shortly after dawn on a forty-five degree March morning. (Dottie’s motivation remains unclear.)

Curly was a wise bay gelding with quick feet and good cow sense who stood quietly when mounted, never threatened violence, and did not bite at knees or buck. Curley’s specialty was to wait until his rider was most vulnerable. At the moment the cowboy was lulled into a false sense of security - arms behind his back while removing a jacket that had become too hot for the day, or reins slack while he was absorbed in rolling a cigarette - Curly would dart to one side of the trail or the other, with the speed of a mother-in-law’s tongue, and leave the rider sitting atop five feet of nothing but his aspirations. The resulting crash was humiliating, but Curley was not without compassion. Once the deed was done, he would not repeat it for the balance of the day.

Then, there was Cloud. Cloud was a leopard Appaloosa of a little over sixteen hands and nearly twelve hundred pounds. Snow white and covered with a plethora of dark blue silver dollar sized spots, Cloud was beautiful. Cloud was Majestic. Cloud was slow. Cloud was dumb. The briefest glance his way convinced the novice observer that this was a wonderful steed. Five minutes on his back gave the exact opposite impression.

One cool morning, he and I went bushwacking, searching for calves in hard to reach places. The sky was totally clear. Post oaks and cedars whispered in the tingling breeze as a distant hawk or buzzard poised artfully against the blue for best effect. But I had little time to enjoy such things. I was riding Cloud. Left to his devices, Cloud would wander off the trail or stumble over his own feet or walk under a low-hanging limb or just stop. He had no evil intent. There was not a nasty bone in his huge body. He was merely unsuited for this reality and paid almost no attention to it. A horse that is unaware of his surroundings is maddening to his rider and a danger to both of them. When aboard Cloud, I could never relax. I tried to keep my mind in the middle and protect both of us.

I was riding along the rim of a rocky gulch, rocks that Cloud stumbled over from time to time, when I noticed a splash of black among the stones about forty feet down the steep slope. I got down among scattered prickly pear and new polk salad to investigate. When I dropped the reins, Cloud was instantly ground-tied, sinking deeply into his own horsey thoughts, as far away from the mundane world as possible. Clattering down the steep slope I encountered a calf, a two-day old indigo bundle of cute. I wrapped him around my neck, holding his feet in both hands, and struggled back up the slope on an easier route, emerging at the top of the draw about sixty feet from where Cloud stood in deep meditation. I eased the little calf to the ground and was admiring him when his mommy, a thousand pounds of outraged motherhood, came boiling out of the brush, bawling straight for me.

I was in big trouble. Standing on that lacerated and rocky ground wearing cowboy boots, I was about as mobile as an inverted turtle. The best I could hope for was that the end would come quickly. The cow, sporting four-point independent suspension on a variable wheelbase and driven by one full cowpower of motherly love, had me totally at her mercy. There were no trees to climb, and no big boulders to dive behind. I was without defense. She charged. When she was less than fifteen feet away, wonder of wonders, Cloud blew by me and slammed into her. Momma fell flat, and he to his knees. When the cow lurched back to her feet, that marvelous horse stayed between she and I, squealing and biting until I could move away from the calf and clamber into the saddle. As she turned her attention to Junior, Cloud and I retreated to the tree line and watched their tearful reunion.

I was astounded! For one brief and shining moment, Cloud, that equine monument to “Duh,” had soared so high above his usual shortcomings as to render them insignificant. The same horse that could not be depended on to do anything even remotely correctly, had saved me from serious injury, possibly death, and he had done it with style. I never told any of the other hands about Cloud’s accomplishment, for I would not have been believed, but from that moment on I used that stumble-footed steed as often as I could. I found myself more tolerant of his shortcomings. Even months later as he and I tripped and slipped along the trails, Cloud, for all his bumbling ineptitude, was still my favorite. Not for what he was, but for what I knew he could be.

 

 

BEST FRIENDS

 

          When I was very young, my dog Judy was my closest friend. She remained more than dear to me until her death when I was fourteen, the best listener I have ever known, ever willing to lay on the floor in front of the stove while I told her about my life. When I was about five, however, she stopped answering me. She was still more than willing to listen, but the conversations became one-sided. I needed more than that. My grandparents were too far removed from my five-year-old world to relate to me on that level. No, I needed a friend. His name turned out to be Mike Duke.

Mike’s grandmother, Mrs. Hale, owned the house and land just east of her home and, when I was five, her daughter, her daughter’s husband and their family came to my small town to live in that house, right across the highway from me. Mike, who may have been an accident, had two older brothers who went to the high school at the other end of town. There was nobody in his family close to his age either. He and I were a mortal lock.

Called “Stinky” by his father, a mechanic with a shop behind their residence, Mike was an individual of non-conformity. Summer and winter, for instance, unless he was to be immersed in water, he wore a sock cap pulled down over his ears. To the best of my knowledge it never came off. At least I, his best friend, never saw him without it. Even in the rigorous confines and regimented surroundings of first grade, the cap stayed on. I sometimes wonder if, because he was never without that maroon and gray sock cap, our teacher, Fanny Marie Hopeshell Jervis, simply assumed it was part of his head.

When the rest of us were finally old enough for big bicycles, Mike got a little one, with small wheels. It was nimble and quick, easily out performing my Huffy Heavyweight on corners and curves, stops and starts. Oh, he couldn’t keep up on level straightaways, or match its frightening speed down Pridemore’s hill, but when it came to jumping curbs or tearing through alleys, he smoked me.  Twenty years later, similar bicycles painted bright colors and fixed with “banana” seats became the rage. Stinky had the original.

My first camping trip was with Mike. Huddled in a tiny canvas pup tent in my back yard, we stayed awake all night, fearful of lions and tigers and bears, oh my, until the sun began to rise, and we could actually settle down enough to get some sleep. We swam in the river together, wading out on sandbars until the water was up to our necks, never telling the big people about it, because we knew they would make us stop. We played Tarzan in the woods during summer, swinging on grapevines from tree to tree, looking for Tantor and Cheetah, fearful of Bolgani, the gorilla. We discovered girls together and decided we didn’t like them, built a tree house that fell out of the tree, engaged in B-B gun battles, successfully hiding the welts from our folks, built snow forts together in the winter, rushed to each other houses immediately after opening our presents on Christmas morning, watched the Mouseketeers at his house because his TV could get Disney, played with the dog at my house, because I had a dog. We sat on porches, bounced on inner tubes, crashed on ice skates, rolled in the grass, walked the river, and a thousand other things, because we were best friends. Then he moved away.

When we were nine, after being together since we were five, a long, long time, Mike announced his family was moving to a place called California that was so far away, it would take almost four days to drive there. And they did. Without asking either of us if they could, they did. He and I tried to say goodbye, but didn’t know how. We had never had to say goodbye before. It was awful. We knew we would never see one another again.

A few days after my best friend left, I was riding my bike listlessly up and down the river road, something that was no fun at all without Stinky, and I looked up the road into the setting sun. There, casting an endless shadow in my direction, silhouetted against the glare, was an apparition. I actually thought it was a ghost. Mike came walking down the road. His grandmother had taken suddenly ill, and he and his mother had flown back on a big plane called a Constellation. He was back for a week. We made the most of it. And then he left again.

Eight years later, when we were seventeen, his grandmother died, and again he and his mother flew back. I couldn’t wait to see him. We had not spoken since we were nine. When he arrived on our front porch, we were both suddenly shy. We got in my grandad’s car, and drove to the lake to tool around and stop at the Tastee-Freeze. He wasn’t Mike anymore. He was a teen-ager from California and we had virtually nothing in common. Even the sock cap was gone. It was too uncomfortable for both of us and, even though he was in town for several days, we didn’t hang out. It was just too hard. But, to this day, he remains the best friend I have ever had, the first human being to ever share the intimacy of my fears and hopes. I still see him sometimes, walking out of the setting sun, a sock cap pulled down over his ears…and I am young again, back to the days when a puddle could be a mystery, when dandelions made a beautiful bouquet, and when an RC Cola on the porch swing with my best friend Stinky, was as good as anything needed to be.

ol' LEWIS LIVE

 

 

 Yes, Boys and Girls, the unthinkable is about to happen! On October 21^st at 1:00 PM CMT and 2:00 PM CST, ol’ Lewis is going to crawl from his dusty warren and actually appear in public...sort of. Krista Kendrick has been kind enough to ask me to appear on her webcast, A NOVEL IDEA LIVE to discuss writing, books, and writing books. There will be shameless self-promotion and free books galore. Join Krista and me, jump in on the chat box and be part of the program, or just hang out...but don’t miss it. Something like this may never happen again. (and probably shouldn’t)

 

That’s Sunday October 21^st at 2:00 PM CST,

A NOVEL IDEA LIVE.

 

Check out the promo and author page at

http://www.anovelidealive.com/guide-view/october-21-david-r-lewis

 

Join the live program on October 21st at 2:00 PM, CST

http://www.anovelidealive.com/live

JACKPINE JOLLY

 Too Tall, Big Fall 

            His name was Roger Brooks, but we just called him Jolly. We called him Jolly partially because of “Jolly Roger”, partially because the Jolly Green Giant was popular in those days and Jolly was a little over six feet seven inches tall, and partially because everybody had nicknames in our little, insular, motorcycle-motivated society. My best friend for instance, Lee Walter “The Duck” Griesheimer. Duck was five feet four. Looking at Jolly and Duck as they stood side by side could make you dizzy.

            All of us were very cool, except Jolly. We were so cool, we kept Jolly around because he wasn’t. Due to his extreme height and the natural awkwardness of youth, Jolly was always good for a little light relief. Whether bumping his head on something that normal people would have to jump to reach, or tripping over his own size seventeen boots, or banging an elbow because his arms were nine feet long, Jolly was ever entertaining. Besides that, we liked him in an overgrown little brother sort of way, and we were all he had.

            We rode motorcycles. Not the loud, low slung drive-in profilers, or the bulbous, chromed highway cruisers. No Harleys, Thriumphs, BSAs, or Nortons for us, we rode for purpose, not effect. Bultacos, Montessas, Osas…we were enduro riders, and we worked at it, conditioning ourselves, training ourselves, trying to be the best we could be.

            An enduro is a cross-country race, run in various classes according to motor size. The object is to get from the beginning to the end of the course, often over 100 miles, and maintain an average speed of 24 milers per hour. Not very fast until you consider that the terrain can consist of dry creek beds, streams, rocky hillsides, swamps, sand pits and the like, and the ride can continue until well after dark.

            The rider is given a fixed number of points at the beginning of the race and encounters several checkpoints along the way where his time on the course is examined by judges. Points are deducted for going too fast or too slow on each segment of the course. The competitor carries a map, a compass, and the enduro rider’s official medallion, a stopwatch. The bike is equipped with lights, knobby tires and two odometers, one to measure the total distance traveled, one re-set at each checkpoint. In many respects, enduro is the most physically challenging and mentally demanding of all motorcycle sports. We rode as many as we could. We practiced on weekends. On weeknights we’d hone our skills and speed at changing tires, replacing chains, changing spark plugs, figuring exactly what we had to carry for emergencies and still keep the bike’s weight as low as possible. The question was never if we would break down, but how many times, and how badly. All of this effort, practice and preparation was for one race, the ultimate challenge, the enduro rider’s enduro…Jack Pine. A two-day, five-hundred mile slice of hell through the wilds of Michigan that drew competitors from all over the world. It was the Holy Grail of the sport and, in 1964, we went. Jolly came too.

            A couple of months before, Jolly had purchased a brand new Honda 305 Scrambler, a motorcycle as tall, ungainly, and ill-suited for enduro as he was. Together, they were a disaster. Obstacles that left the rest of us undaunted, would utterly defeat Jolly and his Honda. He had to work much harder than any of us just to keep up when we were playing, and could not begin to compete when we were serious, but he never quit.

            We arrived at the grounds in Michigan in the late evening after a fourteen-hour drive, on the night before the day of the race. Walking to check in, the six of us marveled at the number of motorcycles and competitors. Over 600 riders were competing in five classes, and we drew numbers to determine where we would start. I was number 77 in a class of nearly two hundred, my friend Duck, number 56. In his class of around 150 riders, Jolly was number 5. Riders were started at thirty-second intervals. Jolly would take to the trail very early the next morning. We worked on our bikes until late in the night, too nervous to sleep, and finally collapsed for two hours or so in the back of the vans, only to rise again and continue to prepare at dawn. This was Jack Pine, the biggest of the big, and we were there.

            The starting line was over fifty yards long, on top of a low hill. Arranged behind it, in loose starting order, grouped in the various classes, was the multitude of bikes and riders. We walked to the line to watch the first riders take off. There, sweating profusely in the early morning cool, regarding a stop watch that he’d accidentally stepped on and broken the night before, sat the very tall Jolly aboard his very tall Honda. He was head and shoulders above the throng, nervously peering about. When he saw us, he grinned a “thumbs up”.

            His number was called, and he moved forward to the starting line. Before him stretched 200 yards of a slight, grass covered slope terminating in woods. In the middle of the slope stood a single tree. Jolly leaned over the handlebars, revved his engine and waited. The flag dropped, he released the clutch, the big Honda tore off down the hill throwing mud and grass in a rooster tail behind it. Then Jolly rode directly into that one and only tree. A 500 mile two day race. Jolly lasted less than 10 seconds and 100 yards.

            When it was all over and we had returned home, we took up a collection and bought him a new stopwatch. The back was engraved, “Jolly Rodger, first to crash and burn, Jack Pine, 1964.”

            It became his most prized possession, proof that for one shining moment, he had ridden the legendary Jack Pine, just like the rest of us.