Motorcycle Memories

I was just outside in the garage, working in the afternoon heat with Gib. I was splicing some anchor lines for the boats, and he was fiddling with the carburetor off of one of the four wheelers, trying to get the thing to run. Bored with the task at hand, and insane with the oven like temperatures inside of the garage, it wasn’t too long before we drifted outside into the hellishly hot, red tide air day to take a look at our scooters, glossy black paint and chrome gleaming in the midday sun. I started thinking about bikes I've owned and loved.

It takes another biker to understand.

During the 1970’s I was stationed up in Kodiak Alaska at the Coast Guard Air Station. In those days, there was always a down and out cutthroat war between the officers and enlisted men …I think that in todays military where everyone is in there on a volunteer basis, the distinction between ranks is one of mutual respect and benevolence. During my incarceration in the military, which were the days of the draftee, officers were thought of as “zeros” and fair game for just about anything. We were barely past the days of fragging. There were no scruples…no honor, only abject warfare between the hierarchy and serfdom, a sense of eat or be eaten.

One time we streaked the officers club in the middle of their sit-down dinner time, penis’ painted red; ballsacks, painted white and blue. Just hauled ass through there, with paper bags masking our faces, genitalia flopping about, laughing insanely. It made the base newspapers, and I’m sure, more than one officers wifes’ evening.

My first bike was a little Honda 125 two stroke machine, custom made for zipping around the dirt roads and trails that crisscrossed Kodiak Island. My friend Martin did a lot of work on it, porting the cylinder and tweaking the carb so that it would get maximum wheelies. Then I got a DT-250 Yamaha, a much more powerful machine, and did much the same to it. I bought it fairly cheap because the previous owner had gotten the gas tank stolen by leaving it alongside the hangers where it was fair game to marauding thieves, among who were just about all of us. We ported and polished the exhaust and intake ports, sleeved and put in a new piston and rings, and bolted on a new exhaust...essential items necessary to make it stand on it's back wheel for a block or two.

Finally the time came to get the bike out there on the road and trails. I had a slight problem though, having neglected to order a fuel tank for my machine. Kodiak was, and is an island far out in nowhere, I would have had to order a new fuel tank, and that would’ve taken weeks to arrive via SeaLand. I was impatient.

In the dark and dusty recessed spaces of the hanger, sat stored until spring, a few bikes belonging to officers who thought that they might be safe from predation there. Not so. One of my friends spied a dust covered DT-250, the same vintage as mine, back among the piles of caribou antlers and spare lifejackets. It appeared to be a neglected and homeless machine, one prime for the recycling of clandestine parts. He suggested that I promptly remove the offending part, preferably in the middle of the night, and claim it as mine. I took his suggestion, it was fair game. Late one night, I carefully lifted the tank from the frame, stuffed it into a small duffle bag and smuggled it out of the hanger. Oh, consider the job done.

Over the course of the next several days, I stripped off the glaring purple paint , and primed and painted my new prize a beautiful electric yellow color. I installed it on the bike and went riding, proud of my accomplishment. Kodiak goes from the drearies of winter to the drearies of spring in a season almost unnoticable. The bears wake up and look around for the summer salmon run, and devils club and fidddlehead ferns pop out of brown barren hillsides, heralding the arrival of spring and all of its attendant mud, the time to haul out and dust off motorcycles, neglected during the long winter months.

It was late May, and the weather was improving. Everyone was starting to get out there. Everyone including the owner of the other Yamaha.

One evening he hauled the bike out of the hanger, and went blasting down to the officers club for happy hour. On the way back, the bike ran out of gas, having operated all the way down there and half the way back on a thimbleful of gasoline in the carb. As he was fiddling around with it, wondering why it didn't run…he noticed, yes, just noticed that the gas tank was missing. Jesus God, what a dumbass. And this guy was a C-130 pilot too....I couldn’t imagine taking off on my scooter and not noticing that the friggin’ fuel tank was missing. Forlornly, and I imagine more than a bit pissed off, he pushed the thing back to the hanger and back into the dark corner. The story made the rounds.

By this time I had come down with an extreme case of the guilts, hell, I’m not a thief, and was not raised to be one. The whole time I felt guilty and dirty, so I decided to return the fuel tank. One night I crept down there late and put the bright yellow tank back on.

The pilot who owned the Yamaha later told his friends; “yea, the goddamnest thing happened. I went down there to install the new tank that I bought for my bike (an oversized 2.5 gallon plastic one), and noticed that a new metal tank was back on my frame….Not the old purple one...a NEW yellow tank!!” he announced gleefully. And then somewhat glumly he added; “What am I gonna do with this plastic one?”

When I found that out, I contacted him and played stupid, and offered to buy it. I told him I was looking for a bigger tank for my Yamaha so that I wouldn’t have to refuel on the way out to Saltery Cove. He sold it to me for something like thirty bucks.

I kept that bike for about two more years, never even thinking about swiping another part, and always thankful that my somewhat compromised conscience made me (at least try) and right that wrong.

I made the mistake of leaving it outside the hanger though, when I had to fly down to Honolulu for four days, and some jerkoff stole the carburetor.

I never got THAT back.