Thru the Peephole: Musings on the Strange, Interesting, and Maddening Characters We Meet “On the Road”

Chapter 2: Our First (and Last) Hippodrome Rider

The first long bike trip that Doug and I took, of course, turned out to be one of the most memorable. It was the beginning of a Lifetime Odyssey… perhaps… These memories don’t seem to fade even though many years have passed… is it the same for the reader?

Before I get to the next Character, a little side story might be interesting. I’m sure all readers have similar stories to relate…

As Doug and I recuperated from “A Case of the (Chapped) Ass” as reported previously, we did some great touring in the Rockies. Friends Don, Doug and I traveled some beautiful, twisty roads and toured Rocky Montain National Park–High Mountain Majesty, indeed! I could have been “Squished” there, too… never to see Fair Ohio again!

While riding in the high mountains… where magnificent views appeared around every turn… I happened to be in the lead, while Doug (with Don riding pillion) followed behind. I passed a most impressive overlook and decided that we shouldn’t pass up this Photo Opportunity (you know… National Geographic stuff!) So, I put on my left turn signal and gave Doug the old “circle the wagons” hand signal. Well assured that he had seen me, (after all, he was looking right at me–I thought!), I proceeded to make a “U” turn through the left lane… Whooosh… in the next instant Doug and Don flashed past me in a Black BMW Blur and I hear Don murmur (quite loudly, I must say!)… Wooaaooaah!… Doug missed my handlebar by a fraction. I continued thru the turn and stopped to catch my breath. D&D returned also, and we laughed and joked about our Close Call (as our sphincters slowly returned to normal). These Things Happen, don’t they?… or is it just Us?

Now, back to the subject at hand… We have some fond memories of one of the Interesting Characters we met on our trip. As we made our way home, we rode up thru South Dakota, and not far from Sturgis, we camped at Wind Cave National Park, and in the morning, we needed gas and oil… we found this run-down, shabby, old gas station that would look at home in a Norman Rockwell painting. It looked closed, but we pulled up to the gas pumps, anyhow… slooowly out the door came an old gentleman, a little too round and a little too wrinkled, perhaps. He shuffled to our bikes and asked, as he perused our Beauties,“What kin I do fer ya fellers?”… “Oh, yes, I got gas… and some oil, too… those are some fine lookin’ sickles ya got there!”…“I see ya’ll traveled a long way, eh?”…“Oh, I used to ride sickles when I wuz younger, Harleys and Indyens, ya know… In fact, I used to be a ‘Hippodrome Rider’… Know what that is?… Ya ride a sickle around in a big barrel… keep it up on the walls… rode at all the county fairs fer miles ’round; people seemed to like it”… “Mebbe they was jist waitin␁ fer the crashes… Oh, I guess it was dangerous, but ya kept a flat nail tied to yer wrist, it went in the ‘kill switch’–if yer hand come off-a-the handlebars, the nail pulled out an’ broke the circuit, killin’ the motor.”… “It worked all right”… “Oh, I rode in them things fer years…all over… after a while I got more int’rested in racin’ stock cars…"

We talked for a long time… this old man that looked like any other bib-overalled Oldster, but the sight of our bikes seemed to put a twinkle in his eye and conjure up the memories of when he was young and “Ridin’ Sickles”… We gave him a chance to talk… and we listened… and, man, Could He Tell a Story!