The Perfect Short Ride....

October was cold and rainy, so my friends and I missed our yearly Misfits and Drifters Motorcycle Rally (all brands welcome). Today is November 8th and Milwaukee is blessed with a late Indian summer day. It was the perfect opportunity for a ride, so that’s what I did. It was ride into my past, a past only one person really knows about, that would be Diana, my wife of 18 years.
In the ‘8os I had two lives. In the spring and summer I was a Hwy 100 Street Racer who mostly read car magazines. In the fall and winter I was a Mass Comm/English who wrote poetry and hung out in smoky bars and coffee houses. I never knew where my life was going because my interests were so diverse. It was a fun, confusing, Bohemian and sometimes heartbreaking time in my life.
This day, Sunday 10 Ayem:. I Pushed my red Ninja out of the garage. Put on my leathers and helmet and fired up the bikes high strung little 250cc engine. After a sufficient warm-up, I was off through Wauwatosa into Milwaukee. I rode down Highland and the Harley Davidson Plant where 21 years ago I interviewed for a job in the Technical Writing Department. I blasted the Ninja up two 11 thousand RPM to show my displeasure with my not getting the job and their recent dismissal of Buell. I continued through very light traffic for such a nice day, to Lake drive where I used to ride at top speed my friend Steve’s Honda Hurricane, my friend Paul’s Yamaha XT 500, and my own rag tag Suzuki GS550. (In my old age, I graduated to a smaller more nervous bike, while my friends all ride big twins. I’m always the misfit.) I rode past a place on the Lake front were I went for a walk with my girlfriend Diana, A walk which subsequently changed my rambling ways. I rode around the UWM compass, which seemed so familiar even though I’m 20 years gone from there (20 years!!!). I rode from Oakland to Locusts street here I screwed it on over the river bridge just to hear the pipes sing. I turned left at The Tracks, my favorite bar, in which I spent so many blurry nights and I’d crash at my friends and Chief Misfit and Drifter Paul E. Martin’s basement apartment. A friend with a motorcycle and a convertible, 2 blocks away from my favorite bar, is a good friend to have.
The memories where hitting me hard as I rode through Riverwest. I stopped at The Fuel Café, perhaps the last real coffee shop of the 21st Century, to warm up and soak in the atmosphere. Fuel is in an ancient East side storefront. It’s decorated with Motorcycle pictures and Punk Rock Graffiti. The patrons dress in the same ‘80s New Wave vibe they did in my Smoky bar and coffee shop days. Milwaukee’s best artists, writers, café racers, dreamers and misfits converge. Naturally I felt right at home.
I rode home as briskly as 44-year -old wisdom would allow. I pulled into the driveway of my drafty old barn of a house and shut down the motor. I realized that this was probably the last ride of 2009. 2009 was a most challenging year, but I was thankful. Thankful I still had a motorcycle. Thankful it was a vehicle I could ride into my past and then come home and dream of the future with my family.
The Milwaukee Kidd