As I think back to the various bikes I owned, the one thought that goes through my head is how amazing it was I lived through them.

 

I bought my first bike at 15 1/2. It was a twin jet Yamaha 100 and I paid $300 for it. I drove it around and around the King St house waiting to turn 16 so I could get my drivers license. When Jamie Edwards and I decided one night to move the bike from his place near the high school to my house on King St we headed down the back roads of Paris and crossed the footbridge into Lions Park. While driving through the park, a dog started chasing me. I gunned it and headed for the exit. But there was a chain strung across the exit that I didn't see until it had hit the bike, rode up the forks, and grabbed me by the throat, throwing me off the bike. Almost decapitated. Anyway, I did survive that incident, as well as countless attempts to see how far I could lean one or the other of these machines over or see how fast I could make them go around corners, or fly down the Willow St hill just before the high level bridge coming into town etc. Stupid.