Shopping For Harleys

Monday, June 21, 2010


Shopping For Harleys

"You know... we have both cars paid off and no more tuition to pay. We can afford a payment on a new Harley..." My husband and I were standing on the side of the road watching the Dumfries staging of Rolling Thunder. I put it out there to see what would happen.

About thirty years ago, we were both in language school in Monterey, CA. That's where we met. He was skating his way through the basic German course, (his Grandparents spoke German), and I was toiling my way through the basic Russian course. He was one of the Bad Boys; a single SF guy in his twenties, larger than life. I was still a babe of nineteen, young and impressionable, but I was not impressed with his Green Beret. He had a Honda 750, acted like a gentleman and treated me like a queen. I was smitten. Apparently, so was he. He was impressed by the fact that the beret didn't matter to me. For me, it was really the motorcycle.

We went everywhere on that motorcycle, and we lived for the weekends when we could put down the daily grind of dialogs to memorize, vocabulary words to learn, and grammar to apply. On the bike, we were free. We made day trips to Carmel, rode on Seventeen Mile Drive to see how the other half lives, down to Big Sur, and up to San Francisco and everywhere in between. Riding in the open air was exhilarating.

But after language school, we both received orders, mine to Japan and his to Germany. I eventually traded my orders for someone else's so I could be near him in Germany. He did not take the motorcycle to Germany with him because he didn't need the wheels in Berlin. We married and we were not stationed together. About the same time as my enlistment was up, I found out I was pregnant, so I got out of the military and followed him for the rest of a twenty-six year career. At some point, after the children came along, he sold the motorcycle, and then we decided that "someday" we would get the Harley he'd always wanted.

The running joke over the years has been, "Can I get my Harley yet?" The answer would always be, "No not yet. We have other priorities right now."

On the morning of Rolling Thunder, the five year old living inside of my husband began doing the happy dance the moment I mentioned buying a Harley. The responsible adult said, "Well, let's look at the budget and then we'll discuss it." Yeah, we discussed it all of ten minutes when I showed him where the money was going to come from.

Last weekend, we were running errands and he asked me if there was anyplace else I wanted to go, and I said, "Let's go to East Coast Harley and have a look-see, and pick up a few brochures."

About an hour later, we left with a few ideas. A few days later, I noticed East Coast was bookmarked on the computer. By Wednesday, we both pretty much had a good idea of what we did and didn't want.

For father's Day, I signed him up for the motorcycle safety course he needs to get his license. And I gave him a Harley card. We'll probably order it by the first week in August and by Labor Day we'll be kids again. Skyline Drive is nice when the fall colors are out. Goshen Pass is beautiful any time of the year.

So we're thinking of a black Fat Boy geared for the road. I'll be taking the Ladies Only class in the fall too. Truth is, I'm as excited about it as he is.
Posted by klasko at 11:21 AM

4 comments:

modestypress said...

When my wife and I owned a business, one of our employees mentioned she had married her husband because he rode a motorcycle.

While she was working for us, she got off his motorcycle and never got back on. She had worked him through medical school; now he wanted her to work him through law school. I have no idea how many degrees he eventually collected so he could forever avoid getting a job.
July 3, 2010 4:18 PM


klasko said...

Random! Welcome to my blog and thanks for dropping by. It's good to see you.

Now that we've finally finished paying for our kids' educations, my wonderful husband will be working me through college. :-)

But we'll be riding that Harley together in the off time.

It must have been more than the motorcycle, because I stayed with him after he got rid of it. Next anniversary will be 30 years.
July 4, 2010 8:37 AM


modestypress said...

Believe it or not, the wife of one of my bosses worked him through college, and then he worked her through college. However, they are no longer an item. These are not general principles of science; they work for some people (hopefully in your case) but not for everybody.

My father in law was married five times. (My wife was the product of marriage number one.) To the surprise of everyone, marriage number five worked out. Perhaps because they were exhausted; perhaps because they had both worked for movie studios (though not as actors). This is not a plan, either.
July 4, 2010 2:33 PM


V.R. Leavitt said...

OH awesome!!!! How wonderful to get a bit more history of you and hubby too. :-)
July 14, 2010 2:13 PM