Coop's Corner: An Anniversary Approaching

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

An Anniversary Approaching - 2025/03/12

April 17, 1971....just a few days before dad's 45th birthday. We put the '69 AT1 Yamaha on the rear bumper (cars had them) racks, those carriers clamped on the back of dad's 1965 Dodge Polara Station Wagon. I drove us both out to Arden Hills to the Examining Station to warm up, I parked out in one of the 'neighborhood' streets on a block w/o NO PARKING signs. We lifted the white bike off the racks, then laid the racks in the grass along the curb.

I drove the car to the staging area and waited to take my driving test. A score of 98, parallel park was not perfect. With temporary license in hand I went the Right Way around, back to the 'neighborhood' spot where dad was waiting with my Yamaha. Car parked, I donned my Buco helmet, rode over and parked in the staging area for the motorcycle tests. Dad walked over to spectate.

There were a dozen or so bikes ahead of me, a nice-weather Saturday I'm sure. 4 or 5 bikes ahead of me a guy started the test on his 650 Triumph. Around the first part of the figure 8, the bike revved and launched, up and over the curb, coming to rest in a grass island. Luckily, no one was physically hurt.

I'll never forget....the Examiner said likely more to all of us than to the testee...."lots of forms inside."

Here's the result and as you can see, an exceptional performance documented!

A year later I had my first car, as it turns out from the same guy that sold me the white Yamaha.

The same box containing this old Temporary License contained a couple more things....thank you Mr. Anderson. So I'm a Tote'r. My buddies that spend time with me around the campfires will attest to the fact that I'm still perfecting....putting the polish on my fire starting skills. Much too late for Boy Scout acknowledgement but when I make the grade, I'll be just as proud!

I had to see this card to remember the test and the ceremony that celebrated my accomplishment.

Before and along with my legal ability to ride, an interest in all the regional Happenings. This is how we did things way back before Socialing.....

That's it for now. If you've been following along, you'd think that I'd be out of 'Old Stuff' by now.

I must be getting close.

1 comment:

Back RoadMarch 11, 2025 at 7:46 PM
I love the story of getting both licenses on the same day. We got our MC licenses about the same time. I remember taking mine on a cold day in December. Spitting snow no less. I rode the bike, a Harley/Aermacchi 125 to the local DMV. I think the examiner had not given the test before this day or was cold and wanted to get everyone done so he could get back into the warm office. Anyway, we were given the instructions of starting our run as soon as the bike ahead of us cleared the first turn on the course. This was all well and good until we got to the cone slalom. The slalom was to be ridden down then you turned around and rode it back. As the bike ahead completed the turn around, the bike behind was entering the slalom. Made for an interesting ride as everyone rode around the cones and also dodged the oncoming rider. No crashes and everyone passed as I recall.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)