My Motorcycle Journey— Part 7
1977— Our First Daughter
In 1976 the war was over and we were working only 8 hours a day with weekends off. That gave us shloads of time for parties and riding. Like the opening song in the movie Easy Rider, You know we smoked a lot of grass. O’ Lord, we popped a lot of pills. And we drank beer. Gallons of beer. The year flew by as we racked up hundreds of miles exploring the back roads and foothills of Sacramento.
Grass Valley, Folsom, Placerville, and Auburn. Some of the most beautiful motorcycle roads are in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. Even though we couldn’t afford to very often, we also made a few trips to Reno or Lake Tahoe riding the winding, tree-lined Interstate-80 or State Highway 50 through the mountains.
Every year, all SAC Air Force bases in the world compete to see who can fly the most perfect bombing missions over a three-day period. Tankers refuel the B-52’s in the air and they then drop sandbags on a painted target on the ground. In 1977, my plane came in second place out of all those planes and crews. I felt pretty good for a boy who could never do anything right while growing up. It was an awesome boost to my self-confidence and gave me a level of respect from the other flight crews.
In April of that year, Fawn found out she was pregnant and on Christmas Eve, 1977, her water broke just as we were getting ready to host a big Christmas party. While we were in the hospital giving birth to our first daughter, my best friend, Mike Malloy stood in for me and hosted the party at our house celebrating Carol’s birth without us.
Malloy came to the house a couple days later and helped me roll dozens of pink joints using strawberry flavored JOB cigarette papers. With a red Sharpie, I wrote, “It’s A Girl!” on each of them.
My mom came to stay with us for a couple weeks to help Fawn with the baby and she insisted we use cloth diapers instead of the new, expensive, paper ones. Fawn took some of those cloth diapers and sewed them into a backpack child carrier. I could put Carol into it and we affectively continued our partying lifestyle.
At six months, Carol was climbing out of her crib and standing up with the coffee table’s help so I bought a bigger backpack and took her for a ride with me on the Triumph. She put her hands on my shoulder and her feet on the back seat and stretched up to look over my shoulder and giggled.
For that year’s fourth of July party, we planned a huge 4-day camping trip in Kyburz off Highway 50 on the south fork of the American River. The three of us took a scouting trip into the hills to find a suitable campsite. Fawn, Carol, and I took the Triumph, Malloy and another friend followed in his 1965 Mustang. After finding the perfect spot for a giant bonfire, the battery eliminator on the Triumph stopped working and the bike would not start.
It was late and we were nowhere near a towing service, so I took the front wheel off, lifted the front forks into the trunk of the Mustang, secured it with a tie-down strap, and towed it back down the mountain.
On Friday, June 30th, twelve of us left after work for Kyburz. Fawn, Carol, and I loaded the Torino with towels, blankets, sleeping bags, tents, cooking supplies, coolers of food and water, a playpen for Carol, and two of the three kegs of Coors beer.
We tied the kegs together with a rope and stored them in the ice-cold river until needed. Over the four days, dozens of people came up. Some stayed, some didn’t. They brought bottles of tequila, vodka, bourbon, pot, and other recreational drugs. On the morning of the third day, we had to make a beer run.
In October of 1978, Fawn once again found out she was pregnant. Shortly after that, I was promoted to Maintenance Controller and drove a large, 2-ton blue van around the flightline carrying all the ground crews and their toolboxes to their respective planes making sure they had everything they needed to get their work done. I used the short-wave radio in the truck to stay in touch with the command post and order fuel or schedule specialists. I got to say “Over” and “Roger” and “Ten Four.” I was in charge and I loved it!
In May of 1979, Malloy got out. For his first act as a civilian we decided to take my hard-tail Triumph chopper and his BSA Lightning on a road trip to Seattle to visit friends from his time at Fairchild AFB. We planned to take Hwy 20 across northern California to Fort Bragg and head up Hwy 1 along the coast.
It was only 200 miles to Fort Bragg, but we got a late start and smoked too much weed before we left and during stops along the way. We pulled into a rest area and stopped for the night. The next morning, we woke up with a better plan and were determined to ride the 575 miles to Portland in one day.
About an hour into the ride, I looked over at Malloy and noticed his arms were shaking. I looked down and saw his flat front tire bouncing like a jackhammer. He was smiling at me, just tooling along completely oblivious.
We stopped at the first gas station, patched the tube, and he told me his back brake wasn’t working well. While the Beezer was still on the center stand, I adjusted his rear brake and spun the wheel to check it.
Back on the road, Malloy was feeling pretty good with an inflated front tire and working rear brake, so he took the lead on the twisting road north through the Redwoods National Park and into Klamath where I watched from behind as he ran over a skunk in the road. I swerved to avoid it but the smell was horrendous.
I passed him so that he was downwind from me and we crossed the Oregon border at Brookings just as it started to rain. A drizzling rain that Oregon is famous for, but it didn’t stop, just kept soaking us a little more with every mile. With over 300 miles still to go to get to Portland, we decided to call it a day and wait out the weather.
Next morning, it was raining harder. We started out slow and stopped frequently. At one point we passed a guy on a bicycle fully loaded with bags and gear. At the next stop, as we were sitting out of the rain drinking a beer, the bicycle goes by.
We passed him again and a little while later we pulled over again, but before we started back out, the bicycle went by again. We were not making very good time, so we hunkered down and promised not to take another break until Portland.
Somewhere around Florence, Malloy had pulled out front again and I watched him go left around a bend and disappear. As I came around the bend, off to my right was a big cloud of mud and glimpses of a motorcycle riding in the middle of it. When it finally came to a stop, I ran out to find Malloy on the ground with a gash across the bridge of his nose and the bike laying on its side. He said his brakes locked up.
I flagged down a passing RV and they brought out a first aid kit with bandages and Mercurochrome. We slathered it on his nose, he screamed, we covered it with a bandage, and I rolled his bike back up to the road. To this day, he blames me for the huge scar on his nose.
Back on the road, we were almost there when I looked over and saw his right exhaust pipe glowing bright red at the head clamp. We were at Portland’s city limits, so we pulled into the first motor inn we saw, checked in, pulled the BSA into the room, turned the area rug upside down, parked the Beezer on top of the rug and headed out on the Triumph to get food and tools.
We bought a rubber mallet, some silicone seal, and a valve compressor plus a sixpack of Coors and a dozen tacos. With all that stuffed into our jackets, we were pulled over and told to put our hands on the hood and spread our legs. Since both cops had their hands on their guns, we didn’t argue.
Apparently, a robbery had just happened at a bar down the street by two guys on a bike that had stolen a bunch of purses. When the cops found the tacos and the tools, they started laughing and told us to make sure we turn on our headlight because it’s Oregon law even during the day.
The next day, we pulled the BSA back outside, turned the rug over, and headed for breakfast before the short run up to Seattle on Interstate 5 where we met up with the friends, rode around the Seattle waterfront for a couple days, then headed back on Interstate 5 all the way. Round trip, about 1,700 miles.
