My Motorcycle Journey— Part 8
The war is over, now what?
Malloy and I got back from our Seattle trip in late May 1979 and in late June Fawn was told she had a couple more weeks until our second child was due. We sat around several evenings smoking joints and drinking beer and discussing baby boy names. Malloy suggested Mike. Fawn liked Robert or David after my brothers. I was not keen on Jerry because my father’s name was also Jerry.
Finally, one night Fawn asked, “What if it’s s girl?”
We all chuckled and said it’s going to be a boy.
She said, “Well, if it is, I want to call her Melissa.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
As the 4th of July drew closer, we made plans for a big party at our house. BYOB, BYOD, and BYOFW — booze, drugs, and fireworks. Early in the morning of the 4th, Fawn’s water broke and once again, we raced to the hospital leaving Malloy in charge of the party.
As the baby squoze its way out, the nurse exclaimed, “It’s a girl!” Then followed up with, “What are you going to name her?”
Having two kids gave me reason to wonder; should I stick it out in the military for the full twenty years? Or get out and do something better?
The war ended in 1975 and up to that point, my work schedule had never been a boring nine to five job. My duties as Crew Chief were to ensure my plane was ready to fly at whatever time they chose and then I was off until the next flight. Takeoff times varied from the middle of the day, early in the morning, or late at night. This erratic schedule kept me from getting bored.
Now, I had to show up with everyone else at seven in the morning and “work” until four. I even had to stand in line for rollcall and have my uniform inspected every Monday morning. Once, after feeding my new baby daughter her breakfast bottle and putting her over my shoulder for the requisite burp, I forgot to remove the cloth diaper from my shoulder that I used to protect my shirt from the inevitable drool or spit up that babies are known for. I showed up for rollcall with it still draped over my shoulder like some sort of uniform accessory.
On another day, I had lubed the Triumph’s drive chain over the weekend and the excess had splattered a thin line of oil on my back from the top of my left shoulder down to my waist while driving to roll-call. The Master Sergeant stopped behind me and I could feel his smug smile as he asked, “Is this some sort of new uniform design, Sergeant?”
I hated Mondays!
Without a war, the military has little to do. They keep the GI’s busy by practicing. They practice war. And practicing war is very boring, very rule-oriented, very un-fun. We sat around most of the day waiting for something to do. We played a lot of cards and read a lot of Louis L’Amour westerns and dime-store novels.
When we were finally called upon to pretend we were doing something, Quality Control Inspectors watched our every move and filed negative reports that got read at roll call the next morning. Every day, our Master Sergeant stood and briefed us on yesterday’s results. And every day I listened to his monotonous sniveling and complaining.
One day, I exploded and shouted, “Did anybody do anything right???”
He stopped talking, stared straight at me, struggled to think of something, and finally said, “No. I don’t think so.”
Without a war, life in the military sucks.
During a nationwide Practice-War Drill, one of the visiting Colonels noticed how well I was doing as the Maintenance Controller and mentioned it to the Master Sergeant. Several crew chiefs overheard the conversation and relayed it to me. At that moment, I once again felt a feeling of self-worth and it was almost enough to persuade me to stay.
But the next day at roll call, the Master Sergeant never brought it up and never said anything to me. Instead, he spent twenty minutes negatively suggesting that we should have done better, that he wasn’t pleased with the results, solidifying my decision to escape the nonsense.
And so, instead of staying in for twenty years as I had originally planned, I decided to finish my second, four-year tour and get out in January of 1980. My rank was E5 — Staff Sergeant — with a line number for promotion to Tech Sergeant.
Unfortunately, I had recently been arrested for my first DWI. I was on the Triumph and got to spend the night in the drunk tank. My bike was taken by tow truck to the impound yard where the guard dog peed on my chrome wheels.
Additionally, I disobeyed a direct order when I refused to go through gas mask training. As everyone else went inside the Quonset hut, I waited on the bus completely confounding the drill instructor. As the other GI’s emerged without their masks on and their eyes red, puffy, and burning, I began to realize the gravity of my actions. I was going to be court martialed before I could even tell them I wanted to quit.
As expected, I was called in to see the Commander the next morning. I had practiced my apology speech the night before. With my best pitifully sad, sorrowful face, I told him I would mend my ways, it won’t happen again, and I will take the next gas chamber training class.
While he was considering his response, I pulled a cigar out of my chest pocket that said, “It’s A Girl” on the wrapper and handed it to him with a proud smile. As he stared at the cigar, I said, “She was born on the fourth of July.”
Timing is everything.
The Air Force offers many classes on management, operations, and psychology, and I had taken them all. But I didn’t remember taking a class on how to be an asshole. I figured it just happened after you spent too many years in the Military. I didn’t want to be like that. I wanted to be the boss that respected my crew and made sure they knew it.
My father, who had always been “at the office” when I was growing up, had sold his microfilm service business and used the money to start a mail-order light bulb company in Reno Nevada. He had chosen Reno to escape paying taxes.
I reminded myself of the one summer I worked for my father and how nothing I did was good enough. He treated me like a dumb kid and was more likely to embarrass me than praise me. His comments about “smoking and drinking” were enough to drive you to drink. I decided asking for a light bulb job would just be more of the same.
My mom’s father had been tremendously successful during the depression years in Decatur Illinois, where I was born. His name was Jessie but they called him Chap and he owned Chap’s Grocery store, Chap’s Furniture Store, Chap’s Moving Company, Chap’s Roller Rink, and — my favorite — Chap’s Amusement Park. To manage the park, Chap drove an electric golf cart around and let me and my big sister ride in the back. He also owned a Christmas Tree Lot where my father worked and would complain about it for the rest of his life.
Chap had owned his own destiny. Until the state took it in eminent domain to put in a freeway and he lost it all. Later, my father would enjoy telling everyone how Chap had failed and needed his help.
I liked the idea of owning my own business and visualized doing better than my father. Better than Uncle Tom. Even better than Chap. All my buddies were using their GI Bill to become Certified Airframe Technicians. They hoped to get jobs at the local airport doing the same thing they had been doing in the Air Force — only without the travel. And they would be doing it every day. Working the same shift every day. I saw it as simply the “Same shit, different horse” and wanted something better.
I was paying $110 a month to share a two-bedroom duplex and only one bathroom with my wife and two little girls. We lived on unemployment insurance and my GI Bill. I enrolled at American River College in northeast Sacramento, and in my free time, I offered motorcycle repair out of my one-car garage. My tool collection was a mishmash of hand-me-down wrenches, an old Sears electric drill, two tire irons, a pair of vehicle jacks, a brand-new socket set, and stuff I pilfered from the Air Force. I fixed flat tires, did minor tune ups, and even did custom paint jobs on gas tanks.
Fawn decided she needed her own money and got a job at Taco Bell. Since I was home most of the time, I took over kid duties. Carol was in preschool daycare and Melissa was rolling around in a walker with wheels. After dropping Carol off at school, I hooked a long bungee cord to Melissa’s walker and attached it a hook on the garage door frame. She could wheel around and watch me and try to grab stuff off the shelves. She got really good at pushing herself down the driveway, stretching the bungee as far as she could then quickly pick up her feet and let the cord spring her back up the driveway.
In between kids and school and bike repair I drank beer, smoked pot, and read the help-wanted ads in the newspaper. I also checked the Businesses-for-Sale column.
One day, an ad literally jumped out at me. The headline said, “Motorcycle Shop for Sale.” I jolted upright in my seat, caught my breath, and reread the ad.
My Lizard Brain kicked in and filled my head with thoughts of power and fame, a big house, and cool toys. It was the same feeling I had when I first saw the Panhead many years ago and I could feel my nuts getting bigger. My own motorcycle shop — what would my father say to that?
The ad said $350,000 but didn’t give the name of the shop or its address. There was only the agents name and number, which I called immediately. The man that answered said he would give me all the information after I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement, then he gave me his office address.
I knew most of the motorcycle shops in the Sacramento area and as I was getting dressed, I wondered which one it could be. $350,000 was a lot of money in 1980. Which one could be worth that much? I started going through the list of names in my head.
There was California Cycle Works where I had bought lots of chrome stuff for the Triumph. I also had some welding and machine work done there. Their store covered half a city block. They had built several radical custom bikes that I had seen in magazines. I didn’t think they would be for sale.
There were several dealers, Honda shops, Yamaha, Kawasaki, and other Japanese brands. They were probably worth way more. The Harley shops had to be worth even more than the Sake-Sucker shops. There were also a few small, independent shops with one or two employees, but the price seemed high for what they offered. John Harmon had a place in town where he built his famous girder front ends and racing Harley heads. And there was a junk yard out in Folsom that had a lot of used stuff, but that didn’t appeal to me at all.
I rode the Triumph over to the agent’s office and chose a parking spot where everyone in the building could see it from their windows. Inside, I checked the directory for the agent’s name and walked down to his office. The sales agent was wearing a white shirt with a dark blue tie. His suit jacket was hanging over the back of his chair at the small conference table where he invited me to sit. He handed me an Agreement-Not-to-Tell-Anyone, waited for me to read and sign it, swapped it with a file folder and handed it across the table.
He said, “The name of the shop is California Cycle Works. Have you heard of it?”
Follow me for Part 9 - Being My Own Boss.
And go to JerryRoth.com to get a copy of my book: “What Would The Boss Do?” Kindle or paperback.
