On Being Told that a Friend's Son
(Aged Thirty-Nine) Is Going to
Buy His First Motorcycle

Tell him to for crissakes get boots, jacket leather pants in addition to that other stuff. Also tell him to ride near the centerline so oncoming traffic can see him or squish him deliberately.

Also not to ride in a new rain until at least thirty minutes have passed to wash off the grease. Also never to ride in the middle of his lane where the grease is. And to be aware everyone is going to try to kill him anyway.

If I were you I'd put sugar in his gas tank to slow him down and to puncture his tires as often as possible. Those babies are dangerous and he is too old to have any reaction time at all. Forget the wind in his face crap and also don't carry passengers so he doesn't kill them too. Note too that when he is out on a ride with Hells Angel's and Sonny Barger (he's out now) it is best to ride staggered not side by side.

Also remind him that all or most of the parts for repairs of our wrinkled aged bodies come not only from the bone breakers who parted-off Alistair Cooke. They mostly come from the so called "vegetable bin."

The vegetable bin holds row after row of wrecked bikers and dopers who failed their riding tests as knights of the road. The vegetable bin has parts highly valued for their use in us older generation of hangers-on. Warn your son that he could become somebody's liver, heart transplant, new kidney, sinew and bone.

He may value a membership in the New Life Church, but I'd suggest caution lest he end up in the VB. Picture row upon row of brain-dead bedriddens carefully tended by mothers, fathers, kin and friends reading monotonously from The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire to try to coax their valued loved one back to this place.

Row upon row of beds manned by kin reading, fingers moving over the lines, lips mumbling.

Consider this and forbid him his Captain's bars for Knights of the Open Road. Or, he won't live to regret it.

You have been warned

Cheerfully,