Non-essential Activities for a Non-essential Person

Originally published in “On the Level,” the magazine of the BMW Riders Association. Because I’m retired, you might say that my entire existence could be classified as non-essential. In fact, some of my colleagues probably would have told you I was non-essential when I was working; I’m even more so now, during the time of Covid 19. 

With this in mind, I’ve developed this helpful list of non-essential activities for a non-essential person:

• Staring at motorcycles. The ridiculous ritual of sitting in the garage and staring at my bikes has acquired new value in the time of the pandemic. If my wife hasn’t seen me for a few hours, she knows where I am: In the garage, dimly illuminated by fluorescent tubes, making engine noises and admiring the curvature of a gas tank. Given the amount of time I spend out there, you’d think there was a home theatre in the garage. Nope, it’s just me, staring at inanimate objects. Sometimes there is whiskey involved.

• Restoring weird motorcycles that I will never ride. The pandemic provided the opportunity to finish a nut-and-bolt restoration of my 1970 Honda Mini-Trail, a pint-sized rendition of a motorcycle that befits my limited state of maturity, if not my six-foot frame. I ride it unabashedly in my cul-de-sac, as my neighbors avert their eyes and privately question my sanity. When will he grow up? Answer: never. And particularly not during a shelter-in-place order.

• Cleaning motorcycles. My bikes normally carry a trademark patina of apathy and neglect. Now, dirt is gone from crevices that last experienced daylight on the factory floor. I never imagined they would be so spotless, though I can almost guarantee yours are cleaner. It’s a low bar, believe me.

• Shopping for motorcycles. My ennui and listlessness has prompted nightly forays onto eBay, usually with a fermented beverage in hand. Past experience tells me this can only end badly. Against all reason, I have a notion that I need a two-stroke dirt bike from the early ‘70s. Unfortunately for me, it’s easy to find candidates online. Some of them even run.  I send the links to my riding buddies for advice, hoping they will act as a kind of truth serum to my delusions. They describe these bikes variously as “crocks,” “piles,” and “roaches,” yet I cannot be dissuaded. So I am left to my own devastatingly poor judgment, and the inevitable acquisition of some “hefty hunk of steaming junk” as James Taylor once famously said. What comes next is as inevitable as pitted points: the garage will be littered with rusty parts, the wire wheel will be whirring, and I’ll be holding a 40-year-old crankshaft in my hand.

• Fixing motorcycles. Every piece of motorcycle maintenance that I have long contemplated but never accomplished is now done. Pivots points have been lubed. Cables slide with newfound ease. The brake fluid is of a color found only in jars of organic honey straight from the farm. Torque wrenches of all dimensions have been applied to bolts, some of which were found wanting. The drive chain on my dirt bike glistens like expensive jewelry. All the bikes start with happy compliance.

• Preserving motorcycles. After long years of philosophical opposition, I am now familiar with the use of Stabil (gasoline stabilizer). Like Bob Dylan says, “Things Have Changed.” Multiple battery chargers whir and flash, tethered by long extension cords, making my garage resemble an intensive care unit. This is what it looks like when motorcycles are on life support.

But these myriad distractions can only suffice for so long. Eventually, I feel the need to ride. After three months of impeccable behavior, I call my less-than-virtuous friends to discuss a trip to Alice’s Restaurant in the hills south of San Francisco.

I immediately notice that the roads are blissfully free of traffic. It’s been years since I’ve been able to easily traverse the Silicon Valley, at any time of day, and any day of the week. My group of riding friends is more old than rapid, but we still worry about The Man hiding in turnouts as we trace our path along the ridge top on some of NorCal’s most deservedly famous roads.

But we may be in an over-cautious minority. Officers on copsickles are giving out 100 mph tickets to guys who are eager to find out what the far end of sixth gear looks like on normally clogged roads. (You know how that goes: It’s fun until it’s not.) We also see the big groups out on a “run,” stopped at local hangouts, accompanied by copious backslapping, coughing, and a general exchange of oxygen. Not good.

We’re taking a different approach. Once at Alice’s, we align ourselves on the now-ubiquitous six-foot dots painted on the ground and place our orders at an outdoor stand that resembles Lucy’s Psychiatry booth in “Peanuts.” We sit at opposite ends of outdoor tables. Hanging out with your buds, as the virus rages, is a little bit like eyeing them across the poker table. I love these guys but can’t help being a little suspicious. Are we going to kill each other, merely by expelling breath? We sit down and are almost civilized in our behavior, which is a first for us. But before long the lies are floating in the atmosphere like flies. This is how we do motorcycle now.

I’m not making light of the pandemic. I was worried about it from the start. When the singer John Prine died of the Coronavirus, it seemed like 40 years of musical memories went with him down that Green River in Muhlenberg County. If Covid can take a powerful spirit like that, well, it can take anybody. It can take me.

Plus, my riding pals and I are old, making us even more vulnerable. Gray hair covers the whole assemblage like a rug. We’ve also been through some physical challenges. One friend has advanced cancer. He’s not cavalier about the danger; nor is he willing to fly the white flag of surrender. Covid has amplified and clarified his sense of time, and what remains. So he’s riding.

This is also not a call to “liberate.” We’re just poking our heads out of the foxhole, dutifully wearing our masks, hopefully not endangering ourselves, or others. The last thing I want to do is burden medical personnel with the aftermath of a crash involving my sorry ass. When the front wheel steps out and we do the earth-sky-earth-sky routine across the pavement, we put ourselves in the hands of a bunch of people who would rather not be in our bubble. If I was riding at seven tenths before, I’m riding at five tenths now. We count ourselves among the vulnerable. But when were we not? We’re motorcyclists, after all. It’s just that now, it’s acquired a finer and more nefarious edge.

It turns out that motorcycles emerge at important moments, to ferry us across crises. This seems like one of those times. Ride if you must. Ride safe. We’ll see you out there. I’ll be the one wearing the Alice’s Restaurant face covering, and the smile that shows right through it.