Earlier-
Pam- I was joking, my wife was and my girlfriend is fantastic enough to keep me from looking at any other women, except, perhaps, with pity.
Old Codger- Bike is running great, love that exhaust rumble!
Now if only total strangers in cars would quit trying to kill me.
May 7, 2017 at 9:51 pm
NotYetInACamp
Muslims are too, but through invasion first for most of them.
i stopped riding about 20 years ago after three incidents in four months that could have killed me. The intentional moving into my lane with me in it does not count. There were more of them. Where I am now has locations to ride without too much traffic and great views. My main road was just upgraded and there is about three to four times the traffic on it. People in groups ride by often. I just not have had the urge to ride again, yet.
And Pam. Love can break one’s heart. It can hurt more than physical pain. Dropped cycle avoiding intentional idiot. Child’s play in comparison. 🙂
May 7, 2017 at 10:51 pm
Pamela
NYIAC
Some of us carry scars for a heart we held dear and had to set aside or walk away from. I would rather love even for a moment in time knowing it would never come again than not.
As to riding Bikes, I could never learn to relax on the back.
Riding pillon is dangerous as hell. If Suzan was interested in riding, I’d want her to get her own bike.
But then, I’d advise her not to start. It’s gotten so much more dangerous out here than when I started riding, and she has zero experience.
We’ve gotten past the point of “didn’t see him”, now we’re at the point of “Saw him, didn’t care.”
Or, “Saw him, decided to kill him.”
May 8, 2017 at 10:20 am
Doc Nova
Had to walk away 33 years ago. Paths crossed again 3 states away and 9 years later. Married now 23+ years. Some fairy tales do come true.
May 7, 2017 at 10:53 pm
Pamela
Coolness Pete. Drivers have ignored the rules of the road for Bikers and Truckers. Makes me nuts watching them.
What do you ride? I just bought my second sportster, my first was an AMF that soured me on Harleys for a lo-o-o-ong time.
May 7, 2017 at 11:06 pm
Pamela
Nothing now. Dated a few Cops and Bad Boys I couldn’t bring home that did ride. Good times.
May 8, 2017 at 8:04 am
Mort
Speaking of Sportsters, back about 40 years ago
I rode coast to coast on a kickstart HD Sportster.
Three times.
Ridin on the fwys, I imagined myself as a caveman
surviving by my limited wits, among the brontosauruses,
and other assorted Jurassic creatures;
I been down twice, once the ‘High Side’, a drunk driver
tried to pass me on the right, hit my RR shock and I
landed on his windshield, rolled off to the side of the
road; no helmet, God didn`t want me yet.
I still have an XLCH, and the knee to prove it, ride it
regularly, the only sense I may have gained, is I avoid
ridin on the freeway now.
May 8, 2017 at 1:48 pm
Kafiroon
Looong story short. I went to larger bore bikes as slamming full throttle in higher gears still got you out of the way of lane changing cars. Skip to a 82 Honda 900, long straight, needle pegged, front tire wobble, passed a 750 Ninja while in the air, only lost a little surface skin. Then a few months later ridding a 83, 750 Honda Interceptor, slid down a grass ditch to avoid a woman that pulled out of a gas station who did not look left. A week latter, I dropped it on a tiny bit of sand turning into a station. Going slow enough I just stood as it dropped. That was the final straw.
May 8, 2017 at 10:24 am
Spin Drift
Built my first minibike in the summer of ’73 for $16, got first real bike in ’75 a Hodaka. Graduated to a Kawi in ’79 (175) and a bigger one in ’84 (550 GpZ). Got first Ducati in ’94 (900SS) and second in ’07 (ST3s with bags and pizza case). Pulled an Egan and bought ’94 back last year. Just ride a little now. To many blond high school and college girls with phone surgically attached to their hands. Also dick heads in jacked up trucks who will rub you off the road for sport.
Rode since I was 12, a used $80 ’65 Honda 50 my Dad bought me for Christmas ’66. Cruised the sugar cane field roads that could take me anywhere around our rural Lake Okeechobee town.
From there a series of Hondas…dirt bikes, cruisers, one of the first state of the art DOHC CB450’s in 1970. A CB550F SuperSport in ’78, the year my wife left me for a while and I kind of reverted to the freedom and stupidity of youth for an interlude…my fondest riding memories as I streaked around West Palm Beach in the pre-AIDS carefree Disco days…that bike would scream and I was invincible.
From the 80’s to the 00’s I took a bunch of cool/weird bikes into pawn and rode them around a little with the owner’s permission…Road King, Fat Boy, a 60’s suicide clutch Harley Servicycle, a VW-powered trike, and even a Chevy 350-powered Boss Hog (that thing could kill you quick but damn did it sound amazing).
I had quit riding much by the the time I bought a Shadow 750 for my son as a commuter to his jeweler’s apprentice job in ’08. When he was done with it I kept it to putt around with but it sat in the garage mostly…a victim of the only main road in Sebring US27 being widened to six lanes with 8-inch concrete curbs meaning if the old blue-hair in her Town Car didn’t get me the curb would as I tried to avoid her, along with me just not having the reflexes that helped me survive that crazy year in WPB.
So I ran this on FleaBay and it just ended tonight with no sale, don’t know if I’ll run it again or just let it sit in the garage another year or three. 🙁
Chris, I don’t know how your political cartoons so often crank up my reminisce machine as I peruse this comment section, kind of a camaraderie sympatico with the other semi-old dudes and dudettes around here I guess…thanks for that.
May 8, 2017 at 1:01 am
Old Codger
Pete, it’s not so much that they’re out to get you as they usually do not even see you. When I started riding in 74/75, I developed the phrase “drive/ride paranoid”. I always rode like there was a $10,000 bounty on bikes and today was the last day. I rode over 10 years. Helped teach and evaluate riding in the Air Force (we literally wrote the book for base motorcycle eval teams). One afternoon coming home from work, approx 20 mile ride, I was almost in 4 separate collisions and only avoided going down by virtue of superb natural instincts (that and keeping my head on a swivel to look for nutcases). That day – for me – the hassle factor officially exceeded the fun factor. I sold the bike (85 Honda 650 Nighthawk with frame mount fairing) within a week and never looked back. Ask me (priv chan) and I’ll tell you about a “here’s your sign” moment a decade or more before Foxworthy coined the phrase.
May 8, 2017 at 2:43 am
S'aaruuk
Turned 67 yesterday, and have a 1981 Honda GL1100 Interstate bought brand new that has over 403,000 miles with only 1 engine rebuild. Been to every state except Alaska and Hawaii plus 3 provinces of Canada on it and she’s never failed to bring me home safe. My first ‘big’ bike was a 1974 Honda CB750-Four with a fork mounted Wixom ‘Ranger’ fairing that I took to Turkey with me (USAF) and put over 28K miles on of some of the most incredible riding I’ve ever done.
I survived 2 years over there and if you think drivers over HERE are nutz, when was the last time you got chased off the sidewalk by a double decker Mercedes bus that was going around a 3 car wreck in the middle of an intersection?
Still have the ‘Wing, still love to ride…….oh yeah…I live in Orlando..right in the middle of ‘MouseTown’. TELL me about idiots in cars. I drive a 28′ limousine that looks like a rolling Christmas tree at night for a living and they STILL claim that they didn’t see me. *face palm*
**BTW…..it was Bill Engvall that coined the “Here’s yer sign” catch phrase not Jeff Foxworthy…..his is “You just might be a Redneck”. 😀
Ever catch a performance by a pack of crotch-rocketeers splitting lanes at triple digits on the back wheel on I-4? Talk about putting blind trust into the idjits in the cages…damn.
They call them organ donors and no doubt quite a few bite the big one doing their thing, but you actually hear more about 60-somethings getting croaked riding the big Harley Dresser that they can finally afford but that most are not experienced enough to handle or their age has taken its toll on their riding mojo…several every year on bike week. Be safe.
May 8, 2017 at 8:06 am
PaulS
Never stop thinking they are trying to kill you, essential for survival outside the cages. Cruise, Sport, or Dual?
May 8, 2017 at 8:09 am
WayneM
I wish I understood why cage drivers seem to have it in for us riders.
I started riding before I got a drivers licence which is more years ago than I care to remember. I’ve had the close calls. I gave up riding for a dozen years when my kids were school aged but the call of the road wooed me back.
Current ride is a Road King. Gotta love the baggers.
May 8, 2017 at 2:52 pm
John
I’m convinced that some think ownership of the road is measured in the number of wheels.
May 8, 2017 at 10:41 am
John D. Egbert
(Way)Back when I was riding the roads of Montgomery and Bucks counties in PA (to and from NAS Willow Grove) (Honda MT250) my guiding principle was: “Straddle that bike and you become invisible — ride like it.” I always wore the screamingest yellow windbreaker I could find, whether in uniform or civvies, and always had escape lanes in view. Apparently I did something right as I never got stuck between a rock and a hard place,
May 8, 2017 at 1:50 pm
Kafiroon
Sorry Ya’ll. My comment was supposed to drop in here.
And they really are fighting for market share… They are each trying to attract a larger share from a shrinking pie of viewers.
May 7, 2017 at 9:21 pm
KenH
A hundred years from now, people will be making fun of these spazoid-retards who allowed the mentally ill to confuse the definition of gender…
May 7, 2017 at 9:56 pm
eon
Half a century from now, the problem will be solved with cloned bodies of the desired gender. After which everyone can stop using gender dysphoria as a political bocce ball.
clear ether
eon
May 7, 2017 at 9:23 pm
Bill G
Meet ze new thing, same as ze old thing…ah, that’s not the way it was sung.
But the way the song went is what they dream of.
May 7, 2017 at 10:10 pm
NotYetInACamp
Like the ~26 core newspapers that were bought by the robber barons and tycoons in order to direct the news in the nation and control how people think in the early 20th Century, so the internet is being compromised.
Facebook turned off 30,000 pro Le Pen French accounts just before the election.
So the scuttlebutt I was told goes.
I notice the censorship everywhere. The proletariat is not meant to be informed, they believe.
We may return to envelopes transferred in dark places soo. Trump has all of the negative tweets back to him placed in front of all positive tweets. They do that to the President of the USA.
Serious talk of declaring trump incapable of handling the job is discussed by more than the morons Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi. The New Yorker ran a piece on what it would entail.
Losing money is trivial when considered against the tens of trillions of ongoing dollars that the Trump presidency is costing the elites and their paid entrenched minions.
Just the US Chamber of Commerce alone is losing massive amounts by not having their masses of imported slave alien labor.
the internal security of France said that it was the government’s job to ensure that Le Pen lost the election. Polls varied. She might have won, or not, but who would know. They do not have the tradition of honest decades long working in the same poll precinct workers as they have in the UK. Austria had dubious elections.
There is more. So that we read and hear less. It is a war, unfortunately, and we are still playing private citizen by the rules patriots. Our goodness is still being taken advantage of.
Michael Savage, who surpasses Rush Limbaugh in market reach, is still banned in the UK while almost all radical Muslims can come and go
Google ads are still refused as a fund source to so many conservatives. many of them are banned across many platforms.
There is so much more.
And there is normalcy bias. We never expected people to go after and obstruct a President as they have. It was not done to the Marxist Muslim.
May 7, 2017 at 11:01 pm
Pamela
Mari listen to you Mom. Watching the “News” these days is almost the same as watching Porn. You never know if your going to see He, She, It or “My EYES! Oh my God I’ve gone blind!”
I’m not sure where I read it but there was a comment about sex identity.
What were you doing at 13? Jacking off to the Victoria Secret catalog or inserting a tampon. Jacking off-Male. Inserting tampon-Female.
A pretty easy way to figure things out.
Totally fake, anti-moral, anything goes, and all about money.
May 7, 2017 at 11:38 pm
Deplorable B Woodman
All the DemSM can’t go bankrupt fast enough to suit me.
May 8, 2017 at 1:04 am
Old Codger
BITE YOUR TONGUE! If they do start to go under you can bet the last dollar they let you keep that our taxes will wind up going to keep them afloat!
May 8, 2017 at 8:01 am
NotYetInACamp
I believe that rachel madcow receved about $500,000 a year in Obama’s incentive bill, and that was just one of the porkers in that bill to pay off the bought press.
Progressives were funded for over 20 years in that first budget bill. The only good part was that progressives mostly do not budget and they likely have spent all of the money the lefties were rewarded with at that time. The continuing resolutions kept most of the original progressive radicalization pork going throughout Obama’s rule.
Is it going to be the need for violence? I had thought, maybe, we were finally coming to the realization of what the people really wanted. Ah well, more elections need to be of such massive turn out they can’t cheat. With enough of US, and the reduction of THEM, maybe we can fix it.
May 8, 2017 at 1:14 am
Old Codger
What the people want or don’t want is irrelevant to our Lib-Prog would-be masters (which includes both wings of the rapacious bird roosting in the Capital Building in DC). They don’t give a flying feck what those of us out here in fly-over country want. Our sole function is to continue voting them into power. They are the ones who know what is best for them and we exist solely for their empowerment. They were not amused when sufficient numbers of us dared to stand on our hind legs and vote for somebody besides their anointed candidates. They are plotting to exact their revenge for our insubordination.
{sigh} I do expect it to come to violence. I may not live to see it but I non-the-less expect it to come.
May 8, 2017 at 8:44 pm
TJ
You forgot the other function – pay through the nose for the privilege of being abused by the Powers that Be.
May 8, 2017 at 8:03 am
NotYetInACamp
The person in the primary is prime. that is where change begins. (Then the swamp corrupts them or blackmails them. Aint I a cynic.)
May 8, 2017 at 11:41 am
JSStryker
Nope you aren’t a cynic at all, you see what a lot of people do not see (present company excepted) going on out there..
Oh, and the ONE channel we thought worthwhile is showing its ass. Shame.
May 8, 2017 at 1:31 am
Old Codger
Fox was never really conservative. It only appeared so up next to the rest of the LSM. Now that the Murdock sons are taking over you can bet it will shortly be as lib/prog as the rest of Murdock’s media outlets. After Trump leaves office (in 25, hopefully) I figure it’s a safe bet that full-on “net neutrality” will be the order of the day and all websites not adhering to the party line will find themselves suddenly disconnected. Likewise conservative not-for-profits are gonna wish Lois Lerner was back running that part of the IRS. Bet on it!
May 8, 2017 at 6:19 am
Kindly But Weird Uncle Bob
It’s been interesting contrasting news coverage here in Maryland with what we got in SoKal. As lib/proggie as SoKal is, the news coverage was less obviously biased than the stations out of DC and Baltimore. The stories are slanted so badly left, and the (ugly! by Kali standards!) talking heads don’t even seem to realize it. It is rare to hear any story about Trump that doesn’t start with some denigrating term, or delivery with a smirk that would have gotten me a mouth washing as a kid. The other thing that surprises me is how provincial the attitudes are. For the most part, anything outside the Beltway or Prince George’s County or Montgomery County (those are the two counties in Maryland adjacent to DC, both reliably lib/proggie, and largely black) might as well not happen. The Baltimore stations are even worse- nothing outside that city is real.
May 8, 2017 at 8:06 am
NotYetInACamp
Trappings of empire.
One reason that I have never set foot in that area by intent.
May 8, 2017 at 1:47 am
Dienekes
I quit watching MSM “news” to include Fox about halfway through the presidential campaign season. They literally had nothing left to offer that I couldn’t get easier, better, and quicker with the I-pad.
Plus knowing some history gives you some insight on what the man behind the curtain is trying to put over on us and how it’s likely to play out. Our aspiring lords and masters “Don’t know much about hist’ry”.
May 8, 2017 at 6:10 am
Kindly But Weird Uncle Bob
Wow! Talk about nostalgia trips! JTC’s post closely parallels my own biking history, including getting my first ‘real’ cycle in ’66- a Honda C110 Sport 50. (Not the sissy step-through model!) Moved to SoKal in ’73 and had a succession of street and off-road racing bikes until a couple of years ago. One positive about SoKal- bikes make up enough of the traffic stream that some car people actually realize that more bikes mean less congestion on the freeways, and they are getting better about sharing. Of course too many of the illegals and such don’t even know how to drive, much less use mirrors and such so paranoia is a survival trait.
May 8, 2017 at 6:14 am
Halley
Just wondering – is there any legal reason why the deceitful Democrat party propaganda operations disguised as “news” could not be sued for, say, malpractice or false advertising? It’s not like there’s not a paper trail from here to the moon of their slanders, fabrications, coverups and, ahem, “bias” that could submitted as irrefutable evidence in a court of law. Legitimate businesses are protected by the First Amendment, but are illegitimate ones?
May 8, 2017 at 6:29 am
Kindly But Weird Uncle Bob
Not a lawyer, but I believe it would have to done on a case-by-case, story-by-story basis. You might be able to say and prove that they lied about one item, but you couldn’t sue on the premise that they are habitual liars. (This is actually a good thing- it would cut both ways, something the Dems often forget.) Then you would need to find an honest court- not always easy. Finally, proving the intent to do harm, and show how you as plaintiff were damaged would be difficult. You can’t sue someone because they pissed you off or hurt your feelings (Thank God!), you would have to show that their actions resulted in some quantifiable injury to you. That would be very hard. Meanwhile you (and this would include any group that tried this) are racking up legal fees. This is one strong reason to join the NRA and maybe even the AMA (American Motorcyclist Association, not the medical thing).
May 8, 2017 at 11:46 am
JSStryker
Don’t ABC, NBC, CBS and the others have a “for the public good” clause in their licenses, I thought that was the reason they ran PSA’s? If they do maybe it is time for the government to take a long look at their licenses, with an eye for revoking them.
May 8, 2017 at 3:12 pm
John
Now that there is a chance for reform in the FCC the Prog Propaganda Storm stands a chance of losing its wind.
Here’s to calmer weather.
May 8, 2017 at 7:01 am
GWB
“All are losing viewers.”
It’s the same with liberal churches. For years they have been hemorrhaging members. (Why go, if the reason for going no longer exists.)
What’s going to prop them up is all the restaurants and bars and airports where they feel the need to have sports or news on. (Primarily because they are things you can watch without sound, with a little closed captioning.)
May 8, 2017 at 7:25 am
Dread
Even the closed captions are lies, “provided by a grant from (insert name of a government entity)
May 8, 2017 at 7:48 am
Robert Arvanitis
A serious question to the readership here.
We see institutions – media, academia, foundations – all fall into “social justice” folly. And as today’s strip notes, that costs them viewers, revenue, intellectual integrity.
But WHY the gravitational pull of “social justice?” WHAT compels them to lemming-like self destruction?!
Do we now lack Mother Nature’s traditional feedback mechanisms that punish stupidity?
May 8, 2017 at 8:13 am
WayneM
That’s a question I’ve been struggling with since the social justice wankers first started agitating. How is it that (theoretically) educated people in positions of authority and influence allow themselves to be bullied into submission? What do they gain from this??
May 8, 2017 at 8:15 am
NotYetInACamp
All by design.
The brainwashing of the USA does follow the communist party plans of the 1950’s and 1960’s rather closely. An Alinsky moll almost made into the Oval Office, and not the devil wearing a blue dress. The Frankfort School that moved into and took over the Department at Columbia University is a major indicator of the intentional destruction of all that they see as America.
The evil ones grabbed the educational system and proposed all sorts of good intention that were lining the road to Hell. The compulsion is a delusional one that they believe that are doing “good.” One example is the psychosis that is presented that Islam is a protector of women’s rights that the leftists and antifa fascists are yelling these days.
May 8, 2017 at 9:48 am
pool dog
Exactly.
May 8, 2017 at 8:42 am
PaulS
Yes. At least that particular slice of the population has, that much is obvious.
The common thread running through them is a complete lack of personal responsibility.
May 8, 2017 at 3:22 pm
John
Which is itself the result of a too-permissive upbringing made possible by more dollars than sense, which in turn was made possible by the U.S. being the industrial juggernaut and last-man-standing after WWII.
Now that the rest of the world is catching up to us and things aren’t quite so easy we’re seeing the howling and gnashing of teeth of the erstwhile pampered.
Who knows? Maybe personal responsibility will come back into vogue.
May 8, 2017 at 9:07 am
Chris Muir
Chimpanzees, and us, are social. Everyone wants to be seen in the ‘in’ group, the cool kids, etc.even though the left follows their 90 year old fossil ideology of Marxism. Powerful social impetus is impervious to just about anything.
May 8, 2017 at 8:57 am
Old Codger
Doubtless most here are completely knowledgeable about all the manifold terms being tossed around these days. For those who are having trouble following the dialog regarding “social justice”, here is a link to an excellent piece from December 2009 before Dear Leader had had an opportunity to work most of his mischief. I believe it to be an excellent primer in the development of “social justice”. (Note: it did NOT always mean what it does today.)
Note that all three are owned by the same corporate parent: Disney.
May 8, 2017 at 10:29 am
Spin Drift
“If you don’t read the papers you are ill informed. If you read the papers you are misinformed.” Samuel Clemons
Spin
Mark Twain was a depth measurement.
May 8, 2017 at 11:48 am
JSStryker
Amen!
May 8, 2017 at 2:38 pm
Old Hppy Bastard
If available in your area, try One America News Network. I watch them much more than Fox.
May 8, 2017 at 3:02 pm
Chris Muir
Liz Wheeler is a Babe; with Brains!
May 8, 2017 at 5:07 pm
Merle
Indeed !!! 🙂
May 8, 2017 at 3:35 pm
writeby
“Gotta be a reason.”
There is: Philosophy–the foundation of *all* knowledge–which offers answers to the three fundamental questions that **everyone** must ask when they’re “dropped”
into existence:
1. Where am I? (metaphysics)
2. How do I know it? (epistemology)
3. What should I do? (ethics)
To which postmodern philosophers (following Plato; British empiricist, Hume; German Idealists Kant & Hegel; American pragmatists Pierce, James & Dewey) answer:
1. Unknown; supernatural dimensions beyond senses; keeps changing; no absolutes
2. Can’t really know; but emotionalism (faith, subjectivism, etc.) make it bearable
3. Sacrifice yourself & join with others; safety in numbers
Good luck with all that.
Antidotes: Please see Aristole & Ayn Rand.
1. In a knowable Universe
2. Via senses interpreted by reason
3. Follow reason, find a fufilling, productive purpose, pursue *your* happiness
Naturally, the last of these two is villified as a hater of mankind.
Echoing Sam: Stop following crappy ideas…and THINK.
Actually regarding ethics and morality, the rules are few:
1. Survive, unless your individual survival must be sacrificed to the survival of a (in YOUR opinion) higher imperative or ideal (family, community, country…) – Courtesy of Mr. Heinlein.
2. Cause no increases in either thermodynamic or information entropy not necessary to the accomplishment of 1.
(Corollary: murder, theft, deceitfully requiring another to expend resources to care for your progeny, fraud with the intent to cause financial or social damage, and the temptations associated with obsession all yield gratuitous increases in entropy. You will note the one-to-one correspondence with the behavioral admonitions of the Ten Commandments. I believe that can be mathematically proven, and if I ever get a spare millennium I hope to do so…)
May 8, 2017 at 9:32 pm
Matt Parkhouse
On bikes….got a Honda 160 out of high school. Sold it as I was heading over to SE Asia. Saved my pay and bought a BMW R75/5 when I got back. Still am riding that bike, with 427,000 miles so far. Buying that bike was a life-changer, in many ways……
66 Comments
Earlier-
Pam- I was joking, my wife was and my girlfriend is fantastic enough to keep me from looking at any other women, except, perhaps, with pity.
Old Codger- Bike is running great, love that exhaust rumble!
Now if only total strangers in cars would quit trying to kill me.
Muslims are too, but through invasion first for most of them.
i stopped riding about 20 years ago after three incidents in four months that could have killed me. The intentional moving into my lane with me in it does not count. There were more of them. Where I am now has locations to ride without too much traffic and great views. My main road was just upgraded and there is about three to four times the traffic on it. People in groups ride by often. I just not have had the urge to ride again, yet.
And Pam. Love can break one’s heart. It can hurt more than physical pain. Dropped cycle avoiding intentional idiot. Child’s play in comparison. 🙂
NYIAC
Some of us carry scars for a heart we held dear and had to set aside or walk away from. I would rather love even for a moment in time knowing it would never come again than not.
As to riding Bikes, I could never learn to relax on the back.
Riding pillon is dangerous as hell. If Suzan was interested in riding, I’d want her to get her own bike.
But then, I’d advise her not to start. It’s gotten so much more dangerous out here than when I started riding, and she has zero experience.
We’ve gotten past the point of “didn’t see him”, now we’re at the point of “Saw him, didn’t care.”
Or, “Saw him, decided to kill him.”
Had to walk away 33 years ago. Paths crossed again 3 states away and 9 years later. Married now 23+ years. Some fairy tales do come true.
Coolness Pete. Drivers have ignored the rules of the road for Bikers and Truckers. Makes me nuts watching them.
What do you ride? I just bought my second sportster, my first was an AMF that soured me on Harleys for a lo-o-o-ong time.
Nothing now. Dated a few Cops and Bad Boys I couldn’t bring home that did ride. Good times.
Speaking of Sportsters, back about 40 years ago
I rode coast to coast on a kickstart HD Sportster.
Three times.
Ridin on the fwys, I imagined myself as a caveman
surviving by my limited wits, among the brontosauruses,
and other assorted Jurassic creatures;
I been down twice, once the ‘High Side’, a drunk driver
tried to pass me on the right, hit my RR shock and I
landed on his windshield, rolled off to the side of the
road; no helmet, God didn`t want me yet.
I still have an XLCH, and the knee to prove it, ride it
regularly, the only sense I may have gained, is I avoid
ridin on the freeway now.
Looong story short. I went to larger bore bikes as slamming full throttle in higher gears still got you out of the way of lane changing cars. Skip to a 82 Honda 900, long straight, needle pegged, front tire wobble, passed a 750 Ninja while in the air, only lost a little surface skin. Then a few months later ridding a 83, 750 Honda Interceptor, slid down a grass ditch to avoid a woman that pulled out of a gas station who did not look left. A week latter, I dropped it on a tiny bit of sand turning into a station. Going slow enough I just stood as it dropped. That was the final straw.
Built my first minibike in the summer of ’73 for $16, got first real bike in ’75 a Hodaka. Graduated to a Kawi in ’79 (175) and a bigger one in ’84 (550 GpZ). Got first Ducati in ’94 (900SS) and second in ’07 (ST3s with bags and pizza case). Pulled an Egan and bought ’94 back last year. Just ride a little now. To many blond high school and college girls with phone surgically attached to their hands. Also dick heads in jacked up trucks who will rub you off the road for sport.
Spin
The siren sounds of the Sausage King.
Rode since I was 12, a used $80 ’65 Honda 50 my Dad bought me for Christmas ’66. Cruised the sugar cane field roads that could take me anywhere around our rural Lake Okeechobee town.
From there a series of Hondas…dirt bikes, cruisers, one of the first state of the art DOHC CB450’s in 1970. A CB550F SuperSport in ’78, the year my wife left me for a while and I kind of reverted to the freedom and stupidity of youth for an interlude…my fondest riding memories as I streaked around West Palm Beach in the pre-AIDS carefree Disco days…that bike would scream and I was invincible.
From the 80’s to the 00’s I took a bunch of cool/weird bikes into pawn and rode them around a little with the owner’s permission…Road King, Fat Boy, a 60’s suicide clutch Harley Servicycle, a VW-powered trike, and even a Chevy 350-powered Boss Hog (that thing could kill you quick but damn did it sound amazing).
I had quit riding much by the the time I bought a Shadow 750 for my son as a commuter to his jeweler’s apprentice job in ’08. When he was done with it I kept it to putt around with but it sat in the garage mostly…a victim of the only main road in Sebring US27 being widened to six lanes with 8-inch concrete curbs meaning if the old blue-hair in her Town Car didn’t get me the curb would as I tried to avoid her, along with me just not having the reflexes that helped me survive that crazy year in WPB.
So I ran this on FleaBay and it just ended tonight with no sale, don’t know if I’ll run it again or just let it sit in the garage another year or three. 🙁
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2008-Honda-Shadow-/252910641705?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEUNSOLD%3AIT&nma=true&si=xvTrLtWzGHWOT%252BlmtNLuJ6Xduac%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
Chris, I don’t know how your political cartoons so often crank up my reminisce machine as I peruse this comment section, kind of a camaraderie sympatico with the other semi-old dudes and dudettes around here I guess…thanks for that.
Pete, it’s not so much that they’re out to get you as they usually do not even see you. When I started riding in 74/75, I developed the phrase “drive/ride paranoid”. I always rode like there was a $10,000 bounty on bikes and today was the last day. I rode over 10 years. Helped teach and evaluate riding in the Air Force (we literally wrote the book for base motorcycle eval teams). One afternoon coming home from work, approx 20 mile ride, I was almost in 4 separate collisions and only avoided going down by virtue of superb natural instincts (that and keeping my head on a swivel to look for nutcases). That day – for me – the hassle factor officially exceeded the fun factor. I sold the bike (85 Honda 650 Nighthawk with frame mount fairing) within a week and never looked back. Ask me (priv chan) and I’ll tell you about a “here’s your sign” moment a decade or more before Foxworthy coined the phrase.
Turned 67 yesterday, and have a 1981 Honda GL1100 Interstate bought brand new that has over 403,000 miles with only 1 engine rebuild. Been to every state except Alaska and Hawaii plus 3 provinces of Canada on it and she’s never failed to bring me home safe. My first ‘big’ bike was a 1974 Honda CB750-Four with a fork mounted Wixom ‘Ranger’ fairing that I took to Turkey with me (USAF) and put over 28K miles on of some of the most incredible riding I’ve ever done.
I survived 2 years over there and if you think drivers over HERE are nutz, when was the last time you got chased off the sidewalk by a double decker Mercedes bus that was going around a 3 car wreck in the middle of an intersection?
Still have the ‘Wing, still love to ride…….oh yeah…I live in Orlando..right in the middle of ‘MouseTown’. TELL me about idiots in cars. I drive a 28′ limousine that looks like a rolling Christmas tree at night for a living and they STILL claim that they didn’t see me. *face palm*
**BTW…..it was Bill Engvall that coined the “Here’s yer sign” catch phrase not Jeff Foxworthy…..his is “You just might be a Redneck”. 😀
Ever catch a performance by a pack of crotch-rocketeers splitting lanes at triple digits on the back wheel on I-4? Talk about putting blind trust into the idjits in the cages…damn.
They call them organ donors and no doubt quite a few bite the big one doing their thing, but you actually hear more about 60-somethings getting croaked riding the big Harley Dresser that they can finally afford but that most are not experienced enough to handle or their age has taken its toll on their riding mojo…several every year on bike week. Be safe.
Never stop thinking they are trying to kill you, essential for survival outside the cages. Cruise, Sport, or Dual?
I wish I understood why cage drivers seem to have it in for us riders.
I started riding before I got a drivers licence which is more years ago than I care to remember. I’ve had the close calls. I gave up riding for a dozen years when my kids were school aged but the call of the road wooed me back.
Current ride is a Road King. Gotta love the baggers.
I’m convinced that some think ownership of the road is measured in the number of wheels.
(Way)Back when I was riding the roads of Montgomery and Bucks counties in PA (to and from NAS Willow Grove) (Honda MT250) my guiding principle was: “Straddle that bike and you become invisible — ride like it.” I always wore the screamingest yellow windbreaker I could find, whether in uniform or civvies, and always had escape lanes in view. Apparently I did something right as I never got stuck between a rock and a hard place,
Sorry Ya’ll. My comment was supposed to drop in here.
And they really are fighting for market share… They are each trying to attract a larger share from a shrinking pie of viewers.
A hundred years from now, people will be making fun of these spazoid-retards who allowed the mentally ill to confuse the definition of gender…
Half a century from now, the problem will be solved with cloned bodies of the desired gender. After which everyone can stop using gender dysphoria as a political bocce ball.
clear ether
eon
Meet ze new thing, same as ze old thing…ah, that’s not the way it was sung.
But the way the song went is what they dream of.
Like the ~26 core newspapers that were bought by the robber barons and tycoons in order to direct the news in the nation and control how people think in the early 20th Century, so the internet is being compromised.
Facebook turned off 30,000 pro Le Pen French accounts just before the election.
So the scuttlebutt I was told goes.
I notice the censorship everywhere. The proletariat is not meant to be informed, they believe.
We may return to envelopes transferred in dark places soo. Trump has all of the negative tweets back to him placed in front of all positive tweets. They do that to the President of the USA.
Serious talk of declaring trump incapable of handling the job is discussed by more than the morons Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi. The New Yorker ran a piece on what it would entail.
Losing money is trivial when considered against the tens of trillions of ongoing dollars that the Trump presidency is costing the elites and their paid entrenched minions.
Just the US Chamber of Commerce alone is losing massive amounts by not having their masses of imported slave alien labor.
the internal security of France said that it was the government’s job to ensure that Le Pen lost the election. Polls varied. She might have won, or not, but who would know. They do not have the tradition of honest decades long working in the same poll precinct workers as they have in the UK. Austria had dubious elections.
There is more. So that we read and hear less. It is a war, unfortunately, and we are still playing private citizen by the rules patriots. Our goodness is still being taken advantage of.
Michael Savage, who surpasses Rush Limbaugh in market reach, is still banned in the UK while almost all radical Muslims can come and go
Google ads are still refused as a fund source to so many conservatives. many of them are banned across many platforms.
There is so much more.
And there is normalcy bias. We never expected people to go after and obstruct a President as they have. It was not done to the Marxist Muslim.
Mari listen to you Mom. Watching the “News” these days is almost the same as watching Porn. You never know if your going to see He, She, It or “My EYES! Oh my God I’ve gone blind!”
I’m not sure where I read it but there was a comment about sex identity.
What were you doing at 13? Jacking off to the Victoria Secret catalog or inserting a tampon. Jacking off-Male. Inserting tampon-Female.
A pretty easy way to figure things out.
“News” IS porn.
Totally fake, anti-moral, anything goes, and all about money.
All the DemSM can’t go bankrupt fast enough to suit me.
BITE YOUR TONGUE! If they do start to go under you can bet the last dollar they let you keep that our taxes will wind up going to keep them afloat!
I believe that rachel madcow receved about $500,000 a year in Obama’s incentive bill, and that was just one of the porkers in that bill to pay off the bought press.
Progressives were funded for over 20 years in that first budget bill. The only good part was that progressives mostly do not budget and they likely have spent all of the money the lefties were rewarded with at that time. The continuing resolutions kept most of the original progressive radicalization pork going throughout Obama’s rule.
Is it going to be the need for violence? I had thought, maybe, we were finally coming to the realization of what the people really wanted. Ah well, more elections need to be of such massive turn out they can’t cheat. With enough of US, and the reduction of THEM, maybe we can fix it.
What the people want or don’t want is irrelevant to our Lib-Prog would-be masters (which includes both wings of the rapacious bird roosting in the Capital Building in DC). They don’t give a flying feck what those of us out here in fly-over country want. Our sole function is to continue voting them into power. They are the ones who know what is best for them and we exist solely for their empowerment. They were not amused when sufficient numbers of us dared to stand on our hind legs and vote for somebody besides their anointed candidates. They are plotting to exact their revenge for our insubordination.
{sigh} I do expect it to come to violence. I may not live to see it but I non-the-less expect it to come.
You forgot the other function – pay through the nose for the privilege of being abused by the Powers that Be.
The person in the primary is prime. that is where change begins. (Then the swamp corrupts them or blackmails them. Aint I a cynic.)
Nope you aren’t a cynic at all, you see what a lot of people do not see (present company excepted) going on out there..
Oh, and the ONE channel we thought worthwhile is showing its ass. Shame.
Fox was never really conservative. It only appeared so up next to the rest of the LSM. Now that the Murdock sons are taking over you can bet it will shortly be as lib/prog as the rest of Murdock’s media outlets. After Trump leaves office (in 25, hopefully) I figure it’s a safe bet that full-on “net neutrality” will be the order of the day and all websites not adhering to the party line will find themselves suddenly disconnected. Likewise conservative not-for-profits are gonna wish Lois Lerner was back running that part of the IRS. Bet on it!
It’s been interesting contrasting news coverage here in Maryland with what we got in SoKal. As lib/proggie as SoKal is, the news coverage was less obviously biased than the stations out of DC and Baltimore. The stories are slanted so badly left, and the (ugly! by Kali standards!) talking heads don’t even seem to realize it. It is rare to hear any story about Trump that doesn’t start with some denigrating term, or delivery with a smirk that would have gotten me a mouth washing as a kid. The other thing that surprises me is how provincial the attitudes are. For the most part, anything outside the Beltway or Prince George’s County or Montgomery County (those are the two counties in Maryland adjacent to DC, both reliably lib/proggie, and largely black) might as well not happen. The Baltimore stations are even worse- nothing outside that city is real.
Trappings of empire.
One reason that I have never set foot in that area by intent.
I quit watching MSM “news” to include Fox about halfway through the presidential campaign season. They literally had nothing left to offer that I couldn’t get easier, better, and quicker with the I-pad.
Plus knowing some history gives you some insight on what the man behind the curtain is trying to put over on us and how it’s likely to play out. Our aspiring lords and masters “Don’t know much about hist’ry”.
Wow! Talk about nostalgia trips! JTC’s post closely parallels my own biking history, including getting my first ‘real’ cycle in ’66- a Honda C110 Sport 50. (Not the sissy step-through model!) Moved to SoKal in ’73 and had a succession of street and off-road racing bikes until a couple of years ago. One positive about SoKal- bikes make up enough of the traffic stream that some car people actually realize that more bikes mean less congestion on the freeways, and they are getting better about sharing. Of course too many of the illegals and such don’t even know how to drive, much less use mirrors and such so paranoia is a survival trait.
Just wondering – is there any legal reason why the deceitful Democrat party propaganda operations disguised as “news” could not be sued for, say, malpractice or false advertising? It’s not like there’s not a paper trail from here to the moon of their slanders, fabrications, coverups and, ahem, “bias” that could submitted as irrefutable evidence in a court of law. Legitimate businesses are protected by the First Amendment, but are illegitimate ones?
Not a lawyer, but I believe it would have to done on a case-by-case, story-by-story basis. You might be able to say and prove that they lied about one item, but you couldn’t sue on the premise that they are habitual liars. (This is actually a good thing- it would cut both ways, something the Dems often forget.) Then you would need to find an honest court- not always easy. Finally, proving the intent to do harm, and show how you as plaintiff were damaged would be difficult. You can’t sue someone because they pissed you off or hurt your feelings (Thank God!), you would have to show that their actions resulted in some quantifiable injury to you. That would be very hard. Meanwhile you (and this would include any group that tried this) are racking up legal fees. This is one strong reason to join the NRA and maybe even the AMA (American Motorcyclist Association, not the medical thing).
Don’t ABC, NBC, CBS and the others have a “for the public good” clause in their licenses, I thought that was the reason they ran PSA’s? If they do maybe it is time for the government to take a long look at their licenses, with an eye for revoking them.
Now that there is a chance for reform in the FCC the Prog Propaganda Storm stands a chance of losing its wind.
Here’s to calmer weather.
“All are losing viewers.”
It’s the same with liberal churches. For years they have been hemorrhaging members. (Why go, if the reason for going no longer exists.)
What’s going to prop them up is all the restaurants and bars and airports where they feel the need to have sports or news on. (Primarily because they are things you can watch without sound, with a little closed captioning.)
Even the closed captions are lies, “provided by a grant from (insert name of a government entity)
A serious question to the readership here.
We see institutions – media, academia, foundations – all fall into “social justice” folly. And as today’s strip notes, that costs them viewers, revenue, intellectual integrity.
But WHY the gravitational pull of “social justice?” WHAT compels them to lemming-like self destruction?!
Do we now lack Mother Nature’s traditional feedback mechanisms that punish stupidity?
That’s a question I’ve been struggling with since the social justice wankers first started agitating. How is it that (theoretically) educated people in positions of authority and influence allow themselves to be bullied into submission? What do they gain from this??
All by design.
The brainwashing of the USA does follow the communist party plans of the 1950’s and 1960’s rather closely. An Alinsky moll almost made into the Oval Office, and not the devil wearing a blue dress. The Frankfort School that moved into and took over the Department at Columbia University is a major indicator of the intentional destruction of all that they see as America.
The evil ones grabbed the educational system and proposed all sorts of good intention that were lining the road to Hell. The compulsion is a delusional one that they believe that are doing “good.” One example is the psychosis that is presented that Islam is a protector of women’s rights that the leftists and antifa fascists are yelling these days.
Exactly.
Yes. At least that particular slice of the population has, that much is obvious.
The common thread running through them is a complete lack of personal responsibility.
Which is itself the result of a too-permissive upbringing made possible by more dollars than sense, which in turn was made possible by the U.S. being the industrial juggernaut and last-man-standing after WWII.
Now that the rest of the world is catching up to us and things aren’t quite so easy we’re seeing the howling and gnashing of teeth of the erstwhile pampered.
Who knows? Maybe personal responsibility will come back into vogue.
Chimpanzees, and us, are social. Everyone wants to be seen in the ‘in’ group, the cool kids, etc.even though the left follows their 90 year old fossil ideology of Marxism. Powerful social impetus is impervious to just about anything.
Doubtless most here are completely knowledgeable about all the manifold terms being tossed around these days. For those who are having trouble following the dialog regarding “social justice”, here is a link to an excellent piece from December 2009 before Dear Leader had had an opportunity to work most of his mischief. I believe it to be an excellent primer in the development of “social justice”. (Note: it did NOT always mean what it does today.)
http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/social-justice-not-what-you-think-it
Note that all three are owned by the same corporate parent: Disney.
“If you don’t read the papers you are ill informed. If you read the papers you are misinformed.” Samuel Clemons
Spin
Mark Twain was a depth measurement.
Amen!
If available in your area, try One America News Network. I watch them much more than Fox.
Liz Wheeler is a Babe; with Brains!
Indeed !!! 🙂
“Gotta be a reason.”
There is: Philosophy–the foundation of *all* knowledge–which offers answers to the three fundamental questions that **everyone** must ask when they’re “dropped”
into existence:
1. Where am I? (metaphysics)
2. How do I know it? (epistemology)
3. What should I do? (ethics)
To which postmodern philosophers (following Plato; British empiricist, Hume; German Idealists Kant & Hegel; American pragmatists Pierce, James & Dewey) answer:
1. Unknown; supernatural dimensions beyond senses; keeps changing; no absolutes
2. Can’t really know; but emotionalism (faith, subjectivism, etc.) make it bearable
3. Sacrifice yourself & join with others; safety in numbers
Good luck with all that.
Antidotes: Please see Aristole & Ayn Rand.
1. In a knowable Universe
2. Via senses interpreted by reason
3. Follow reason, find a fufilling, productive purpose, pursue *your* happiness
Naturally, the last of these two is villified as a hater of mankind.
Echoing Sam: Stop following crappy ideas…and THINK.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/
Be good. (……)
Do good.
Actually regarding ethics and morality, the rules are few:
1. Survive, unless your individual survival must be sacrificed to the survival of a (in YOUR opinion) higher imperative or ideal (family, community, country…) – Courtesy of Mr. Heinlein.
2. Cause no increases in either thermodynamic or information entropy not necessary to the accomplishment of 1.
(Corollary: murder, theft, deceitfully requiring another to expend resources to care for your progeny, fraud with the intent to cause financial or social damage, and the temptations associated with obsession all yield gratuitous increases in entropy. You will note the one-to-one correspondence with the behavioral admonitions of the Ten Commandments. I believe that can be mathematically proven, and if I ever get a spare millennium I hope to do so…)
On bikes….got a Honda 160 out of high school. Sold it as I was heading over to SE Asia. Saved my pay and bought a BMW R75/5 when I got back. Still am riding that bike, with 427,000 miles so far. Buying that bike was a life-changer, in many ways……
Great bike. Good choice.