I was born in 1932, Between than and the end of WWII there wasn't much in the way of entertainment for a young lad, no TV yet. I use to keep busy by cutting out ad's of magazines and sending them in, but only if they said," postage will be paid by addressee". Most did say that. Big deal, postage was only 3 cents and that was first class, the crap they sent me probably went second or third class. I got most of my ad's out of the back of Popular Mechanics magazines or Popular Science, we always seems to have some laying around as all the men in my family were very mechanically inclined.

Another thing I did for amusement was to build Crystal sets. Remember them? You'd start with an empty Oat meal container or something round and cardboard. Then you'd wind the coil around it, I seem to remember a 100 turns of #18. Hook that across the Tuning capacitor, that you had cannibalized from an old radio, and finally hook in the crystal detector that you had sent away for. I don't remember where the earphone was connected. Hook that baby up to the antenna, 100 feet of #18, that's where I got that from, I knew it was 100 something, Dick around with the "Cats whisker" till you got something, screw with the Tuning capacitor till you'd get a station in and bingo! You were in business, that is until you bumped the damn thing or a cat went stomping across the floor. The Cats Whisker was a very fine piece of wire and it had to touch the germanium Crystal just so, in just the right spot.

I remember I did some experiments with, Indoor antennas for a time. That is until I was woke up in the middle of the night once, with one hell of a commotion in my room. I switched on the light and there was the ole-man, all tangled up in the latest experiment. It happened that I had come into a Shit pot of wire. There was an ice storm that knocked a bunch of light and telephone wires down and I had carried as much as I could home. Well I had that wire strung all over the room. I don't remember what Dad had wanted…

A big day for me back than, was riding to Toledo with my Dad in his 1937 Willies. I say, big day, literally, because it turned out to be an all day trip. The speed limit was 35 MPH. It seemed to take forever to make the 20-30 miles. Nobody broke the speed limit either. We were running on an "A" gas card . Gas rationing, remember there's a war going on. We had to stretch every mile we could out of those gallons. For the life of me, I can't remember what we went to Toledo for, but It must have been something important, for us to go to so much trouble.

            So anyway, that's how I got subscribed to "the Enthusiast", A publication by Harley Davison . I think the sole purpose of the magazine was to keep us interested until the war was over, and you could actually buy a Harley.

            I also got quite a bit of mail from Charles Something, (I keep thinking Manson, but that can't be right), he offered free sample lessons of his body building course. I had never been to a beach, but if I ever did, and if some asshole kicked sand on me… It was all a matter of "applied tension", you worked one muscle against another and before you knew it BINGO! You were built like a brick shithouse. For some reason it didn't work on me. I applied tension all over the place and I still was just a skinny kid. Could it have been because I never got past the free lesson? Maybe if I would have actually bought and paid for the whole course, in like lesson number 12 he would have sent the secret and POP, muscles would have sprouted all over my skinny assed body. Naaa.

            I use to get a lot of mail, I was probably on every sucker list that was, but I didn't care, if it had free anywhere on it, and the postage was paid I sent her in. I worried that these people would find out that I was just a penniless kid taking advantage of their free Shit, but they never caught on. God help me if they're not all dead now and somebody reads this to them in the nursing home.

            Back to the Enthusiast, God I loved the little magazine. It was about 40 pages, small maybe 7X9", but it was filled with good information about Harley. Not to mention photos of Harleys being ridden over mountain roads with beautiful babes on the back. The riders and Passengers all wore those hats that looked like policeman hats and pants that were tight around the legs but flared out on the sides, I think they were called jodfers. And shinny boots that came almost up to their knees. My Mom made me a pair of the pants.  I wore them constantly until he crotch rotted out.  Even after that. I had a leather helmet and goggles too. Like Pilots wore. There I'd be, in my Jodfers and my leather helmet and my ridding my sisters bike. What a dip Shit I must have looked like.

            Atlas! That was it! Charles Atlas! God I hate getting old. Although Parts of getting old is pretty cool. For example, you can give young people all kind of Shit, and they just smile and pass it off because you're old, heh, heh. 

Once when I walked into a restaurant with my grey hair, grey beard, stooped over old person walk, threw my motorcycle helmet and jacket in a booth, and sat down, this young Prick came over and took my order. When he finished. He asked, "senior?" I responded in my normal smart-assed manner.

"Yeah, and the ole-man is really pissed, he said if I don't graduate this year, I can kiss the Beemer goodbye".

            The other day I ran into the hardware store for bolts, I was in a terrible hurry, so I hurried over to the bolt place. Lo-and-behold There was an old codger standing right in front of what I wanted. I danced around on both sides of him trying to get at the bolts I wanted. You'll never guess what that old Shit did (unless you're old). Of course, he farted!  Really Pissed me off, here he was stealing my Thunder. Get it? Stealing my thunder! Ha-ha-ha-ha! That's what I do. I get in young peoples way, then when they get excited, I Fart on them.

Another thing I picked up, (anybody taking notes?) When I use to ride the Bike a lot, one thing that would really Piss me off, is when I'd pull up behind someone at a light, get it in neutral, put my feet down and generally get comfortable. The S.O.B. would then pull up the one or two car-lengths he /she'd left in front, leaving me sitting there all alone, looking like an Asshole with a car-length or three in front of me.  The only thing I could do was, put it back in gear and roll up to their back bumper. Now of course I do that all the time, when I'm driving a car. One thing, it only works with Motorcycles, most cars have automatic transmissions these days, so all they have to do is let off the brake and roll up. On the other hand, It's still pretty much the same pain in the ass on a Motorcycle. So to pull this one off, you have to watch until you get a Motorcycle following you, then stop short. If you watch his expression in the rear view when you pull up, It's worth all the trouble.

            So there I was… Trying to get back to the subject… Which was… Oh yeah, the Enthusiast. I had a collection of the Magazines that would choke a horse. Boy there's an expression you don't hear much any more. I could rattle off the specs on every Harley made, by heart. I would have killed for a "74 OHV". Color: green. I think that was a Panhead. That was it, my life would not be complete until I had a Green 74 OHV Harley. That was until I got a ride on a red Indian Chief.

            The guy across the street had the Indian. It was almost always parked in the shade under his big old Maple tree, when I passed by on the way home from school. A 74 Chief bright red. On the fateful day, he was out polishing it, not that unusual , I remember him always  shining  that thing. It was so shinny it hurt your eyes. So shinny it was invisible. So shinny… So on this day, I screwed up my courage, marched right up to him and mumbled, "how about a ride". "WHAT", he shot right back. I was mortified, completely out of courage, so I didn't say anything, just stood there like an idiot.  Finally, he said, " you want a ride?" probably  to break the awkward silence . I could still nod so I nodded vigorously.

He had me wait while he kicked it over. Than the rapture of that big twin coming to life, oh my! I remember, it had fish mouth (or is it "fish-tail) pipes, two. No mufflers of course. He motioning for me to climb on behind him on the "Buddy seat". Talk about your good vibes! We went down to Lewis avenue (the main highway then) and back. It seemed longer  but it was only a couple of miles.

When we were getting close to my house, I yelled that he could, "let me off here". I was being so cool, like the ride didn't mean Jack-Shit. I almost pulled it off too, if only my knees wouldn't have buckled and made me fall on my ass when I climbed off.

Can you imagine what would happen in this day and age if you gave a strange kid a ride on your motorcycle? Helmets? We never heard of helmets. I don't even like to think about it.

From then on, I was an Indian man. I know, I was a whore. Still am, I'm in love with whatever I'm on at the moment. Hold on there! What are you reading into that? Don't get me started on women.

I don't know if you noticed but I used a couple of bad words before back there. I heard, or maybe read, an old saying, I don't  remember it but it's meaning  was that ignorant people use profanity because they are too dumb to know the words, or something like that. I always thought what a wonderful thing, Dumb Shits like me can express themselves. All they have to is just cuss a little.