My 1st Motorcycle

As many may know I grew up fascinated with motorcycles. As a kid, I would find it so exciting just to find the tracks of off-road motorcycles that our neighbors left.

Just like many kids, we'd put cards in the spokes of our wheels and follow the paths and trails that the neighbors dirtbikes would leave.

The jumps were just never the same on a bicycle as they would have been on a motorcycle.

Early in the career of my father he used to ride a moped to work. It was exactly like the one pictured above. It's called a Honda Hobbit. His was a 1978 model.

The moped sat in our barn for years. We'd get it out and push ourselves down the hill and enjoy the bounce of the suspension as we'd lug the big heavy bicycle around. Pedaling back up the hill was a chore so we limited our use of the dormant machine.

I got to an age where I really wanted that moped to run. So I bothered my father enough to work on it and try and get it to run again. It had sat so long that the gas was old, and the carb was clogged with dirt.

We worked on it and took it all apart.

When we finally got it back together, the only thing that prevented it from running was not having the key. I guess that as us children would play with it, we didn't do a good job of not losing the key.

We tried to get a replacement key from the dealer. No luck. We searched the dirt floor of the barn with no luck. I spent hours on end looking for that key.

Finally, one day, as I was walking down to the barn to search for that key, I paused for a moment and remembered something from Sunday School and rattled off a quick prayer to find that key.

To my surprise, I then proceeded to walk directly to that key behind the snowplow for the tractor. A place that I would have sworn I'd gone over with a fine toothed comb previously.

It's a memory that will never leave me. I could show you almost the exact spot I said that prayer in my parents back yard nearly twenty years ago.

SO of course I immediately took the key to the moped and to my utter disappointment, it wouldn't start! I started praying again.

After another carb job, we finally got it running.

I'll never forget that first ride either, and I could tell show you the exact spot I twisted the grip and experienced my first powered two wheel flight! The two spots couldn't be more than a hundred yards from each other.