Daytona Odyssey cont'd:

[Wild Will]

Dean Vs. The System

Everything was finally going right on that fateful sunny Saturday morning somewhere in the nether regions of Tehachapi. I’d been awake since 0 dark thirty thanks to the bad sleeping habits of the vice Hoon, and it must’ve been right around 8:30, because I was beginning to think about Bacon and eggs, blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, and biscuits and gravy so rich with chunks of pork sausage that your heart beats slower just thinking about breakfast. Dad said that was the cause of his triple bypass, but that it was worth every minute of his usual morning indulgence.
So we’re rolling east, just shy of Arizona, with majestic three hundred foot rock sentinels on the north, and a flat plain to the south filled with volcanic rock and age-old lava. We were just discussing life back then, when the sky would fill with black ash and scalding clouds, and all hell broke loose, cannoning red hot boulders into the hot air, when Dean (who’s cruising at 85 in the beat up shop Tundra with the tongue-heavy trailer digging rivets in the asphalt over each small bump in the road) sees a blue light bearing down on us from the California side.
The cop is dressed for Iraq. He’s wearing dark blue battle fatigues, short sleeved; his pants are bloused in his black Danner combat boots, his Glock sits in a black leather holster. His flat top brush cut hair standing at attention with all their bristling stiffness. Mirrored sunglasses grace his young, fearless take-no-prisoners face and match his attitude.
“Sir, where you speeding to?”
Dean looks like a fugitive from a ramshackle porch on a South Carolina country store as he says “I’m not speeding officer; but put me on that bike in the trailer and I’ll show you some ****, son”.
The cop looks pained as he asks “Is that what you’re hauling in the trailer?”
“Yep”, says Dean, thinking he’s safe behind his grandpa act.
“You an employee of the bike shop sir?”
“Nope, just a retired old coot going to Daytona to bring these here fast bikes a’racing”
“Well then, sir, I’m confiscating your dealer plate and you’re getting a ticket for speeding, too”.
“Wait a minute, son, you can’t do that”
“Oh yes I can sir; state law says if you’re not an employee you can’t use the dealer plate in California. License and registration and proof of insurance, please.”
Here’s where Dean says to me, now fully awake, “Look in the glove box and find the stuff the officer wants, and be quick about it, slacker”.
I dig through all SJBMW’s papers, like the 4 Hour Race event stuff from Sears Point (why I have a problem saying Infineon is anybody’s guess, but humor me) where Parriott and Montano win it on the race bike in the trailer. Old gas receipts, faded beer coasters, brittle chewing gum sticks, a few old pastel lollypops, and the usual torn and badly folded maps of the Ca. Bay Area. But no registration or proof of insurance. There IS a registration from 2003, which Dean grabs out of my hand and shoves at the cop.
“There! That what you’re after, son?”
“No sir. Step out of the vehicle please and call the owner of this truck and ask him why I shouldn’t just stop this flagrant gypsy wagon abuse of the privilege of dealers plates right here and now.”
Dean calls Chris, who’s back in sunny San Jose enjoying the closing of the perfect sale of a brand new R 1200 RT to a first time rider who’s over 60 and ready for the life of a 2 wheeled vagabond after surviving years of spousal abuse at the mouth and jiggling VW size ass of his ex- wife, Gudrun. “Yeah Dean?”
“Chris, please tell this CHP storm troo…I mean officer, that I’m in your employ and that these are your bikes and ask him to let us be on our way. And Chris, would you please fax us at the motel tonight a copy of the insurance papers, and current registration?”
“Damfino where that stuff is, Dean. Should be right there in the glove box with the maps and chewing gum”.
“Nope, and it looks like he’s going to confiscate our plate, leaving me and Wild Will no plate on our monumental, proverbial cross country odyssey. That’s just not right, Chris”.
“OK Dean, I’ll send you what you need; call me later when you decide on a motel. Want me to talk to the cop?”
Dean asks the CHP ultra professional “You want to talk to the owner?”
“Now why would I want to do that? My problem is with you. I’m not speaking to anybody else. You’ve got big trouble, mister.”
Here’s where I slipped out of the cab and made my way down a twenty foot deep roadbed to wander amongst the old vehicle parts, volcanic rock debris, dead animal pieces, broken whisky bottles, ripped mud flaps, peeling chrome bumpers twisted long ago when metal was metal, and lots of alligators – carcasses of truck recaps that were blown off at speed and cast forever onto this spot along the highway.
I hear an occasional “Sir, do not speak to me with that tone” and
“I pay your salary, son, give a good old boy a break for the sake of all he’s sacrificed in order to get these important motorsickles to Daytona, Florida in time to whip some Jap ass in the eight hour race”.
More homages to vituperation and angst were cast into the morning haze there somewhere near Tehachapi while Dean and the trooper danced hot and heavy for forty five minutes solid. I had amassed quite a collection of road treasures by then and was wondering where I’d put what I was sure was a ’55 Chevy rear bumper into the already packed to the ceiling trailer. Forget the Tundra, as there was NO TAIL GATE. Who in his right mind drives more than three thousand miles to the east coast hauling a 300 pound fat red scooter and a huge Honda 400 pound generator in the bed of the truck, tied down with throw-away poly strapping, without a tailgate? Fercrissakes!
Only Chris knows what happened to that tailgate, but if it’s related to the sick broken twist in the rear bumper, and the duct taped plastic Toyota wheel wells that have somehow been ripped away all but for one screw, then I don’t want to hear about it; Chris has my pristine Tacoma 4X4 for the next three weeks and I’m already having sick daydreams about the bed filled with torn Bavarian metal and oil-dripping rusted and heavy BMW junk as he careens all over the streets of the city, as “Do You Know The Way To San Jose” blasts at speaker-blowing volume from my poor, paid for by the hour
Good Guys discount stereo.
I’m wondering where a man might find a trailer park nearby where, with a stroke O’ luck, a lonely lady sort of resembling Kate Winslet might need a handy man for a few days or so. Just then Dean waves to me and says “we’re leaving now”.
I claw back up the roadbed in time to see the trooper getting into his black & white SUV and turn his lights off.
“What the hell happened? Where is the cop going? Why are you not handcuffed to the freaking rear bumper? What’d you tell him?”
“Well”, says Dean, with the relaxed air of a man who’s just dodged a level-swung Louisville Slugger, more by luck than kung fu, “I told him I was a victim here, and that we are legitimate, and on his side, and I listened while he told me about his two tours in Iraq, and his divorce, and the Harley he just bought for himself, and I showed him the bikes in the trailer and I told him about Our Mission in Daytona, Wild Will. I told him that chances were mighty slim that a European bike could vanquish the Japanese Plague on the racetrack, but that we were going to do just that. Then I gave him the website where he could “watch” our progress, and he thought on it for a minute, and told me “OK, you’re free to go. Good luck and I’m sure going to follow the race and see how you do”. That was that!
Dean and I petered along at 55, maximum speed for truck and trailer, until we hit Arizona, where he dialed up 85 on the cruise control and drove us right into a heavenly truckstop breakfast fit for two road kings. The gift of gab? A gnarled but honest face?
Dean can do it like nobody else, as he proved to me last May after I passed a Sonoma County Sheriff Deputy at 90 on wonderful 253, between Boonville and Ukiah. The cop jumped right out in the road in front of Dean, following me on his speeding R 1200 ST, and gave him holy hell, but that’s another story!

[dee jones]

Did Dean Harp Boon't from Ye ole Buckey Walter? Sounds like it was time for a horn after that episode. Another stellar road. LEO always shows up when you think you've got it under control. Thanks for the write.

[Wild Will]

Next time I ride over there, I'll take a photo of the only bucky walter left in town. The Horn of Zeese cafe has turned into a Mexican burrito place. Nary a Boonter in sight any more, alas.
For our friends here, Boontling was a name given by its speakers to a local language spoken extensively between 1880 and 1920 in Boonville, Ca., which was the largest town in the Anderson Valey area of Mendocino County.
One of my favorite roads goes betwen the coast and Boonville, and I ride it regularly, and there's hardly any traffic. Even when there is, a twist of the wrist dispels them pronto. A very scenic area, now containing lots of vineyards and a world class brewery!

[dee jones]

Know one in these here parts Harps Boontling, much less has heard of the Bucky Walter. Next time I ride out west we should go for a spin. I saw that bucky walter the last time through, should have taken a picture, sad it won't be there long. Nothing stays the same.