The biggest problem I had growing up in Los Angeles County from age 6 to 21 was that I found living around so many people sort of made me crazy in some ways. I remember being so angry as a young man one day that I literally was going sideways around every corner in my car on a mountain road because I couldn't deal with my rage regarding living in a big city. I could see the fear in everyone's eyes as they passed me the other direction. However, I sort of wanted to be dead anyway then so I didn't really care what other's thought at this point.
However, within a year or two of this my parents moved to San Diego County where it was mostly undeveloped then between San Diego and Escondido and Oceanside. So, I could ride my dualsport motorcycle (knobby tires) with off road design but can be ridden on freeways too or other roads with a license plate.
So, I could literally ride from Rancho Bernardo to Escondido to Oceanside to San Marcos to go to Palomar college there or ride over all the undeveloped land there too.
I can remember going on a dirt road where no houses were yet and a big rain storm had hit since I rode this road last. I didn't see the 6 foot deep new culvert cut by the big rainstorm until I was almost on it because I was going 25 to 50 miles per hour across this dirt road.
To not die all I could do was to lay the Honda 250 XL 1974 down onto it's left peg and hope I didn't die when I hit the 6 foot deep culvert at full speed. Luckily, my motorcycle's left foot peg dug in enough into the ground with a dirt rooster tail to where I stopped with my tires dangling over the edge of the culvert. Luckily I was wearing flat nosed cowboy boots that came up to my knees so it just scratched them some on my left boot so I didn't have to go to the hospital because all the damage was to my left boot grinding along the dirt as the dirt rooster tail from my left foot peg dug into the still somewhat damp earth.
After that I was much more careful after a rain to realize just how much the lands could change after a big rain.
By the way I was somewhat able to drag my motorcyles wheels out of thin air and back onto the land and ride away with just a severely scratched flat nosed cowboy boot on my left leg. So, this was very lucky because I didn't die. I didn't lose my motorcycle. I didn't lose my leg like my father almost did when he was 14 on his Harley 74 when he hit a German Shepard. He almost had to have his leg amputated but his father refused so he had to be on morphine for about 6 weeks until his leg healed up again. So, he didn't die but the price was great in keeping his leg.
I had to have morphine in 2015 when my appendix burst and I was afraid of the hallucinations a lot but mostly I hallucinated all the photos in my Iphone which was nice to see all the pictures of all the relatives and friends.
But, the biggest problem with morphine was that I couldn't poop for 4 days and no one told me about this so I thought I was dying and wouldn't even call my wife because I didn't want her to watch me die then.
Another funny story is when I was taking a welding class at Palomar College. My father among many of his skills as an electrical Contractor and builder was that he could weld. So, I took this course at his recommendation. So, my wife had frayed my Levi Jeans so the bottom 1/2 inch were frayed Bell bottom Levi Jeans.
So, I went to welding class and put my welding hood on and started to weld. Well. I had these same brown flat toed Cowboy boots to my knees for safely riding motorcycles on and felt a warm feeling on my right leg because I wore the bells over the boots down to my ankles or lower. Well, a metal ember from my welding had caught my Levi Bell bottoms on fire starting with the frayed part my wife had sewn into the bottom of my bells. By now it had burned up about 8 to 10 inches before I could beat it out.
So, then I had to ride my motorcycle home 12 miles on the freeway with a half moon sized hole in my jeans about 8 inches high from the bottoms which looking now is really funny to me at age 76.
But, at the time I was very embarrassed because you know how young people can be. I was likely 26 to 28 then but still very young in many ways then still even though I was a new father of a son born in 1974.
Pretty funny!
Note: I lived in San Diego County from Christmas of 1969 until 1976 when my new wife and I moved to Mt. Shasta and then to Hilo, Hawaii with our son born in 1974. I was 26 in 1974 then.
No comments:
Post a Comment