Innocence Vanquished, Fatherhood Victorious
INNOCENCE VANQUISHED, FATHERHOOD VICTORIOUS
UP FRONT
Allan Girdler
An open apology to all those I have advised to whip right down to the nearest motorcycle riding school: Listen. I indorsed the program then, I still do but I had no idea how involved such a project can be.
Journalism is how I learned this. Back when the Motorcycle Safety Foundation first issued its instruction manuals and began training instructors, I knew about the ^program in a professional way. Because it sounded good and the graduates had learned right, I made it a policy, any time anybody wanted to ride motorcycles, to urge that they go to an MSF-endorsed school.
With the passage of time, an opporAunity arose. My youngest son turned 16, the magic age for freedom, a license and •exposure to risk.
This made for a nice problem. Joe has been riding dirt for four years. He’s a good rider, better than me, I suspect. By all the emperical evidence, he’s had time enough in the saddle to simply read the rule book and get his riding license.
At the same time 1 am a concerned (read neurotic) father. I know motorcycles are dangerous and kids are careless. Also, that parental pride can be as blind as love.
Further, I have sort of a vested interest in this. One day I mentioned to a woman who works for the company but not the jriagazine, that the kids and I had gone riding. She reacted with shock: You let your children ride motorcycles?!
Well sure, I said, what sort of hypocrite do you think I am? She thought (without actually thinking) that I ride because I work here, while in truth I work here because I ride. Plus, because I am on record as advising other parents that children should be allowed to earn the right to make their own decisions, i.e. ride motorcycles, there’s no way I could forbid my kids to do the same thing.
A terrific idea occurred to me. As you’ve surely guessed, it was an MSF-endorsed riding school. That would allow Joe to learn from a professional teacher, one not emotionally involved. At the conclusion, he could take the M.O.S.T. test, the best there is. If he passes, I can know he’s as equipped as a novice road rider can be.
For a secret bonus, I resolved to do this undercover, sign the kid up privately, just as we try to buy the products we evaluate.
In the guise of a potential rider, I toured the local bike stores. I’ve always assumed that’s where most potential riders would go for information. If so, they don’t get it. None of the stores had the fliers, posters, brochures, etc., that I expected would be there. And the salesmen had some vague knowledge that there are, somewhere, rider programs, but they didn’t know anything beyond that.
Just about then we got a news release. The state safety people asked us to mention the toll-free number offered for potential riders who’d like to know where these training programs are.
Mention it, Hell. I used it. The operator told me there was a course at a safety council, 50 miles from home, another at a Marine base, 15 miles, and at a junior college literally just down the street from my house.
I telephoned the college and they said, sorry, adults only and you must be a student here. The marine base said, sorry, the course has been discontinued. For lack of interest.
What? Here we have dealerships that can’t be bothered telling people where to learn. We have a toll-free number that doesn’t know what’s on, a record number of people getting into the sport and there’s no interest. Bushwah. What we have here is a system that doesn’t work as well as I’ve always assumed it did.
At this point, I blush to admit, I abandoned my undercover research. Kid first, journalism second. I know a man who knows a man who’s preparing a college course—at another school—on motorcycle touring. This man asked me if I’d be part of a seminar. Sure, I said, but it’s gonna be a trade. I’ll be in your program if you pull strings, make threats, hint about buried bodies, anything. But I want my son in that rider training.
We had a deal. He called the man who runs the program and a few calls later I’d been promised a place in the class if we had to glue the kid into a false beard and pass him off as Willie G. Davidson.
Back in my reporter’s hat I talked to people higher in the program. It turns out rider courses are sort of like a franchise. MSF supplies the materials and instructor training. The rest comes from wherever it can be found. This means there’s a certain, uh, variation from site to site and course to course. Not in the actual teaching, but in how hard the courses are pushed and how public they are. And because each is independent, as in the Marine base, the man in charge doesn’t always tell the state people or the MSF, and the individuals may oro may not be adept at getting the public’s attention.
Therefore some of the MSF courses are harder to find than reason says they should be.
Back on my personal problem, I was told minors can take the course at the college, provided an adult takes it with them. And I don’t have to be a student exactly, but I would have to enroll as a student so I could be the official learner and Joe could be there with me.
Further, this particular course is taught, because one of the college’s trustees rides motorcycles. So do her husband and children. When MSF introduced the program, she liked the idea and persuaded the other trustees to offer motorcycle training as an adult education class. However, the college itself is skeptical about the whole idea.
Forewarned, I went to register. Afte<r endless lines, I came up against a clerk who was not like my grandmother. Mon* like the lady in the candy store who always acted as if I was there to snitch jellybeans.
She said the course was full. Excuse me, I said, I don’t believe it is. She* checked, and it wasn’t. I mentioned son would take the course with me. It’s not allowed, she said, but I insisted and she looked it up and he is allowed. That inspired her to mention that “Motorcycles aren’t the safest form of transportation, you know,” and I said I knew that, having ridden the things for 20-odd years and she looked me up and down, whether to see the cast on my leg or the skull-anc^crossbones tattoo on my arm, I couldn’t tell.
But another woman, a human being, came to my rescue and I was duly enrolled, right down to the student identification card.
This is written after the first session. Before we went I warned Joe that he’d probably know more than the other students,, regardless of age, and that he was to keep his own counsel. He did it. The instructor, a motor officer with the state police, explained the basics and Joe took notes.
With two hours’ experience, Fm a believer. If you know anybody who wants tb learn, if you’d like to get the basics most of us self-taught survivors missed, badger the dealers, bully the college clerks and find a rider course.
Joe and I were walking out to the truel* after the first session. Before I could ask, he said “That guy knows what he’s talking about.”
