Common Threads
Common threads
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
ONLY A FEW WEEKS AGO I INTROduced myself to a new neighbor on the block, a guy named Bill Dunlap. I have to confess that the main reason I walked up and talked to Bill was that he happened to have a 1974 Norton 850 Commando parked in front of his house. He came over to look at my Triumph, and naturally we got sitting around the garage, talking and having a few beers. In the course of conversation it turned out that in addition to a weakness for British bikes, we have other remarkable similarities in taste. It seems we are both blues fans—and own exactly the same models of electric guitars—and that we have also owned identical kinds of cars and are both fascinated with flying, and so on.
It would be almost eerie, except that it’s happened before. When I met my friend Russ Lyon a few years ago, I discovered that, at the time, both our garages contained a Jaguar E-Type, a Ducati 900SS and a Triumph Bonneville. When Russ and his wife Sandy invited Barb and me for dinner, I also found that their book collection was nearly an exact duplicate of our own. Furthermore, we had similar political outlooks and even went camping in the same part of the Anza-Borrego Desert every year. It was weird.
Since then, it’s happened over and over again. I even get occasional letters from readers who seem to share my tastes (such as they are) so exactly that we could almost be linked together by common brain waves, like the identical-thinking children in The Village of the Damned. It seems to me there’s some sort of Pythagorian logic at work here: If you like A and B, then it follows that you must also like C and D, but not necessarily X and Y. The common root here (A), seems to be British bikes. They are the acid test, the key to the whole syndrome.
If you really like motorcycles from England, you belong to a kind of separate race, a splinter society of individuals who may look and talk almost like normal humans, but were, for all we know, put here by aliens to colonize the planet for some yet undisclosed purpose. Perhaps to increase intergalactic sales of Oil-Dri. Maybe we arrived in pods, like the humanoids in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Maybe our mothers were frightened by Clydesdales. Who
knows. The important thing is, we’re here.
The sad part is, there are probably people out there who are honest-toGod British bike buffs and don’t even know it yet. They may just be getting started in motorcycling and haven’t learned the real truth about themselves. Still, the Force is with them, latent though it may be.
To help those people discover whether or not they are destined to mature into real British bike fanatics, I’ve put together the following psychological exam, based on years of personal research and nearly six weeks spent in Psych 101 before I dropped the course like a hot cylinder head. Read each question carefully and answer honestly.
1. You wake in the night to find your house on fire. Before you escape from the flames, there is time to rescue only one possession. You take: (a) the wedding pictures; (b) a Ming vase; (c) a cardboard box containing an old set of worn-out Amal Monobloc carbs and a Velocette tank badge.
2. You walk into a bar and the bartender says, “What’ll it be?” Your answer is: (a) a Perrier with a twist of lemon; (b) a nice glass of white wine; (c) a pint of Guinness stout,“and leave the head on it.”
3. The drink you chose in the question above should be served: (a) ice cold; (b) chilled; (c) about room temperature, assuming it’s a cold, rainy day and the room is unheated except for an inefficient gas-log fireplace.
4. Your favorite airplane is the: (a) Cessna Citation; (c) Beech Bonanza; (c) de Havilland Gypsy Moth.
5. A radio station calls and says you’ve won free tickets for any one of the following concerts. Which one do you choose: (a) Madonna; (b) Michael Jackson; (c) John Mayall.
7. Coming out of a theater at night you find that it’s pouring rain. You say to yourself, “Damn! I should have brought: (a) my umbrella; (b) cab fare; (c) a full set of waxed cotton thornproofs with Derri boots and a large bottle of Rain-X for my splitlens Climax goggles.”
8. You arrive home cold and soaking wet because your thornproofs need re-waxing. Your first thought is to have: (a) a hot cup of cocoa; (b) a furnace installed; (c) a pint of Guinness, served at room temperature, of course.
9. Of the following three, the most inspirational public figure of the 20th century would be: (a) Mahatma Gandhi; (b) Dr. Albert Schweitzer; (c) Mike Hailwood.
10. The car you would most like to drive on a winter cross-country trip is: (a) a BMW 750i; (b) a Mercedes 300E; (c) an MG-TC with canvas side-curtains.
11. Your worst recurring nightmare is: (a) being left behind at a train station; (b) falling down an endless elevator shaft; (c) coming out of a movie theater in the pouring rain and realizing you’ve got to ride home on a ’67 Triumph with Energy Transfer ignition made by Lucas and you’ve forgotten your waxed cotton thornproofs and even if you do get home, the place is unheated except for an inefficient gas-log fireplace and you’re out of Guinness.
12. The baddest, meanest name for a big, fast, V-Twin motorcycle is the:
(a) Suzuki Intruder; (b) Kawasaki Vulcan; (c) Vincent Black Shadow.
13. Which of the following seafoods sounds best: (a) lobster Thermidor;
(b) Alaskan salmon in white wine sauce; (c) fish & chips with malt vinegar, served in a piece of old newspaper.
14. The perfect island paradise for a honeymoon or that romantic getaway vacation would be: (a) Hawaii; (b) Tahiti; (c) the Isle of Man.
That should about cover it. If you so much as thought of picking C for even one of the answers, you should probably start looking for an old British bike. Nothing else will do.
