Swords of Damocles
Swords of Damocles
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
LAST WEEKEND A MAN FROM CHICAGO came to buy my 1987 Reynard Formula Continental racing car. This is an open-wheeled single-seater with a Ford 2-liter ohc engine, and, although it’s a wonderful-handling car in good condition, I have decided to sell it because a) it is no longer competitive in SCCA national races and b) I want to take a summer off racing and heal the financial wounds of having one too many projects stuffed into my garage.
The fellow who bought my car has been racing a Bug-Eye Sprite for 21 years and said he has always wanted to try racing a formula car, and, having just turned 45, has decided to do it. He doesn’t mind that my car is slightly dated, because he wants to try the class before spending more money.
But enough about cars (this is a bike magazine, no?) and onto the point.
While the gentleman from Chicago was looking at the car in my workshop, his wife had tea with my wife Barbara in our house, and they had a chance to talk. It came to light during their chat that my car buyer’s motivation actually ran a little deeper than he let on.
Seems a close friend of his, also 45 years old, had a sudden, unforeseen heart attack last year. He’s recovered completely, but this was a real eye-opener for all concerned. It drove home that old basic lesson that Life is Short.
“Since then, my husband has been trying all kinds of things he’s never done,” Barb was told. “He’s always wanted to race an open-wheeled formula car, so he decided that right now was the best time to do it.”
Reflecting on this later, I thought it was both sobering and a little amusing (if such serious matters can ever be said to be amusing) that so many of us who love cars, motorcycles, airplanes, etc. nearly always react to a life crisis in terms of a coveted machine-or an untaken adventure with a machine.
Chest pains? Quick, call your Ducati dealer and see if that 916 is still unsold! Tornado miss your house by a few hundred yards? Might as well buy a new XR and do Baja off-road, all the way down to Cabo. Time’s a-wastin’!
I personally had a small medical scare a couple of years ago, nothing but a wee dark spot on my shoulder. They caught this one in plenty of time with several sessions of minor surgery, but on my way out of the doctor’s office I happened to remark that it was a good thing I’d stopped in to have it looked at.
“Yes,” said the doctor, almost casually. “If you’d let it go a few months longer, you’d probably be dead within the year.” He looked into my eyes searchingly to see if I understood the significance of this near miss.
I did.
That afternoon, with the doctor’s words resonating in my head, I drove out to Decker Harley-Davidson and ordered a new Electra-Glide Sport. I’d been staring at the brochures for months, but hadn’t been able to convince myself to take out a loan and spend all that money. I’d always wanted to take an Electra-Glide on an extended, easy-cruising tour of the greater Southwest, and that very summer Barb and I did just that. Seemed like the right time.
On a similar but more serious note, former CW contributor Steve Thompson discovered he had a life-threatening brain tumor a few years back. It was successfully operated on, and he responded to his new lease on life by competing at the Isle of Man for the first time, and writing us a wonderful story-one of the best I ever read-about his adventures there. It was a thing he had always wanted to do, but had left undone.
I’ve heard many versions of this story over the years, though some are more subtle and subliminal than others. And some are retroactive.
Yers truly, for instance, has hardly ever been without some form of late-Sixties Triumph in the garage. I like the way these bikes look and sound, but there’s a little more to it than that. Part of their appeal lies in the fact that these are the bikes I most lusted after during the time I was in Vietnam. And every time I look at one now, it reminds me I’m back. There’s a little reward built into every Triumph, a little private celebration.
I suppose people who don’t care about motorcycles find some other way of handling these curve balls life throws at us. Maybe a new set of gardening tools, a deluxe bowling ball or a trip to the Yucatan. Or, if they are of a nonmaterialistic bent, they may find renewed interest in some spiritual aspect of life, or merely be reminded of how much their families and friends mean to them, or how pointless it is to cause dissension in this short passage of time.
Nearly all of us, I imagine, have at least some of the higher, thoughtful stuff built into us. But what seems to distinguish motorcycle buffs from your average reflective citizen is the tendency to express personal philosophy and spiritual outlook with machinery. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a watershed change of life or perspective that was not marked by the acquisition (or rejection) of a motorcycle.
When we want to simplify, we get a simpler bike. Or sell off a few we don’t need. In celebration of some success, we tend to indulge ourselves. And after a close shave of some sort, we go for those bikes-and rides-we’ve been putting off for too long. Danger, perceived or real, has a great way of concentrating the mind and cleansing it of trivial matters. That mythical sword hanging over us by a single hair makes us realize what’s important.
Years ago, there was a famous Gahan Wilson cartoon in Playboy magazine. It showed two golfers on a putting green, with a huge nuclear mushroom cloud rising over the city in the background. “Might as well play through,” one golfer says to the other. “The shock wave won’t get here for at least three minutes.”
It’s a golf joke, but most of us can easily identify with the concept. I suppose if a mushroom cloud suddenly appeared over a nearby city, my first impulse might be to run out and shop for a Vincent. Quickly.
