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A motorcyclist seems to have a certain point of view even on vacation or a trip of any kind.  I just returned from a short visit to Hawaii to see my relatives, especially my mother who is now 93 years old.  I told her to get rid of the Harley, since she can no longer pick it up from a dead-drop and there won’t always be someone else around to help her.  (Just kidding — she’s not a biker).  Anyway, it just seems that all through the trip and everwhere I looked, I saw things with a biker’s eye.

A casual look at riders in the States reveals a heavy dose of Harley- Davidson types.  That’s not unusual, since the Harley is made in Milwaukee.  From a motorcyclist’s viewpoint, the Harley is tantamount to a national symbol.  This make of bike is prevalent in the Southern California area where I live.  I passed a few enroute to the Ontario Airport at 4 a.m. the day I left on my trip.  Again, as soon as I arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii there was a Harley-Davidson on display at the airport.

I observed a number of Japanese motorcycles as well as Harleys during my stay in Hawaii.  The “rice cookers” were plying the Ko’olau Mountain roads while the “hogs” were seen cruising the main drag of Kalakaua Avenue in downtown Honolulu.  All of their riders seemed to be enjoying themselves.  I joked around with one Harley rider as he stopped in front of the Prince Kuhio Hotel entrance.  Walking up to his bike, I put my hand on the throttle control and asked casually if he wanted me to valet park it for him.  He was taken aback slightly by surprise, then, catching the joke, he countered with,  “No thanks, ’cause you’ll probably take off with it and I’ll never get it back.”  It was just typical biker small talk expressing the underlying camaraderie that all bikers have toward one another.  It was even more heartfelt because of the Hawaiian aloha spirit permeating the atmosphere.

The biker’s eye was even at work after nightfall.  While relaxing at the Hale Koa Hotel, a military services recreation center facility at Fort DeRussy in the heart of Waikiki Beach, I was jawing with an army retiree at the Barefoot Bar about past, present and future events.  He was an interesting fellow who retired to Hawaii after serving his country for 30 years on active duty.  He and his wife were planning to buy an RV and tour the States before they got too old to enjoy it.  He claimed that they were going to spend half their time on the mainland and the other half on the Island of Oahu.  He also said that he had just fulfilled his lifelong dream of owning a Harley-Davidson Motorcycle.

I asked him where the bike was garaged.  He replied that it was at his home in Honolulu.  I then told him that with the purchase of that motorcycle, he just blew the other half of his dream.  He asked what I meant by that comment.  I said that by having his dream bike in Hawaii and his RV on the mainland of the USA, he would never complete his tour of America.  He would not want to part from his bike long enough to complete the RV tour.  It would be like taking a sandwich to a banquet as compared to eating pheasant under glass.  I guess the beer was getting to him, because he put his head in his hands and said he hadn’t thought of that.

Being the compassionate romantic that I am, I could not stand to see a fellow biker in pain.  I suggested that he could entertain the possibility of shipping the bike to the States and hauling it behind the RV to use for transportation and short trips after parking the bus during the tour.  A smile returned to his face, and he was once again in biker’s heaven.  I left him there in his contented and mesmerized state.

The next day I flew to Ontario Airport in Southern California from Hawaii.  As I drove home to La Quinta in my little Mustang at midnight, I caught site of a single headlight in my rear view mirror.  I was doing the speed limit of 70 mph.  The light was gaining on me and rapidly reducing the distance between us.  Then, in a flash, the light passed me with a turbo-like drone and leaving me in the dust of its exhaust.  I only got a glimpse of the rider in his front-leaning rest position.  I don’t know what make of bike it was, but only a “rice cooker” had that kind of engine drone and that much speed.  It wasn’t  a V-Twin or a V-Four; it was an in-line, vertical four, and it was sweet music to my ears.  But then, that’s just a “rice cooker” biker’s point of view.  You know what I mean?                                  Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 

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