Karl Buys a Dirtbike, Asks for a Loan, and Gets Fired. Just another day at Rancho Scholz.

I'm pretty predictable when it comes to motorcycles. I always have been. I like them. And they like me.

One of my first memories in Seattle (when I was 2 years old) was sneaking out of the apartment to just sit next to and look at a motorcycle downstairs. It was all chrome and black with oval blackrubber patches glued to either side of the gas tank. It was an old Honda (old at that time), and I’m not even sure it ran. But it was very, very cool to a 2 year old Karl.

One of the first toys I can remember was a green Panhead chopper toy. The front end was about a foot long. Typical early '60's outlaw chopper styling. Girder front end, coffin tank, king-queen seat, etc. I also got a toy that was modeled after a heavyweight touring motorcycle (like a Moto Guzzi or something) which I gave to Kurt 'cause I had no use for it in light of being the owner of a really cool Panhead chopper.

Before I could read, when my friends bought bubble gum cards with pictures of sports heroes or cartoon monsters driving souped-up cartoon cars I was spending every nickel I could filch from the laundry room on bubble-gum cards featuring choppers. My friends all thought I was stupid, but I knew what I liked.

But, I’m told I only have one kidney (I don't really believe it...I can piss as good as the next guy) and motorcycle accidents are often the cause of kidney injuries. Mom and Dad were bound and determined to make sure I never rode on any motorized two-wheeler. I suspect that this just made me MORE interested in motorcycles.

Let that be a lesson to you parents and parents-to-be out there in TV land: Whatever you decide your kid is NOT going to do is the thing they’ll want to do most. Kids are intuitive. They intuit that parents don’t want kids to do certain things because those things are entirely too much fun. Just to prove my point, try to explain to a 4 year old why he shouldn’t try to fly off of the garage using a bath towel as a cape.... You can’t. So parents simply forbid kids to do those things, but they don’t have (what kids would call) valid, easily understood reasons. So your rules are in place simply because the forbidden fruit is fun.

One day Dad and I were talking about all of the reasons that motorcycles were unsafe. Dad got the chance to do lots of stitching over the years on people who, until quite recently, had been able to stay upright on a motorcycle. He saw the aftermath of that sort of thing. I didn't....Well, I watched him stitch a kid’s scalp back on one time. The kid had been riding a motorcycle. But I was more interested in the "how do you tie that knot" mechanics of the operation than the reason that kid had a flap of scalp the size of a baseball glove hanging in his face. All in all, it was kind of cool.

Dad told me "It is especially dangerous for you to ride motorcycles because you only have one kidney. What would happen if you wrecked a bike and got a handlebar through your abdomen?"

"Well..." I thought "that can't happen...and if it did, it'd probably be the wrong side of my body anyway...Hey, the odds are only 50-50 that I'd have a kidney injury with a handlebar through my gut! Hell, I'm more suited for riding a bike than anyone I know..."

Of course, the fact that I was immortal was a big factor in forming these opinions of mine.

When I got to be 16 I didn't have a car, and Dad had me driving our old Willy’s Jeep if there was driving to be done. But I wanted something better (who doesn’t?). So I bought a motorcycle that I thought could be converted to street-legal. The only reason that Mom and Dad let me buy the thing was that I told them that it COULD be made street legal. Of course the guy who sold it to me said it couldn’t be converted to street legal. But it had an old rusty license plate screwed to the fender, so I figured he was trying to keep such a valuable motorcycle for himself. I saw right through his little game, and bought the bike. Full price. It became a bone of contention between my parents and I on about the...oh...let’s say the second day I owned it. My parents wanted it converted to street-legal...Well, it turned out that it COULDN'T be converted... a least not affordably. Since it was supposed to come out of my pocket, there was never enough money to convert the bike. It needed brake lights, turn signals, and a valid license plate. It was a rolling traffic citation.

That didn't stop me. I rode it everywhere. At first I got warnings from the cops. Then I got lectures. Then I got lectures AND tickets for riding a dirt-bike like a dirt-bike is supposed to be ridden...except not in the dirt (i.e.: riding wheelies through stop signs and blasting out of town at 70mph in a 35).

The cop that wrote me my first ticket showed up at our house a full two minutes after I’d parked my bike and walked inside. He wanted to arrest me for "eluding", but I convinced him that I had absolutely NO idea that he was chasing me. I had to show him the fact that I had no rear-view mirror. He didn’t believe me, but I think he was a pretty good guy. He only gave me one ticket for running a stop-sign.

Dad was furious. His cost to insure me went way up. In fact State Farm dropped me over that incident.

One lousy ticket. I wasn’t even in a real vehicle. Bunch of risk-averse pansies.

Then, after I realized that the cops were serious about this not riding a dirt-bike in town thing, I decided that I didn't want any more tickets. So every-time a cop wanted to stop me, I just hit the gas and rode between buildings, down the railroad tracks (especially good), or wherever I figured the police couldn't follow. If I had been out riding, I NEVER went home without checking to see if I was being chased.

It was like Starsky and Hutch, CC Rider, the Dukes of Hazard, and Smokey and the Bandit all rolled into one. I was living my version of the American dream: Goin’ fast, jumping high, skidding wide, funds low, running from the cops. BORN TO BE WIII-II-II-ILD!

I entered my biker phase. Sort of. I mean, the spirit was willing, but the equipment just wasn't up to the challenge. I had spent all of my mad-money on a dirt-bike, and Mom made me put all of my money from summer jobs in the bank for college. So I was stuck with the Jeep or the dirt-bike.

Go fast and get tickets... Drive a nasty old farm Jeep. Let’s see.... I’ll take "call your friends and ask for rides for 500 Alex!"

While I was out riding around in my buddies’ cars that summer a guy moved into town with a beautiful Harley Sportster chopper. It was white with a springer front end that had been lengthened 6 inches over stock. I knew all of these esoteric, motorcycle-lore, trivia points because I had been collecting EASYRIDERS magazines for a couple of years at that point. I learned all about custom Harley-Davidsons from that magazine. Yes, I was only 16, and EASYRIDERS was essentially a wannabe porn mag in those days, but the guy who stocked the magazine rack at Fred's Market didn't know that (and I wasn't gonna tell him).

Fred's Market stocked two issues a month. I bought one (uh...for the bikes and the articles...uh, yeah.), and a friend named Pete bought the other (for the ugly nekkid biker chicks) as quick as they were available so no one knew to complain about anything.

I wanted that chopper in the WORST way. I talked to the guy who owned it... a grizzled old salt of probably 35 years, who said it wasn't for sale. Later that summer his story changed-- he told me he'd sell it for $2900. He was moving out of town in a week and needed the money.

It might as well been a million dollars. My gross pay was about $110 per week in those days.

Where does a 16 year old kid get $2900?

"Mom, can I talk to you? There's this really cool Harley chopper for sale, I'm sure you've seen it around town. It's white, and..."

"Nope, I haven't noticed it. Aren't choppers those silly-looking motorbikes with the stupid long front part that only people who don't bathe are allowed to ride? And besides, what does this have to do with you? You’re never getting one of those dangerous things."

This might be harder than I anticipated. Nonetheless, I forged ahead...

"Uh, well they are motor CYCLES not motorbikes, and I'm pretty sure that people who ride choppers aren't THAT dirty. And yes Mother, choppers have long front ends."

"Cycle, bike, what's the difference? Hand me that bowl of chicken gizzards."

"Well, forget about what it's called for a second. The thing is, I want to buy it, but I'll need a loan."

"How much does he want for it? I don't even know why I'm asking, you know I'm dead-set against the idea of you owning a motorcycle at all, especially one that looks that dangerous."

"He wants $2900, but I might be able to talk him down a little."

"And how much money do you have to spend?"

"There's over $6000 in my college account."

"Out of the question."

"You know I worked for that money."

"You worked to make money to go to college. I ask you again, how much money to you have to spend?"

"Well, since you make me deposit my paychecks into a savings account that takes YOUR signature for a withdrawal, you know that I have what's left of my $25 per month allowance, which right now is $19."

"So you need $2881 of my money to buy something I don't want you to have?"

"Well, when you put it THAT way...Yes. Please, Mom?"

"Ask your father. But let me talk to him first."

Dad didn't beat around the bush..."Hell, no! I'm not paying nearly three thousand dollars for a piece-of-shit motorchopper when you should be out at the farm digging ditches and fixing fences."

"If you'll recall, you fired me for being lazy, so I got a job at Safeway. The management at Safeway doesn't think I'm a lazy turd, they think I'm a great worker. I find it strange that you don’t remember all this, since you told EVERYONE in town that you’d fired me. People are still pointing and laughing."

"Don't be a smart ass. You already bought that loud non-street legal bike, got tickets, raised my insurance rates, collected complaints from the neighbors, and tore up the countryside all while you should have been working, but weren't. There's no way on earth that I'm going to reward that type of anti-social behavior. End of discussion. And another thing...Clean up that pig-sty you call a bedroom. I went in there the other day and broke my leg."

I might as well fire a parting shot... "Well, you made a miraculous recovery from the broken leg, I didn't even notice the limp. What's your secret?"

"GET OUT OF HERE YOU LAZY, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING, SMART ASS!"

Needless to say, the biker moved out of Enterprise with his Sportster chopper. I never got another chance to buy one until after I was in the Army, and I bought it. After a complete rebuild it became one of the great loves of my life, even though keeping it running was an expensive and ongoing challenge.

Sportsters were high-maintenance machines in those days, so I needed a steady income to afford the upkeep. If I had bought that chopper in the summer of my 16th year, It would have broken down and I would not have been able to either fix it or afford the expense to have it fixed. Hell, it was hard enough to keep a chopper running as a gainfully employed adult.
And forget taking it to college...SHEESH, that would have been a goat-rodeo. It was better to wait, and be called names by my ex-employer father.

I've had a bunch of Harleys since then... And they were the long, dangerous-looking kind too.

But I still bathe semi-regularly, just to prove Mom wrong.