The Motorbike

I mentioned my friend Kevin's motorbike in my previous post called 'Simple Pleasures'. Let me tell you the story:

Kevin had all the toys. All the gear for every sport, a pond in his back yard in the summer, which meant an ice rink in the winter. He had a snowmobile for the winter, but most memorable for me, was his dirt bike. It was a yellow and while Yamaha 80. It had a metal gas tank and a long black seat. I loved it.

I remember sitting in the living room of our house watching Kevin zip up and down our road through the ditches, dreaming of one day having my own dirt bike. Every time I was outside and Kevin came up on his motorbike I yearned for the chance to ride his dirt bike. Whenever I would go to his house to play and we were in the garage, I would sit on his bike and imagine I was riding it around. I begged my parents for months and months to get me a motor bike, but the answer was always the same: 'no'. Regardless, I still bought the dirt bike magazines, drew pictures of them and dreamed about having my very own dirt bike.

My birthday was coming up, and I finally wore my parents down. They knew my want for a dirt bike wasn't something that was going to go away. It just so happened that Kevin was looking to upgrade his motorbike and my parents agreed that they would buy Kevin's old bike for me. I was ecstatic!!!! I couldn't believe that I was going to get my own motorbike!!! I was in absolute heaven!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile....

All this was happening about the same time the first real home video game consoles were coming out and both my sister and I thought those were pretty cool too. My sister and I started looking at pictures of some of the games in magazines for the Intellivision and grew more and more impressed. That's it, we wanted one and weren't shy about letting my parents know about it. I remember this moment like it was yesterday:

Mom and Dad were sitting in the banquet room of our restaurant and they posed this question:

"what would you rather have: a motorbike or Intellivision?"

My sister, of course, wanted me to say Intellivision...she didn't share my passion for the outdoors, nor did she know how, or care to learn how, to ride a motorbike. An Intellivision, now that is something she could benefit from. Immiately she got all excited and was saying: "Intellivision! Intellivision!"

Being the charged up, easily influenced little kid that I was, I blurted out: "Intellivision!"

At the time, I was just thrilled to be getting something that I wanted desperately and didn't really think about what I had just done. My parents were more than pleased to comply with my request, and coming through on their end of the deal, in no time we had our Intellivision.

Don't get me wrong, my whole family got plenty of use and enjoyment out of that Intellivision (as soon as we figured out how to hook it up mind you), but I am not going to lie, there was a hole. After the initial bliss of having the console, the dream of the motorbike still lingered. The intensity wasn't near as severe, but it existed. It wasn't long after that summer that I got into golf and spend pretty much every summer day of my youth at the golf course. The motorbike became a thing of the past.

I would imagine my parents felt a huge sense of relief when I answered the way that I did. I guess in some ways it was the end of one dream: the motorbike, and the beginning of another: the pursuit of a career in professional golf. We also know the interest in gaming that I still possess as a result of that decision.

To this day, however, I still feel like it would be fun to have a little dirt bike to roam around on every now and then.