When I was sixteen I asked my mother, “Can I have a motorcycle?”
“Of course not,” she said. “It’s much too dangerous!”
About two weeks later I was flipping through an old photo album and saw a picture of my mother sitting on a 600 c.c. Panther, so I took it right to her and asked, “hey Mum, was that Uncle Jim’s motorcycle?”
“No,” she said.
“Was it Uncle Dougie’s?”
“No.” “Well, whose was it?”
“It was mine.”
“Soooo,” I cross-examined,” if you had a motorcycle when you were my age, why can’t I have one?”
“First of all,” she replied, “I was nineteen in that picture, not sixteen, and second, it’s different now. It’s much too dangerous.”
There was some logic in this, since she had been living in a small village in Scotland in the nineteen-forties, and I had to admit, there was much more traffic in Toronto in 1970.
However, being a stubborn teenager with a pocket full of part-time summer job earnings, I went out and bought a motorcycle anyway. All I could afford was a beat-up old Honda. It shook. It rattled. It smoked. Not long after I brought it home and endured a tongue-lashing, it finally gave up and died.
“Well,” she said. “It looks like you’re determined to get a motorcycle, aren’t you?”
Sensing a change in the weather, I screwed up my courage and said, “Yes.”
“All right, then, if you must have one, let’s get you a proper one.”
We got in the car and she drove me to the BSA dealership on Eglinton Avenue. Looking around, I was immediately drawn to a big, shiny, silver and red 650 Lightning.
“No,” she said, “you don’t need one of those,” and steered me toward a 441 c.c. Victor Special. “This is all you need.”
With its wasp-coloured yellow and black paint job, small brushed-aluminum gas tank, and huge single-cylinder engine, it looked lean and mean. It was love at first sight. It was even better when the salesman started it up. It shuddered; it rumbled; it roared. It was perfect. Driving it home, I discovered it had the most delightfully terrifying ability to do wheelies with just the slightest twist of the throttle.
She knew what she was talking about. I fell off a few times. I learned how to do the laundry to secretly wash out bloodstains. But that bike fulfilled its primary function to the letter. I had no trouble whatsoever getting the prettiest girls at school to agree to go for a ride on the back of that motorcycle.
A few years later, I sold that bike to buy an amplifier so I could join a band. My mother helped me with that too, and bought me more than one guitar, and over the years, she helped me pay to go to university. Whenever I needed some help to get ahead, to do something I really wanted to do, she was there.
My mother died last year of lung cancer. I flew home to Toronto to be with her in the hospital, and, near the end she said, "I'm going to leave you something and I want you to get something you've always wanted with it."
BSA is long gone now, but I think she would have liked the looks of this one:
Well said Speedyron! Time does indeed march on but we are still living the dream for as long as we possibly can.
What a wonderful story! Sorry for your loss. Your mom sounded like a good woman!When I was sixteen I asked my mother, “Can I have a motorcycle?”
“Of course not,” she said. “It’s much too dangerous!”
About two weeks later I was flipping through an old photo album and saw a picture of my mother sitting on a 600 c.c. Panther, so I took it right to her and asked, “hey Mum, was that Uncle Jim’s motorcycle?”
“No,” she said.
“Was it Uncle Dougie’s?”
“No.” “Well, whose was it?”
“It was mine.”
“Soooo,” I cross-examined,” if you had a motorcycle when you were my age, why can’t I have one?”
“First of all,” she replied, “I was nineteen in that picture, not sixteen, and second, it’s different now. It’s much too dangerous.”
There was some logic in this, since she had been living in a small village in Scotland in the nineteen-forties, and I had to admit, there was much more traffic in Toronto in 1970.
However, being a stubborn teenager with a pocket full of part-time summer job earnings, I went out and bought a motorcycle anyway. All I could afford was a beat-up old Honda. It shook. It rattled. It smoked. Not long after I brought it home and endured a tongue-lashing, it finally gave up and died.
“Well,” she said. “It looks like you’re determined to get a motorcycle, aren’t you?”
Sensing a change in the weather, I screwed up my courage and said, “Yes.”
“All right, then, if you must have one, let’s get you a proper one.”
We got in the car and she drove me to the BSA dealership on Eglinton Avenue. Looking around, I was immediately drawn to a big, shiny, silver and red 650 Lightning.
“No,” she said, “you don’t need one of those,” and steered me toward a 441 c.c. Victor Special. “This is all you need.”
With its wasp-coloured yellow and black paint job, small brushed-aluminum gas tank, and huge single-cylinder engine, it looked lean and mean. It was love at first sight. It was even better when the salesman started it up. It shuddered; it rumbled; it roared. It was perfect. Driving it home, I discovered it had the most delightfully terrifying ability to do wheelies with just the slightest twist of the throttle.
She knew what she was talking about. I fell off a few times. I learned how to do the laundry to secretly wash out bloodstains. But that bike fulfilled its primary function to the letter. I had no trouble whatsoever getting the prettiest girls at school to agree to go for a ride on the back of that motorcycle.
A few years later, I sold that bike to buy an amplifier so I could join a band. My mother helped me with that too, and bought me more than one guitar, and over the years, she helped me pay to go to university. Whenever I needed some help to get ahead, to do something I really wanted to do, she was there.
My mother died last year of lung cancer. I flew home to Toronto to be with her in the hospital, and, near the end she said, "I'm going to leave you something and I want you to get something you've always wanted with it."
BSA is long gone now, but I think she would have liked the looks of this one:
