My mom was having some kind of Home Interiors Party, and I had a couple friends staying overnight. Jayne (14) had a Honda Z50 Mini Trail, her sister Vivi (15) had a blue Honda SL70, and I (also 14) had a yellow SL70. The house was full of my mother’s guests, and, well, we had motorcycles! We let her know we were going to ride up to the school, about a mile through the trails.
We had a ¼ mile oval flat track in front of the middle school, a ¼ mile dragstrip in front of the high school, and worked out a road race track incorporating them both with the bus loading zones and staff parking lots. It was perfect for night racing because it was all paved and lit by street lamps! Bear in mind that our school is literally out in the middle of the woods. The nearest “town” is a couple miles away and consisted of a fire house and blacksmith shop/general store. All the school asked was that we keep the motorcycles off the track & field track, and only ride on the property after everyone had left for the day. Perfect!
We got there and rode a little while … then my bike died! I turned it to reserve to no avail. We really couldn’t see into the tank by the streetlight, so Jayne and I decided we’d swap spark plugs. We all debated strategy as we worked, deciding it made more sense to take the back way home down the road to the shale pits. It was longer around, but it was easier going. My bike started with Jayne’s spark plug! About a half mile down the road, it died again. Now we didn’t even have street lights to help us see!
Vivi decided to tow me. We tied one sleeve of her denim jacket to the cross bar of my handle bars and wore the other sleeve. There wasn’t much room between our bikes this way, so we really had to pay attention! Once at the shale pits we stopped to give Vivi’s arm a rest and take a break. This first pit from the road was our jumping grounds. The one side would also periodically fill with water that no one was ever able to successfully ride their bike through, but that’s another story. It was a pretty night, looking out over the field toward the road.
As we talked, the creepy feeling of being watched came over us. Ditching our cigarettes we made haste getting through the three shale pits to the trail that came out behind the shop. This was more of a field trail, while the one we took to the school was originally a deer trail through the woods. My house could just about be seen from the shop. It was late, all the guests were gone, so we told my mom about our adventure!
The next day, we confirmed my bike was simply out of gas. To this day I make it a practice to always bring my bike home with a full tank! There was also gossip that there had been a prison break from the state facility about ten miles down the road. Was THAT why we had felt like we were being watched?