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October 22, 2005
Giving Blood Part 1
but my bike was a bit bigger
and of a different style
Once or twice a week I'd run some sterilization beverages through my system -- in the form of Miller Lite usually -- and was confident my blood was germ free and would be a prize for the Blood Bank. I made an appointment to give on a Friday afternoon after work.
There was a light mist falling that Friday morning. The only reason that is important is that my car was on the fritz and I was going to have to ride my motorcycle. I hated riding in the rain -- in fact, I never had -- and I new a mist would make things worse. The roads would be wet and, the theory was, slippier than if they've been subjected to a full rain. A light rain would bring all the oil to the surface. A better rain would wash the oil off.
As I said that's the theory. I don't know if there is any truth to it I just know that when I left the house I was more on edge than I wanted to be. On top of it all I seemed to be getting a sore throat.
I made it to the gate at Armco Steel (now AK Steel) without any problem, flashed my ID and drove back to the locker room. The locker room may have been as much as a mile away from the gate.
I went to my locker and grabbed my keys. My locker key was on my car key keyring. I had my motorcycle keys.
I rode the bike back out to the gate to get a key. The guard asked for my locker number and I gave it to him. He gave me a key and I headed back to the locker room to find I'd given him the wrong locker number.
After making note of the correct locker number I headed back to the gate to get the right key.
By the time I got to my job in the mill I was a little bit late. As I'd clocked in late I was going to have to clock out a bit later than normal. It was a pretty hectic start to a work day.
Eight hours passed.
I headed to the gate to return my key.
I had gotten in the habit, when I was going to make a quick drop off of some sort, of coasting the motorcycle to a stop, putting the sidestand down, and letting it idle while I ran whatever quick errand it was I was on (not the best idea for air-cooled motorcycles, but I didn't know that at the time).
As I neared the guard shack I put the bike in neutral and applied the brakes.
There is that brief moment of clarity that a person sometimes feels just before there is no turning back from whatever mistake it is he's about to make. You know what I mean. Like when you're shutting the car door and just before it comes to you realize the keys are in the ignition and the doorlock is engaged. You have reached a point of no return before you are able to take any action to save yourself.
My point of no return and moment of clarity came as I leaned my bike over on the sidestand. As I reached the point in the lean at which I was unable to stop the momentum of the bike it occurred to me I'd failed to put the sidestand down.
I crawled out from under the still running motorcycle and took my helmet off. There was a guy in a car behind me who had stopped to go into the guard shack. By the way he'd sucked his cheeks in I could tell he was trying hard not to laugh.
"Go ahead," I said, "my whole day's been like this."
I shut off the bike and got it upright. I returned my key to the guard -- he'd seen part of what happened and wondered just what he'd missed.
The Suzuki really didn't care to be on her side too much and protested just a bit when I tried to start her up.
In a moment we were on our way.
Posted by delmer at October 22, 2005 10:17 PM
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