"Is that an old one, or a new one that looks like the old one?" The Dions clerk was sitting on a milk crate under the merciless neon lights of the gas station. Dions is a convenience store institution in the Keys, a chain of deep fryers located in the back of gas stations up and down the island chain famous for its cheap, tasty ( when fresh) chicken, a saving grace when the wife is having a girls night out with the book club. They had gone to the Tropic Cinema in Key West to check out the movie about the Jane Austen Book Club followed by dinner at a Taste of Greece.It was a warm night on Summerland Key (my optional NewBonneville.com temperature gauge showed 82 degrees), and business as always in October was slow, so it was a perfect time to lean back and listen to his reminiscences about his old BSA 441 dirt bike from when he was a young somewhat careless young man.
"A lot of my buddies died on the streets, killed by turning cars, so I took the safe route, trail bikes and dirt racing." He smiled and the eager 20 year old peered out from behind his thick lenses and bushy mustache.
"I'm not sure why I'm still alive after all these years, an exaggerated fearfulness perhaps."
"You just got that? " a man gassing an enormous black pick up leaned across the bed and joined our conversation detailing the cubic capacity, the resemblance to the Norton Commando's capacity and all that.
"You run it in? How fast you got it going?" I knew I was facing a barrage of opinion about how to run in a Triumph so I popped my noggin into my new full face helmet (the type that flips up in front and makes it easy to put on with glasses). I reached to the headlight and turned on the key letting the engine purr a moment while i pulled on my gloves. My fried chicken was nestled in my newly installed top case and all was right with the world.
I had put two and a half gallons of 89 octane in the tank and that showed 43 mpg with 108 miles covered.
Back home I had a copy of that very silly boys movie Wild Hogs ( I watched the Jane Austen flick at the matinee...), and some left over candy from my afternoon off at the movies. And a warm, clicking Bonneville downstairs cooling under my house, ready for my commute in the morning.
Life is good again.
