A Dirt Bike!

We three boys were in the backyard, taking turns swinging on the rope that hung in the pecan tree that shaded about two thirds of the backside of 105 South Cook Street. We had built a small platform in the crotch of the tree and had nailed several boards to the trunk to serve as a ladder to access the platform, where you could swing down at what felt like one hundred miles per hour and arc up so high at the end that you would get dizzy. It was the focal point of many hours of back yard entertainment for the entire neighborhood and quite a few scrapes, scars and bruises were suffered on that swing. It was Wallace's turn to swoop down from the platform and oh boy! What a beautiful display of gymnastic talent was performed as he rocketed down, giving the old Tarzan yell before doing a back flip at the peak of the swing. He failed to stick the landing and stumbled forward, arms gyrating wildly before he face planted much to the delight of Matt, Robert Taylor, his brother Frankie and myself.

"Hey Wallace!" cried Robert, "you think you can show us how to do that again? Only this time, add a half twist so you can get some dirt on the back of your head!" Wallace arose from his somersault with a scraped chin and a clump of dirt stuck to his left cheek and scowled "Oh, shut your trap Taylor! Y'all are too chicken to do what I can do!" With that, Wallace brushed the dirt off his face and his Sears Toughskins jeans and dashed back to toss the rope up to the next participant awaiting his turn on the platform.

The antics were interrupted by the sound of Daddy's black Ford truck backing into the yard beside the shop. The dual exhaust pipes were rumbling with the curious loping idle of a slightly built 390 V8, making that "bloompa bloompa bloompa-bloomp" sound and stirring bits of dried grass up in puffs from the turned-down chrome tips he had installed. There was something on the back of the truck under a blue tarp tied down with ten miles of clothesline rope and a dozen bungee cords. The shape instantly caught our attention as it looked curiously similar to a bicycle, only bigger. Daddy shut the truck's motor off and exited the cab with a sly grin on his face, as he knew exactly the reaction that was about to happen. We started peppering him with questions about the load he was hauling in the bed and Daddy just remained silent, grinning like the Cheshire cat. Pulling bungee cords loose and untying ropes the mystery was soon revealed: it was a motorcycle! Not just any motorcycle, a deep burgundy Yamaha DT3 175 dirt bike! It was stunningly beautiful with knobby tires, upswept expansion chamber exhaust pipe and a big, wide Preston-Petty aftermarket front fender.

We were absolutely giddy with excitement as Daddy rolled it down a plank and wheeled it out in the middle of the back yard, and lowered the kickstand. I made a couple laps around it, admiring it from every angle. It was big and menacing looking, and I had never seen a dirt bike that big! Buddy Brown had a little Honda Trail 70 but this looked nothing like that: it looked like it was going sixty miles per hour just standing still. Daddy straddled it, flipped the fuel petcock to the "on" position, pulled out the choke knob and stabbed the kickstarter twice. It fired on the second kick and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest when the motor lit off in a haze of purple exhaust smoke. It settled down into the meanest, most angry sounding "brack bracka brack bracka brack bracka brack" idle as I backed away from it with an emotional mixture of awe, delight and fear.

Daddy pushed the choke knob in and the idle slowed down into a curious "bung! bung! bung!" note. He pulled the clutch lever in, snicked it into first gear and revved it a couple times to clear the motor's intake tract of the enrichened fuel-air mixture, then eased off the clutch and motored off, making a couple of slow laps around the back yard while the expansion chamber exhaust note echoed between the shop and the house. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing; it was a dream come true and I had visions of roaring down a dirt road on it, and jumping it over Crooked Creek like Evel Kneivel. There was a guy that lived down the street named Murdoch who had an older Honda CL 450, and he had been promising the neighborhood boys that one day he was going to build a ramp to jump Crooked Creek with. He would entertain us by riding a wheelie for nearly half the length of South Cook Street and my head was spinning with the notion that I could perform a tandem jump with Murdoch, and impress my fellow third-grade students at Bennettsville Intermediate School. Why, if I could pull that off they would possibly have a "Scott Johnson Day" at school, complete with a parade down Main Street to celebrate mine and Murdoch's triumphant leap over the glorified ditch that was Crooked Creek!

Daddy pointed it at the front yard and rode up the driveway, circled the Scaleybark trees and blasted back down the driveway into the back yard where he performed a "donut" in the bare dirt under the Pecan tree. Dirt flew in a shower in all directions as the grins flew across our faces. Daddy came to a stop, and motioned me over to hop on the back and go for a ride. Yes!

Dear old Moms was inside the house and came out to see what all the racket was. She was on the front porch when Daddy and I rounded the corner where the trash can was, and I saw her standing there with a look of horror on her face. Daddy paused in the driveway, dumped the clutch while revving the throttle and the front tire went skyward. I wasn't prepared for the wheelie and promptly rolled backwards off the Yamaha and ended up as a sandy pile of Scooter in the driveway. Mamma gasped, hid her eyes and disappeared into the house.

Daddy gave all three of us boys a ride and took Frankie for a spin down Newton's Alley. Robert had hied away from the scene when Daddy had first fired up the DT3 to spread the news around the neighborhood, and missed his opportunity for a spin. Daddy coaxed the machine into the back yard, shut it down and put it back on the kickstand as Mamma stood on the steps at the back porch with a Clint Eastwood steely stare. She summoned Daddy over for a conference on the back porch and while we couldn't hear all of the consult we caught several keywords: "Dangerous", "God-forsaken contraption" and "Killed" were a few we heard and we knew what that meant.

Daddy slowly rolled the Yamaha up the plank and into the bed of that Ford where he draped the tarp back over it and proceeded to secure it with the ten miles of clothesline rope and dozens of bungee cords. I though I heard him sobbing and muttering under his breath while doing it, something that sounded like "joy-busting worrywort nagging woman won't let me have any fun at all". We watched in disbelief as Daddy got back into the truck and disappeared down South Cook Street in the general direction of Clio.

That was the last we saw of the Yamaha DT3 175, and the three of us boys didn't speak to Mamma for three days after that. Mamma had the strangest look in her eyes following that incident. It was as if she knew a secret that we didn't, and we were livid with her for spoiling our dreams, and I was especially upset because "Scott Johnson Day" would never become a reality and there was no way now that Cindi Crow would ever fall in love with me and grow up to marry me! That dream was fun for the thirty minutes it lasted.