Kids These Days

As I was cutting the yard one day I noticed some kids riding up and down the street on a motorcycle. I was thinking that these kids are pretty lucky as I didn't do that when I was a kid. Then I continued to remember... I had my own motorcycle and rode the trails in the desert of California when we were not riding up in the mountains with my dad. I rode so well from age 9 to 11, I rode with the adults.

Some of the trails we rode were very scary. I remember riding on top of a crest where one side was straight down and the other side was pretty steep. I didn't have a choice to be afaird of heights, I just did it. Some of the rides included a steep hill to go down that the sand was so soft that I was forced not to lock the brakes or it would slide faster down the mountain. Even worse was the way you had to sit towards the back of the seat and try your hardest not to go over the handle bars. And that was just going down the mountains as going up them was too difficult at times.

I found it really difficult at times to keep up as I got lost in the desert a couple of times. One time I got stuck on a tree in the mountains and got seperated from my dad to the point I had to go to the road and get taken into town. There was another time when we were riding through a sandwash when I saw a rock that I wanted to jump. That did not turn out well as I went over the handlebars and my helmet cut my forehead around my eyebrow.

I had many more good experiences than bad. Those just stood out more, but all of my experiences on the motorcycle or gocart racing were experienced with my dad. He pushed me to be better than I thought was possible and for that I know that I was the lucky one because I was not by myself riding through the neighborhood on flat roads. I did that riding my bicycle to school when we lived in Santa Maria.