the "white zone" is for loading, or unloading, only...

[augidog]

if you have to load, or unload, go to the white zone...you'll love it...it's a way of life.

so...i got "apostrophe" crankin', i'm way wasted but under house-arrest (read: i'm not ridin', i'm at home and quite happy with the current state of affairs)...i'm ready to unload ("dirty love" just started LOL)...

i was born to a young couple in '57. he was an aircraft mechanic in the air-force, she was one of 7 in a tiny (but sturdy, grampa was handy) shotgun. i dunno much else about that part of the story. i have a very vague memory of riding in a turbo-prop as a tike...i still got my twa "junior pilot" certificate & wings to prove that part. that's not a real big deal, tho, because i also have my cheech & chong "big bambu" rolling paper in the same 30yo envelope. both taken together have been good for many a chuckle, tho.

anyways, dad was a gearhead, & mom encouraged it. my first lucid memory (maybe 5yo?) of dad was when mom and i visited the automotive plant and he was speed-wrenching oilpans onto small-blocks (i think i remember red, so prolly 283's) at the the top of a steel-grid stairwell on the assembly-line...the almost-finished blocks were riding a chain up and over him, he was doing his small part. i thought it was cool.

by the time i was 10, there was a wall of trophy's in the basement from alton speedway in illinois. i think he won most of 'em with our pontiac station-wagon...back then, you "run what ya brung" & wut he brung was a big block with a 4-spd hurst...2-tone babyblue/white, he did a nice job of painting a "covered-wagon" logo on the roll-down rear glass. anyone remember when ya had to roll down your own windows? we had to roll it down before we backed into our drive-in movie spot. drop the tailgate, hang that flash-gordon speaker in the best window...and watch elvis in some corny flick with (confusingly but interestingly) hot chicks...and popcorn from home in a big brown paperbag.

we had kool-aid, too...popcorn & cool-aid still rocks my world

 

[SimpleSimon]

You sound like a guy I'd enjoy knowing.

I was born in late '55, the 4th of 5 kids. My dad was a working cowboy on a ranch northeast of Bakersfield, superintendent of a 22,000 acre spread (the Vilard ranch), Mom was a housewife and the ranch cook for all 8 hands. Dad was a competent mechanic, loved working with metal (he made some very odd sculptures from scrap, from time to time), but his real fascination was explosives. He truly was an artist with them - literally; he sculpted large boulders on the ranch up in the foothills of the Sierras with plastique, det cord, and gelignite. People still happen upon them from time to time, and rarely know what the h***" to make of them.

We moved to Oregon in '59, and I grew up in the Willamette valley, riding bikes and horses all over. My first motor vehicle was an old upright scooter that Dad and I modified to put an old lawn mower motor with a friction drive wheel (1 to 1 "gearing") on when I was seven, as I was wearing leg braces that prevented me from pedaling a bike at the time. Twist grip throttle from an old Cushman trail bike, 1.5 hp B&S 4 stroke - that thing flew! Good times - I bet I put 500 miles on that scooter.

We lived 5 miles out of town, and on Saturdays I'd ride in with Dad, scooter in the bed of his pickup (old 5 window '51 Dodge), have breakfast at the cafe, then work all morning as a volunteer at the city library, helping re-shelve and catalog books. About noon, I'd fire up the scoot, and motor home.

I'd go on, but it would quickly get much too long to read. I will say I'm glad I grew up when and where I did - nobody thought it unreasonable for a 7-8 yr old kid to ride a motorized scooter all over h***'s half acre, which I surely did. Only time I ever got stopped by a cop, it was so he could look at the scooter - he wanted to build one like it for his kid.

 

[Alaskavan]

I was born in '54 in a little town named St. Helens OR (Just outside Portland). When they met, my Mom was a roller skate car hop at the Tick Tock restaurant and my dad was the baddest biker around Portland. He always swore that he married her because she had the finest legs in town. But once they were married, no one else could look at those legs. She went into Banking and became very successful. So he had to get an honest job. We went from being dirt poor, to being pretty well off. I owned my first dirt bike when I was 12.

Oh, and I used the rolling paper.

 

[SimpleSimon]

St. Helen's, eh?

My Mom was born in that little burg, and I still have cousins all over that area. Mom and I went through there in May of '06, and drove around till we found the house she was born in. The guy whose Dad that bought it from my g'parents still lives there, and gave Mom a picture of her parents, sister, and herself standing on the front porch, taken the day he bought the house. Mom was 5 years old.

I love the PNW, but I'll never live there again - cost of living there is about twice what it is here, and I'm on a fixed disability income. Likely, I'll never even visit there again, since Mom died last year.

 

[augidog]

hey...i like this...thanks for chiming in

i just moved to the PNW & am grateful i waited until i'd matured enuff to appreciate it...full-rainsuit & windshield, i ride year-round.

mid/late 60's...OMG, the cars!!! every uncle had a mopar or SS, or a fire-breathing mongrel of some sort. we kids/cousins weren't motorized, but we had tons of bicycle stuff, and we had some of the coolest wooden coaster-carts you could want. broomstick steering column with clothesline coiled around it thru 2 eyebolts to the front axle. we lived on a perfect suburban hill, and it was still safe for kids to be in the streets.

boy scouts, little league (with trips to the old busch-stadium), annual camping trips with plenty of fishin' & poison ivy, hot-wheels and aurora HO for christmas, hot-rod magazine subscriptions for birthdays. revell models...

here's to hoodscoops & racing stripes

 

[Weedylot]

Wow! You "old guys" brought back some memories. I was a rocket age kid also, 1957 vintage. Dad died when I was four, Mom married a speed gobbling jerk a few years later. He made life hellish but taught my brother and I how to wrench on our own stuff. At one time in the late sixties we had in our front yard:a Brockway tractor, 39 Chevy pickup, 40 Buick, 40 Packard, 68 Sport Fury, 62 T-Bird, 63 Comet, 2 1950 Plymouths, 61(?) Renault, 64 VW convertible, 66 Comet, 68 Caddy, a 2 H.P. Tecumseh mini-bike and my violet Sting-Ray. Summers in south Florida with mosquito fogging trucks were a blast. Kids like myself would jockey for the pure white "fog" emanating from the truck, crashing into each other and laughing at our scrapes. The driver would lean out his window and yell at us to "get the **** away from the truck!" I remember watching the Apollo Saturn 5 launches a few hundred miles away, catching and eating trophy bass from a river a short ride away, swimming in the local ponds and evenings that stretched to eternity. Thanks for bringing some of that back.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

I come from 1960, Detroit MI. Started spending weekends on a farm 2 hrs or so west when I was 10. We moved there permanently when I was 16. Never was much of a metal-head, but I did have a 1970 Yamaha 90cc dirt bike and a 1968 Honda 305 Scrambler. Which was a little bit too big for me. I still wonder how it is that I didn't hurt myself seriously. But I suppose that's what made it easy for me to be a pretty serious motorcyclist as a grownup. Early 20s I went to San Francisco and became a bicycle messenger. And there's no doubt that that's what made me love riding a bicycle. I had done it as a kid, of course. But I never thought about it as anything other than kid's transport. After I got my first car (a 68 Pontiac Firebird, 350 engine. And do I ever wish I still had it and hadn't frittered it away : ( ) I never looked back. Good thing for that messenger job; it opened my eyes. Never owned a vinyl copy of Big Bambu. But I now have it on CD. And I definitely recommend digging up a copy and listening. Some of the skits aren't really all that great. "sister mary elephant" would be an example. But some of the other stuff will make you laugh for a month.

But what really made me join in this thread was the mention of the Saturn 5 rocket. If anything takes me right back to childhood, that's it. Being in Michigan I never saw a live launch, of course. But five or six years ago I went to the Cape to watch a shuttle launch. Launch was scrubbed and movement around the space-port was very limited because of the non-launch. It was disappointing.

But a couple years ago I did stop at Huntsville AL and had a look at the Saturn 5 they have there. It was downright thrilling. I was very surprised to see that they have it standing. I had imagined it would be on it's side. That thing is very little wider than my house (quite modest) but over 300 feet tall. I still wonder how they support it. there were no guy wires. Maybe it's filled with concrete. But even that would be top-heavy.
I still puzzle over how they keep that thing standing. After all, that is hurricane territory.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

I guess there is one other thing that takes me right back to childhood; Motown records.

Especially Martha Reeves. I'm still in love with her to this very day.

 

[Large Filipino]

Born in Manila,Philippines back in 1966. Came over here when I was 5. Forgot my language for I had a year to learn English or get left back in 1st grade... which explains my views on why every American needs to learn English.
What's weird is that NO ONE anywhere in my family was mechanically inclined. I did all the fixing around the place. When my brothers got new bikes I was the one that insisted that my parents not waste their money on me. They rode their bikes maybe once or twice but never got into the groove of it all. Me? Sometimes I felt like I'm in the wrong family but I still love them,man. I built my bicycles. Some were trash. In fact the first... 6 were trash. The 7th one revolved around a real honest to goodness BMX frame found in the trash. And with the help of some friends and my paper route job I've had from 12 years old till about 16 that bike turned out pretty tough right down to the modified freewheel from coaster. If anyone of you grew up around my time (Late 70's early 80's) you would know that back then everyone had coaster brakes and freewheel hubs were expensive.
My love for MOPARS happened when my buddy's brother built up a 1970 honest to goodness 426 Hemi Challenger and after helping him get it out of the impound lot (I was 17 at the time) he let me drive it after getting it fixed up after the lot. It was all gloss black,not a single scratch,this dude waxed his car daily.
So there I was on the highway and I don't care if you don't believe me. I have nothing to prove. At 60 mph in the 90 degree sun,I shifted from 3rd to 4th and I broke traction. Maybe his rear end was geared down but it was no 411.
I've always wanted one since then. It's coming back in the fall this year that Challenger as a 2009. But I want a 70. A 1970 Hemi Challenger black. I play the Lotto. Who knows?
I also had a CT 70 that I fiddled with till I left for Diesel school in Denver where I found my wife,got married with two kids and entered the rat race.
Now that the rat race is behind me,married 21 years next month and my kids are getting grown,I've gone full circle.
I owned a Honda 750 four. 1970 was the year of that bike. 4 into 4 exhaust. That bike ruled. But I looked like a gorilla on it so I got rid of it.
But MOOP and Cronus are my new love now. Yea. How can BICYCLES for crying out loud that don't like speeds faster than 25 mph give me so much joy?
Because I'm a kid again.
Because I'm a kid again.

 

[bluegoatwoods]

gotta admit, the Challenger was cool. I've also always been extremely fond of the '67 thru '69 Barracuda Sport. I've owned a number of vehicles in my time and I've been fond of most of them. But the one that maybe I miss the most is a 1974 Plymouth Scamp. It was really a Valiant two door, but a bit upscale (318 V-8, front disc brakes, factory air). And it had some strange and annoying quirks. But it was still just the sweetest little car. I've got a tear in my eye just thinking about it.

Those Chryslers from the 60s and 70s could be kind of strange; doors that didn't fit properly, weird moisture leaks, starters that sounded like a GE jet engine. But they were still so lovable.