They Still Make Vespas. I want One

God it's a beautiful day today. The weather is not cold, not hot. The clouds are fabulous. About a 3000 ft. broken ceiling. The blue sky in the breaks is burning bright. Perfect flying weather. I had to run an errand in town. What town? We live in a five mile triangle of 3 very little towns. It's about 20 miles to a good size town that has movies, restaurants, etc. And an hour's drive will get us to a city like Salisbury, or Dover. An hour and 15 and it's Annapolis. 1:45 and we can be in D.C. or BMore. My errand was in Hurlock. Five miles away. It's so damn pretty outside. So I'll see if my old bike will start. Remember the motorbike craze of the mid sixties? I was in high school. The bike I wanted was a Honda 160. It was a little twin cylinder, kick start, came in red or black. I can't think of anything I ever wanted more than that, as far as a material object. I never got that bike. When I got to college I had a Honda 90. It went about 40 mph tops. I loved that bike. My friend Jerry had a Sears Gilera 125 which was a very nice motorbike. We would ride together on those bikes all day long. That's about all I did in the summer of '67. We had no money, no girlfriends, no cars, no real jobs, lived with parents. All the back winding roads we explored and raced on in eastern PG County, Md. are now completely gone and replaced by subdivisions and highways and malls and parking structures. My youth disappeared along with those old winding roads. Oh, am I not talking about aviation? I used to take that Honda 90 out on the runway at Freeway Airport and run full throttle laying down on the bike with my feet on the back passenger pegs and my helmit in the handlebars. I could get about 58 mph on a good day. My friend Chet had a brand new Triumph 650 which I coveted. He would let me ride it. When I took it down the runway slowly because I was afraid of hurting his bike, it was way over 60 in second gear. This was way before people learned to ride on Harleys. Everybody had Jap bikes. The guy that had Freeway Airport(and he still does), he had a bike called a Suzuki X-6 Hustler. It would go zero to 60 mph in 6 seconds. This was in 1967. Decades before the "doner cycles". Another buddy would let me ride his dad's Harley. This was before Harleys were all pretty and popular. It had a foot clutch and a hand shifter. You had to take your hand off the handlebars to shift! It was called a Duo Glide. You had to kick start it. But it had this big long flat pedal starter that was geared or something because it was real easy to push and real smooth. But it took a lot of tries to get it fired up. That was cool and I was thrilled . But for some reason I just never got Harley fever. And when I'm at a wings and wheels and I see a hundred Vee Twin HD's all lined up, they just all look the same to me. But then I'll see a Honda 50 step thru in perfect original condition and I'll freak out. Anyway, back to today. I want to see if my bike will start on this Labor Day Friday. My bike is a classic Suzuki 425. 6 speed. It's rusting and pretty dirty. I can't remember which way the choke lever has to move for choke. I suspect it's out of gas. It is notorious for using oil. I dropped it last year on the airstrip going only about 5 mph and still bent it up and I got hurt too. I didn't check anything, like the tires, or the oil, or the lights. I just climbed on and hit the starter. The starter ran but no hits. Try again, starter slowing down a bit and it starts backfiring. Wish I knew which position to put the choke lever in---guess I could stop and put on my glasses and actually look at the choke, but she starts running a while and stalls. I get my helmet out of the man cave. It has what's left of a bird's nest in it and the foam padding is dried out and falling out in chunks and dust. In todays world, a new hemet is $300 to $800. I only paid $400 for the motorcycle 15 years ago. Our rule of thumb for a used bike was $1 per cc. So Harleys were $1200. I guess you could get out of the "Harley Store" today for $1200 if you only got a few items of clothing. So, I gotta live with my old helmet. I cleaned the plastic face shield and from that same roll of paper towels, I stuck a couple towels in the helmet to keep that disintegrating foam out of my hair. I always ride with boots, jeans, heavy shirt, leather jacket, leather gloves. For some reason today I just want to go with what I've got on. A white T shirt, (by the way, I always wear a white t- shirt-- if you see me at a fly-in I'll be in a white V-neck t-shirt), no socks, slip on tennis shoes(my wife says slip-on tennis shoes are for old men--well?), no gloves. I get the thing running again and blast off. I ride to "town". The choke must be in the correct position. The fuel petcock is in the reserve position though. Not a good sign. I run my errands. While in stores and things I leave the key in the ignition and the helmet on the seat. What would a young thief want with my old toy? Errands done, I go to NAPA. The glass sight gage is kind of blank looking on the crankcase. It doesn't have a dipstick. I fear that I am the dipstick because the bike has no oil in it! I buy a quart of oil and put it in the bike. No register on the sight guage. I go back into NAPA and get another quart. Now I chat with the two really nice women who run the store. I put the second quart in. A slight register at the bottom of the guage. Back into NAPA for one more. That does the trick. Then to the Citgo. High test. she takes 3 gallons. I dont know if we were empty or not. I select "on" instead of reserve on my tank and away we go. It was amazing how much better the bike ran with gas and oil. On the way home I saw some trees that were starting to turn a little early. I could smell dry leaves on the ground. It smelled great. I ran through the spray of an irrigation rig which was along the side of the road. It felt great and just barely got me wet. Smelled something musty. Then smelled something burning far away. Smelled a cut field they were harvesting. Then I smelled something that was the reason why I got the bike out. I smelled Autumn.