Member-only story
Family
My brother’s bike
And why it’s a good idea to chain your motorcycle
A Kawasaki 900.
It was probably a 1988 or 1989 model.
I don’t remember, but it was a beautiful bike.
Dark blue and way too much power for a teenager to handle. Heck, my Suzuki 650 that I bought four or five years later in Montgomery was way too much for me to handle — but I digress.
I was a teenager — maybe the 11th grade — and I don’t want to brag or anything, but I had a motorcycle license. In its wisdom, the state of Alabama wouldn’t allow me to drive four-wheeled vehicles at 14, but drive the far more dangerous two-wheel type?
That’s just fine.
David was my brother and he spent a lot of time working on the road at construction sites.
The Kawasaki was also his.
I had my own car at the time that I appropriated David’s Kawasaki. It was a 1973 Dodge Gold Duster. It had an imitation snakeskin roof and some type of clear plastic over the seats, which took a little while to get used to. It had a slant-six engine and while I forget the horsepower, it was just a beautiful car — especially for a punk teenager.
