Hertfelder:Campground Ahead

“But don’t you get hurt riding these things?” is something we
continually hear from friends who don’t ride.

Let’s first agree that getting hurt means bleeding enough to
make you thirsty, sprains that last betond a calander page flip,
or bruises so bad you sleep in pajama to avoid explaining (a)
how you did it, and (b) why you were stupid enough to do it.
Each of the above happened to me in the last two months, and
NONE of them happened while I was actually riding my
motorcycle.

At an event in West Virginia, a state I hold as far as possible
from my heart, I was sitting in a porta-john reading a copy of
the AutoTrader that was missing a few pages. I was holding
the screen door type latch in the crook of my index finger to
maintain some propriety and reduce the cold drafts. “DogLips”
Spindlers kid brother came along and yanked the door open so
fast he created a vacuum – the odor coming up from the hole
was enough to to gag an maggot, so I graciously offered Kid
Spindler a seat.

Before I’d taken two steps, my index finger suddenly sent a
throbbing messegs to my body that curled my toes, pulled my
lips back in a grimace and made me inhale past clenched teeth.
Kid Spindler’s 10G pull on the door had autopsied my index
finger. I wouldn’t be embarrassed about dirt under my fingernail
for some time. I’d just stepped on it and it was stuck to the
bottom of my Wal-Mart Boondockers!

Pain is hard to describe but the finger felt like it was inside the
spark plug hole of an engine running uphill on bad gas.By far,
the best treatment for something like this is a good-looking
nurse who lives alone and has just broken up with her
boyfriend. Just to show how bad my luck runs, I had the finger
wrapped with a Wendy’s napkin and some duct tape by a
Heavyweight “C” rider wearing a WW2 commando sweater that
hadn’t been washed since it fell into a vat of garlic marmalade
on the Anzio beach head.

It’s a wonder that the finger tore open at all because dirt riding
makes the skin on your hands harder to tear open than a
McDonalds ketchup packet. Ever notice that early in the season
you’ll leave a hot spark plug in the socket wrench while you
“read” the thing, but later in the season you’ll hold it in your bare
hand?

On the sprains and bruises category I’m typing this with my
right hand because the left wrist is swollen to the last hole in
the wristwatch band. It’s just fine unless I try to do something
stupid like move it or worse yet, let the cat step on it.

This injury happened at 4 a.m. on the day of the Delaware
National Enduro where I’m usually a semi-official official. That is
to say, I’m obligated to get up early to help them get the thing
under way; but they don’t invite me to the club banquet. So at
4a.m. the alarm went off so I hustled over to Frank Soltner’s
super trailer to shave with hot water in the kitchen sink.

The early hour was to avoid the kibitzers who think a man
shaving with his entire head covered in shaving cream is a must-
see event and feel obligated to alert everyone within a uarter-
mile radius.. usually I don’t mind…unless they bring a camera or
young children!

As I took my second step towards Frank’s super trailer,
disaster struck. Someone had pitched a tent during the night
and one of the guide ropes was tied to a stake that was
UNDER my van! So down I went on a hard, I mean like
concrete, dirt road.

For a few seconds I admired the rabbit’s eye view of the
spoked wheels of motorcycles silhoutted against softly glowing
campfires. Then my left wrist developed a pain that can only be
caused by falling on a handful of Barbasol Mentholated Beard
Buster in an 11 ounce can.

A few days later when the wrist was still swollen nicely and
developing a color I’d only seen before in a new mexico sunset,
my very good friend Ginny Howard stopped by. “I thought
something happened to you in Delaware,” she said when she
saw my wrist. “You fell on that Honda thumper didn’t you? DIDN’
T you?

She gave me the feeling that there should have been a bare
lightbulb over my head and someone standing behind me
slapping a rubber hose into the palm of his hand.

“No Ginny, I didn’t fall on my motorcycle. I fell on a pile of
shaving cream!”

“And it did THAT?”

“Well, sure. It was still in the can.”