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Uneasy Rider Ronnie Dee (c) Copyright 2025 by Ronnie Dee 
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 Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
My grandmother would always tell me to be careful when I went out on my motorcycle and I would say, "I will," but of course, if I was worried about being careful, I wouldn't have bought a motorcycle in the first place. But I understood and I loved her for it, but she was now gone and I was on my own.
The motorcycle was a Honda. I forget which model, but I couldn't easily handle a Harley Davidson full time. A friend of mine had a Harley and he trusted me enough to let me take it for a spin a couple of times. It was great, but it was a little too heavy for me to handle, should a crisis situation arise. I felt much more secure on a somewhat smaller bike. It was still a motorcycle, not the little Honda motorbike of Beach Boys fame. Motorcycles were also made by Triumph, BSA, Yamaha and Indian, to name a few. I was partial to Honda because they were also getting into auto racing at this time and had a reputation for putting together reliable engines.
There was a friend of Bud's we would stop by and see once in a while who had a Harley that he was always working on. I never saw him ride it. It was always in pieces in his backyard. He would kibbitz me for riding something inferior to a Harley and I would return his insults while I rode circles around him and his disassembled Harley in the yard.
There is a man who lives on the street behind me who rides a Harley. He takes it out almost every evening and in the summer I can hear it idling for a while before he leaves. An unmistakable sound, both calming and exciting at the same time; pure pent up power, just waiting to be released.
I loved riding off of the main roads and taking little trips to some of the smaller towns around Louisville. A couple of other guys and I would often ride down to a park on the river during lunch hour at work. When I rode it at night, however, I had to make sure I curtailed my beer consumption. Drinking and motorcycles are not a winning combination. The easy maneuverability of the things in congested areas, jumping over railroad tracks, finding easy parking and the feeling of unparalleled freedom are a few perks cycle riders enjoy.
One fine morning in May of 1967, I was on vacation and decided to paint the steps to the mobile home my grandmother and I had bought the year before. Instead, I clumsily knocked the can of paint over onto the patio. That finished the chores for the day for me, so I jumped on my motorcycle and headed for Miles Park, the old horse racing track in western Louisville. I was tooling nicely along Cane Run Road when I approached Ralph Avenue.
This was a notorious intersection in that part of town, so I actually slowed down when I started through the intersection where everything appeared in order. I was right in the middle, when suddenly, this approaching car turned left directly in front of me. We collided head on.
I was unceremoniously tossed about ten feet in the air. At the apex and on the way down I could plainly see a woman with two children, a little boy and girl, gawking at me through the windshield with terrified expressions.
I came down rather hard, slamming with a bang on the hood of the car and rolled off into the street. At first I thought I was seriously injured. I sat in the street, unable to get up and barely able to move, when a couple of LG&E men who were working nearby ran over to help me and administered some smelling salts. That cleared my head a little and I asked them to help me up, which they did, but then I couldn't stand. I thought both of my knees were broken, so I sat down again. More people began to gather in the intersection and all I wanted to do was get out of there.
"Call the police!" Someone was shouting.
I said, "No, don't call the police. Just get her insurance card."
The LG&E guys gave me some more smelling salts and I began to feel a little better. They helped me up again and this time I stayed up. I looked at my bike, and it appeared okay, except the handlebars were more than a little bit crooked. I didn't care. I got the lady's card, got on my bike, and over the objections of some of the crowd, left, crooked handlebars and all.
All my life, I had never liked to show weakness. I have been clobbered a few times, but would never admit to being hurt. I was about eleven or twelve years old when we were playing Sundown one night. I was just a skinny little kid, and coming around the corner of a house I ran head on into a guy who played defensive tackle for Manual high school, and we hit on a dead run. It knocked me back almost out into the street. My ears were ringing and I was seeing double for a few hours, and when I was finally able to get up, I wouldn't admit to being bothered at all.
Anyway, after this wreck, I made it home to the trailer and I was still shook up because I neglected to put down the kickstand and as I got off, the cycle just fell over on me, pinning my leg. I was so mad I was crying, but I got loose and called my friend Bud to take me to the doctor.
He came right over and we went to my old family doc. I was hurting all over and could barely walk. When the doc came out, I almost fell over again. He was old to begin with and was struggling along with a crutch, plus he had a big bandage on his head. When we both gimped back to the treatment room, the nurses all got a good laugh and said, "We can't tell who is supposed to be the doctor and who is the patient." I was so glad somebody thought it was funny.
I recovered after a few days, got my bike fixed up and everything was OK again. My lawyer got me a reasonable settlement to top it off. I was really lucky to have him. He took me on as a favor for my uncle and was one of the best lawyers in town. He viewed my escapades as "an amusing sideline," and he liked me so he always gave me a great break on his fees.
On another pleasant autumn afternoon I was tooling down a rural road on the same motorcycle, minding my own business when I thought I would see how fast It would go. I eased it up past 60, then 70, then 80 mph, then I came over the crest of a small rise where I would be able to pick up some real speed and much to my chagrin, saw a stop sign where my road ended at a cross road a very short distance away.
I could not see down the crossroad in either direction because of the rise on each side. I immediately slammed on my brakes and slid, straight down, through the stop sign, across the road and into a fence on the other side. There was nothing I could have done, but hang on. I wasn't going to lay it down and lose a leg for nothing.
I sat there for a few minutes with my heart pounding, and calmed my nerves again before getting back up on the road. I was uninjured and the bike only got a few scratches. The wire fence was still intact as it had been a rather soft collision thanks to my good brakes and some underbrush.
Coming down that stretch of road unable to stop gave me a rush much like the "thrill ride" we would take as kids on our bicycles. There was an alley we would occasionally traipse down that was a hill. At the bottom was a large garage that blocked any visual of oncoming cars. The thrill was zooming down that hill and across the street, hoping no cars came along when you got to the bottom. The adrenalin rush I got coming down that road was similar to that alley.
Shortly after getting back underway I passed a car going the opposite direction and thought, "Thank God you weren't coming along a little sooner." I was lucky, but just a minute or two difference there could have been a disaster.
Riding a motorcycle is a lot of fun, but you always have to be on the alert for jerk car drivers. I doubt that it has improved any with the increased traffic. I have had people pull out right in front of me and later at a red light apologize, saying, "I'm sorry, I looked in my mirror but I just didn't see you." But mostly, they just didn't care.
I've had a guy throw apples at me from a car behind me, and cars fake a head-on collision. I've had cars pull up behind me and blow the horn and people yell, "Get a haircut!" at me. Of course, I've had people yell that at me while walking down the street. I would feel a little edgy sometimes at night, zooming down one of these rural roads, about any variety of animal who might dash out of the dark in front of me. This was before you had to wear a helmet which, though uncomfortable and hot, helped reduce a lot of head trauma.
Winter, though, is certainly not made for motorcycles. My truck broke down in January and I had to ride my bike to work for several weeks. I didn't have a winter jumpsuit, so I nearly froze to death. Motorcycles are strictly a summer conveyance, and they are not for the faint of heart any time of year, but what fun!
After riding for seven or eight years, I finally came to the conclusion that as much as I loved the wonderful world of motorcycles, I wanted to keep on living even more and I didn't trust myself as being mature enough to keep on riding. My grandmother's words of caution would hound me after each close call and I knew she was right, so I reluctantly sold my bike, but I still get that gnawing in the pit of my stomach when my neighbor fires up his Harley.