Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Motorcycle Driven Verklempt
Departure date of our trip to the Land of Croats is fast approaching and last minute details and plans are being set. Realization of all sorts is also coming up. Memories of past trips there and elsewhere are bubbling up to the surface. This will be the first time that I'll actually be the driver rather than the driven. Well, at least in Europe.Our family has gone on some long trips in the past. From Delaware to Wyoming and back in 10 days. To Lake of the Woods, Ontario in 2 weeks and back. Maximizing road time so as to maximize lazing around time. Car doors welded shut to minimize stoppages. Extra fuel tank on roof to keep the 24 hour drives in perpetual cruise control mode. Gallons of coffee and coffee nips to keep down the need for sleep. Ah, those were the days. Well, at least for me, they were.
Unbeknowest to me, the ever-loving wife was having other memories. Memories dating back to her childhood travels when the country was beset with
Wild Angels and Hell's Belles. Vicious two-wheeled messengers from the underworld who came up from the earth's fiery core through a bat-filled cave directly onto major interstate highways to prey on innocent cross-country families travelling in gasoline-short station wagons.
She had gone to family drive-ins in summers long ago and took in these documentaries of motorcycle sadists. She knew what lurked behind each billboard or bush! It was the Werewolves on Wheels. Many a family trip she remembered riding shotgun while her dad drove the badlands of (insert any state here). Anxiety and fear combined with a 12 yr old imagination were her only companions. A rest stop, dark and secluded just off the edge of the interstate turned the trips into agony. What better place to be surrounded by the load roar of circling motorcycle as their riders spewed acid, venom, and phlegm on them? Certainly Death has not taken a holiday here? The load snoring of her family members offered no succor from their impending end.I'd heard her rendition of these Hell-bound trips, believing that her laughing was an indication of having fully processed these memories from the horror category to the hilarity category. I missed that one completely. Seems that our own long trips simply brought up the horror aspect. While my mind's eye saw a long two lane highway winding to a vanishing point, the ever-loving wife saw Harleys with chain-mailed poor dental care torn leather jacketed Satans coming our way. She had kept this Cormanish vision to herself. I'd occassionally peeked at her on our long drives and concluded how peaceful she looked. Little did I know the fine line between peaceful and catatonic had been crossed.
So, when the ever-loving wife found out that the Trip to the Land of Croats was to involve driving, visions of Wild Angels on Croatian versions of Harleys came streaming forth. Now, not only would we be circled by a gang of high pitch sound mopeds threatening our lives, we would be accosted in a language she had no tentative grip of. Being verbally beaten down with words without vowels is an acoustically painful thing. The only saving grace is that the price of gas is so high there that the gangs push their bikes around the surrounded cars, motors off. Our chances of quick getaways are much higher. Besides, there don't seem to be any rest stops in Croatia, at least not ones empty of campers, truckdrivers, and asleep milicija.
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