Fat Bastards' Moving Company

When I heard that Leroy was stopping in North Carolina to collect a few things on the way to his mother’s house, I was very excited. I immediately started taking mental notes on the location of nearby porta-jons, rows of unguarded traffic cones, big-hair heavy metal rock bands, local auto races, and other sources of amusement. I wanted Leroy to have a good time while he was in town.

But when we arrived at Leroy’s storage unit, it turned out that the task at hand amounted to more than “throwing a few things in the back of the rental truck.” Leroy is the proud owner of the 1934 Old Italian Car. Well, as I should say, the remains of a 1934 Old Italian Car. The kind of car that can only be moved by jacking its ass up in the air and sliding furniture dollies under the crumbling tires.

So how do you move a car like that onto the trailer? One inch at time. How do you secure it so it doesn’t fall off? With steel come-along cables. And ropes. And nylon straps. And chains. And duct tape. Why hoist it onto a trailer in the first place? Why doesn’t Leroy just charge up its battery and drive it back to Texas? Because he also had to get 2,389 of his heavy-duty, commercial-grade paving stones loaded into the truck. There aren’t any rocks in Texas, so Leroy imports his from North Carolina.

The biggest obstacle to getting all this done was that Leroy and I aren’t as young as we used to be… we’ve each gained over five pounds since high school. And it was 94 degrees… probably more than that on the blacktop… and very humid. It was a good thing that we had brought a cooler filled with refreshing beverages, and another good thing that Leroy can still open beer bottles with his teeth.

Turns out, the job took all day and we never made it to the Fiat car show in Winston-Salem like we had planned. But it was finally time to hoist the engine and transmission (sold separately) into the back of the truck with the paving stones. In this photo we are gathering up our tools. Like Jethro Clampett, Leroy travels with his clothes packed in cardboard boxes. Note the cardboard tubes to safely transport collectable beer cans.

The 1934 Old Italian Car finally arrived back at my double-wide in Clayton. After a day in the heat, it was time for a hard-earned BBQ dinner, cold beers, and some flesh-eating zombie movies. By the time you read this the Old Italian Car will be back in Texas, ready to become Leroy’s latest restoration project. While I am relieved that my job is done, I’m afraid that Leroy’s work is just beginning.

Does Size Really Matter?

I hate to think that this posting may join the legions of the “does size matter” opinion columns. But I’m afraid I cannot make my point without addressing this eternal issue.

Let me begin by saying that, under most circumstances, size does matter. But just because your motorcycle engine is smaller than your friends’ doesn’t mean that you can’t have any fun. My first motorcycle was a used 250cc Honda Rebel. I wanted to buy a motorcycle and join the two-wheeled community, and was able to do so for only $300 because I was willing to accept that fact that I was going to own something smaller than almost everyone else.

Sure, I could have deferred the purchase and saved up more money for a bigger motorcycle. But at the time my poverty status was so acute there was no telling how long that was going to take. Looking back, I see that I made the right decision. I bought the little Honda Rebel and began having fantastic two-wheeled adventures right away. I rode through the mountains. I rode to the beaches. I toured the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I commuted to work… at a maximum speed of about 60 MPH (going downhill).

Before I knew it, my friends were running out to buy motorcycles too. Even though they all started with budget-conscious, used bikes, it seemed like they always ended up with motors over 1000cc. I had a hard time keeping up with them, which began to frustrate me after a while. So I finally sold the little 250cc bike for $500 and bought a 650cc Honda Nighthawk for $1,000. Yes, what I had was still much smaller than my friends, but at least now I could keep up with them and participate in Ironbutt endurance riding events. I rode the 650cc Honda all over North America and had many more fantastic and unforgettable adventures.

With the Honda Nighthawk totally worn out, I sold it for $1,000 and bought a used BMW sport-touring bike with a whooping 750cc motor. It was bigger than anything I had ever had before. My amazing adventures continued but, embarrassed by my small motor, I was still shy about parking next to my friends. Finally I bit the bullet and bought the new bike of my dreams right off the showroom floor. The Honda Interceptor is a world championship-winning sportbike. While it’s wicked-fast, it only displaces 800cc… so to this day my motor is still smaller than my friends who, by this time, are all riding 1300cc to 1600cc touring bikes.

With no new, larger motorcycle in the foreseeable future I must now grapple with the fact that I’m always going to have a smaller motor than everyone else I ride with. If that’s the way it’s got to be, then why not go “all out”? For those of you who don’t know, the Ironbutt Rally is the country’s premiere endurance riding event. The few who finish the rally will have journeyed over 11,000 miles in eleven days… and the top finishers will have traveled much further.

I am a proud member of the Ironbutt long-distance riding community, and I happen to know that the smallest motorcycle to ever finish the rally was a 125cc German motorcycle called a Zundapp.

Since I’m going all-out, I think I can shatter that record with my new 50cc pocketbike. As you can see from the photos, I have already begun training for this grueling event. I’m going to prove to the world that size doesn’t matter, at least when it comes to having fun on a motorcycle. I encourage all wanna-be riders to buy whatever they can afford and start riding RIGHT NOW. Jump in the game. Join the fun. Life is short.

It must be noted that the Zundapp motor had to be rebuilt several times during its stint on the 11,000 mile Ironbutt circuit, so I’m going to need one hell of a mechanical support team to complete this challenge. Any volunteers? Leroy?

Why I Love Ronald Regan

I was nine years old when Jimmy Carter was elected president, but nobody in my family voted for him. I remember his election vividly because even at that young age I was fascinated with politics and world events. I watched the news every chance I got and, believe it or not, often read the newspaper.

My friends will readily affirm that I have always been overly-sensitive and prone to drama. Even today the issues clouding my mind quickly grow out of proportion, becoming larger and more important than they really are. Yet my lack of relativity was exponentially greater when I was a timid, insecure, fearful child trying to make sense of the world for the first time. I wanted more than anything to understand how everything fit together… I wanted reassurance that I was living in a logical, interconnected paradigm and that our American society was the safest possible place for me to learn and grow.

Unfortunately, nothing that happened during the Carter administration made me feel in any way secure. I remember that you couldn’t buy gas for your car no matter how much money you had. My stepfather once parked his car at a gas station and slept in it overnight because he heard that the station would get a tanker delivery the next morning. The speed limit was lowered to 55 to conserve precious energy, which we were told would soon be all gone. President Carter directed us to switch to the metric system. The Olympic Games didn’t happen. The Cold War was red-hot; the threat of a nuclear holocaust hung like a dark cloud over everything we did. I could go on and on about all the problems of the Carter-era that troubled me greatly in the 1970s. But even as a child I realized that we had lost our way.

Most of all, I remember the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian hostage crisis. The Ayatollah had put a gun to our collective head, and we as a nation seemed paralyzed. I would watch Jimmy Carter on the news, with his gray hair and milky-white complexion… fish-belly white. Fear and anxiety were etched into his face. His carefully-chosen words were strained, weak, and comfortless. His botched hostage rescue fiasco confirmed my worst suspicions. America had become a eunuch.

In 1980, however, a Lone Ranger rode in from the Wild West. A rugged, real cowboy galloped into town -- and he promised to clean up Dodge City and set things right again. He spurred his strong white horse, twirled his six-guns, and waved his hat in the air. There was a new sheriff in town, and he was kicking ass and taking names. The hostages in Iran were released within minutes of his inauguration. The stupid metric system went out the window, right behind the ugly shag carpeting. Gasoline flowed freely again. Energy was plentiful. The economy thrived. Businesses boomed. Stocks soared. In time, even the mighty Soviet Union crumbled into oblivion, unable to keep pace with our massive military buildup.

Almost overnight, the natural order of things had been restored. At least that’s the way I’ve chosen to remember it. America quickly returned to being the biggest bully on the world stage, and we were all proud to be a part of it. We were the 10 percent of the world that consumed 90 percent of its resources, yet President Regan made no apologies. He stood tall. He refused to take shit from anyone. He spoke freely and cracked funny jokes, which made me believe that everything was going to be okay after all. I listened to his eloquent words with rapt attention, and everything he said tantalized my heart and soul. If you listen carefully to his speeches, you’ll notice that President Regan often spoke directly to the nation’s children. He instructed us and guided us. I felt valued and important and safe. President Regan became like a grandfather to me, the World’s Coolest Grandfather that I had always wanted to have.

For the first time in my life, I was fiercely proud to be an American. Through Ronald Regan’s confident rhetoric, I understood the “glue” that held America together. I understood that some things are worth fighting for, and that it’s okay to kick someone’s ass if they really have it coming to them. I understood the absurdity of an excessively large government, socialist giveaway programs, and obscene tax schedules. I understood the concept of peace through strength. I learned how to do things The Cowboy Way. Most of all, I understood that Ronald Regan had pulled us back from the brink of oblivion and restored us to our proper place in the world.

To this day I still can’t talk about President Regan’s decent into the madness of Alzheimer's disease, nor about his death, without crying profusely. The damage is irreparable. No other man will ever be able to fill those snakeskin boots, and consequently I remain inconsolable. Judging from the staggering turnout at his funeral, I’m not the only one who feels deeply indebted to Ronald Regan for what he did for our nation… and for what he did for many of us on the most personal level. Rest in Peace.