The Motorcycle Charge of the Light Brigade

Kano shows why he deserves to be awarded the "Motorcyclist Iron Cross" medal for exceptional courage under friendly fire and a "Moto Oscar" award for "Neighborhood Entertainer of the Year":


11:05pm.- I reached for my fully armored "Tour Master Transition" riding jacket. It was time to go to work.

A good choice as it turns out, and judging by past experience it wasn't going to be a routine night time motorcycle commute. It was the 4th of July.

And it was no ordinary trailer park I had to maneuver through to get out to the main road either.

(My wife and her Real Estate Agent don't call it a "trailer park" by the way. They say it's a "Multi-Use Manufactured Home Subdivision"-or something like that.)

On that night anyway, it was a war zone.

I might have been safer riding through Baghdad's Sadr City than running the gauntlet of hooligan kids and drunken revelers who lined the streets.

And they were armed to the teeth with all kinds of deadly incendiaries and explosive devices.

I had the whole park to negotiate and it's tough to get a good head of steam with its maze like lefts and rights and all those potholes, stop signs and speed bumps.

Determined not to retreat and against all odds I charged ahead.

The neighbors launched their attack with military like precision. Road side bottle rockets strategically placed along my route were exploding all around; cherry bombs blinded my vision and filled my lungs with sulfurous fumes.

Those little shits had the whole thing planned!

The neighbors were getting ready to unleash the final assault when I noticed a small clearing in the smoke screen ahead.

And the last speed bump had been hurdled.

That's when I grabbed a handful of throttle and rocketed the Sportster past a group of gangsters throwing strings of firecrackers at me.

(At that point I was thinking about how fortunate I was to have my detachable windshield on and that I was wearing an armored jacket with real decent flame retardant qualities built right in.)

Rounding the final corner before the exit I noticed one last obstacle remained between me and freedom.

A guy was standing there holding a lighter in one hand and a beer can in the other. He was attempting to light the last of about 9 or 10 roman candles burning brightly in a line down the middle of the street.

I plowed right through, crushing them under my wheels and scattering them in all directions as I went, -sparks a' flying. In terror he dropped his "Pabst Blue Ribbon" as he dodged out of the path of my front wheel bearing down on him.

(I knew he was drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon because I had hoisted a few with that same guy earlier in the day. He waited until I got distracted by my kids using a soccer ball to bowl down my corn plants. Then he raided my back-yard cooler and disappeared with two six packs of beer and a quart of "Tennessee Walker". That was my Pabst Blue Ribbon laying there spilling its award winning contents onto the hot concrete! -The beer thieving idiot is some kind of foreigner -from California I think.)

I made it out of that hellish park and out onto the open road.

Free and clear of the smoking and fiery trail of destruction left behind, I pulled over to the side of the road to gather my thoughts. I thought about the good time those fools were having and realized that I apparently was the "main event" for the evenings festivities.

I took a quick glance at my watch, I still had enough time to get to work and the neighbors no doubt had some fireworks left, who was I to spoil any one's fun on this -America's birthday?

So I turned the Sportster around and put the spurs to her for another pass. After all, that would be the neighborly thing to do and I wanted to give them a 4th of July to remember...

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