Since it is, a cool, rainy Memorial Day

with nothing better to do, I will add a couple of motorcycle stories to my 'close calls'. Within 10 minutes of buying my 650 BSA Lightning, ( A real classic), I was headed home on 6th Ave, in west Denver, when a woman pulled out of a filling staion directly in my path. She looked up, freaked out, and stopped, blocking both lanes. If I had been a better rider, I probably could have reacted better, but I wasn't, so I locked it up and slid under the rear part of her car. She stuck her heaad out of the car, saw me pinned there, and gunned it. I was dragged a few feet before I broke free and saw her speed away. Probably a good thing, looking back, as it made me VERY cautious as I drove in traffic in the future. However, my closest call, on a bike, didn't take place in traffic. Harry Long and I were returning from fishing a high country lake, early in the year, on our dirt bikes, and decided to follow the snowmelt, which had turned the trail into a stream. At first it wasn't bad, but it gradually got deeper and faster. 'Twas OK until the washout exposed a tree root that totally stopped my Honda XL500, and catapulted me into the air. I remember thinking (really), as I flew thru the air, 'I wish I was wearing a helmet". My head slammed into the mud, right between two boulders, and luckily, I walked away. As I cleaned the mud out of my nose and mouth, I realized it could have been worse.