National Motorcycle Day Rolls Around Again

When I first posted about National Motorcycle Day, I had plans to write every year about my motorcycles and my adventures with them.  But I somehow skipped all the years between now and 2019, that first post.  I'm not sure how that happened, although I suspect COVID had something to do with it.

But here we are again!  The day is still a pretty blatant marketing push by the insurance company that created the event.  This year they emphasized supporting charities, but they included the suggestion that you could post on social media about your motorcycle story, and blogging is one of the social media, so I guess I'm okay.

This year I decided to write about one of my adventures while riding a motorcycle.  Riding inherently always carries some danger, simply because you are exposed on all sides, but sometimes there are twists.

Many years ago when these marketing techniques weren't quite as common, I received an invitation in the mail to visit California City (I think) as a come-on to purchase land while they were continuing to develop the area.  (Quite an interesting history on the Wikipedia page.)  I decided to go, listen to the sales pitch, and collect the freebie they were giving away.  I am pretty sure I was still riding my Honda CB750K at the time.

This was set up so that you drove out the night before, stayed in their hotel, and listened to the marketing spiel the next morning.  I made my reservation well ahead of time and headed out the evening before, looking forward to spending the night in the nice hotel and taking advantage of the amenities.

I don't remember if I didn't plan adequately for how long it would take me to get there (which I'm usually pretty good at), but I ended up driving through the desert in full darkness.  The area was not developed yet, and much of the trip was on unpaved roads, which are never fun on a motorcycle and even less so on one like that Honda, which was very top-heavy.  There were a few times that I had slight skids and thought I was going to drop the bike, but somehow I prevailed.

After taking far too long and worrying myself far too much, I finally made it to the hotel — only to be told at the desk that, even though I had made a reservation, sorry, they were full.  I was given the option of driving back part of the way and getting a room at their overflow property (don't remember how far back, but it was too far), then returning in the morning for the presentation.

Over those dark "roads" again?  Gee, thanks.  I didn't think that sounded like a good idea.  So I decided to sit in their lobby all night and wait for the morning presentation that way.  I think I had my helmet next to me the whole time.  I got a lot of dirty looks, but I stayed put.

The next morning I was pretty tired, as could be expected.  My solution?  As soon as they started serving it, I drank about 20 cups of coffee in quick succession.  I hate coffee, by the way.  I was drowning each cup in sugar and milk.  I still managed to give myself a stomachache, probably just because I wasn't used to drinking that much caffeine.  Eventually they started serving breakfast, at which time eating something helped settle my stomach a little.

When they finally did the sales presentation, I somehow managed to resist giving them any money.  As I recall, the giveaway was a fur jacket, which I tucked in my trunk.  I then carefully headed back out over the lovely unpaved roads and returned home to Los Angeles, swearing I would never do anything that crazy again.

Was There Really a Ghost?

I grew up believing in things such as ghosts because my mother did.  Ghosts, poltergeists, vampires, hauntings, déjà vu, superstitions, my mother believed in all of it and taught me to also.  But I was always more than a little disappointed because I had not observed nor experienced any of it myself.

Until I did.

I was living in Los Angeles, just on the edge of East L.A., at 459 East Adams Boulevard.  It was a beautiful three-story Victorian house.  The house was owned by my friend's uncle and his partner.  After buying it they needed renters to help pay the mortgage, so five of us moved in:  my friend and three more prior-enlisted Navy, all now attending USC as Navy ROTC midshipmen, and me.  I lived on the uppermost story and had a huge walk-in closet which I loved.

I never heard what made my landlords curious enough to do this, but one day they hired a medium to come and check out the house because they were wondering if it were haunted.  And the medium told them it was.  A young boy who had died in a train accident was haunting it.  He didn't die there — no railroad tracks right next door or anything like that — but he had spent many happy times there visiting his grandfather.  So that's where his spirit was drawn when he died.

After hearing about the results of the seance, my housemates decided we would try to contact the ghost.  We set ourselves up in a room on the second floor with a Ouija board and a candle, and they started asking questions.  Nothing had happened, and they were getting frustrated.  Then someone asked, "If there is a spirit here, show us a sign", or something pretty close to that.  Suddenly the candle went out.  Which normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, but all the windows were closed, and there wasn't any breeze going through the room.  So we took that to be a sign, but it made some people nervous, and we wrapped up pretty quickly after that.

Okay, one little candle goes out.  Not much of an experience, right?

Ah, but there's more.

Some time after that, Bill and I were on the ground floor on a Saturday.  No one else was home.  I was reading a book.  I don't remember what Bill was doing, but he was in another room.  And suddenly I heard footsteps running downstairs from the second floor.

I looked toward the stairs, but I didn't see anyone.  I was starting to wonder where whoever it was could have gone, when I remembered — Bill and I were the only ones in the house, and he was already on the first floor.

It had to have been the ghost!

I ran over to find Bill and asked him if he had heard the footsteps also.  He hadn't, of course, but I knew what I had heard.

My only experience with a ghost.

Today, May 3, is National Paranormal Day, so it's a good day to record that experience.

Nobody seems to know how National Paranormal Day started or who created it, but it's listed by several of the sites that track events.  National Day Calendar and National Day Archives don't say anything about when it started.  Days of the Year, National Today, and There Is a Day for That agree that the observance began in 2013.  But according to Holiday Calendar, it began in 2011.

Image by Aberrant Realities.  Downloaded from Pixabay and used under the Pixabay Content License.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Father and Grandfather

A few years ago I was lamenting the fact that I didn't have any photos of my father and his father together.  Recently, however, as I was doing more unpacking after my move, I discovered two old photo albums with the "magnetic" sticky paper.  I decided I really should take all those photos out as soon as possible, and in doing that, lo and behold!, I found what may be the only photograph of my father and grandfather together.  So here it is, in honor of Father's Day.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday