Dateline: Granada Hills, California. November 1976. Just around midnight.
Location: The garage.

Here I was, working on the bike, as usual at the last minute. In about five hours, I was due to meet two friends and go racing. The bike was a 450 Maico, and it was perched up on a Mark Charles work stand, a device that was popular during that time. A description of the stand is in order: It stood about knee high off the floor and had a large metal loop with little pins on it to hold the handlebars in place. This let the front wheel dangle in air. If you wanted to get the rear wheel in the air, too, then you had to put a tubular device under the engine, or the swingarm.

The stand was fairly stable as long as the rear wheel was down. When the entire bike was propped up into the air, a certain delicacy was required while working. Because the mass was now so high in the air, an awkward bump could and would knock it over.

The scene is set. Now, let's take you back to that fateful night in the fall of '76.

The radio was locked (literally; a dab of epoxy on the dial kept the kid from tuning in some freaky music stations) on a good country music station. Willie Nelson was droning on about bad whiskey and good women. Or was it bad women and good whisky?

Either way, it appeared that the marathon work session was about to wind down. Let's see, I had put new tires on front and rear, cleaned and prepped the air filter, tightened all the nuts and bolts, checked the timing, cleaned the crud out of the Bing carb float bowl and removed the cracked front fender.

All I had to do was install a new fender and weld up a few small hairline cracks in the expansion chamber. I took a new fender from the shelf and removed the waxy brown wrapping paper.

Rats! It was one of those un-drilled fenders. I got out the trusty old Craftsman drill, chucked in the right-sized bit and sat down on a milk crate with the fender perched on my lap. I carefully applied the drill bit to the mark and eased the trigger on. Little bits of yellow plastic curled up. One hole down — three to go. On the third hole, the bit really chewed through the plastic, then it chewed through my sweat pants and into the meaty part of my thigh. Maybe it was because I was so tired that I never even noticed the pain, and was even ready to start drilling the fourth hole before it all registered.

The pain was not as bad as I expected, but the sight of a neat 10mm hole in my thigh was more than a bit unnerving. I found a clean shop rag, cut off a small piece and duct-taped it in place over the wound. You can't be too careful about these things.

Five minutes later, the fender was bolted in place and the patch of blood on my sweat pants had stopped spreading. No doubt the healing process was already taking place.

I got out the welding outfit and put on the smallest tip I could find. You see, the exhaust on the Maico was very thin, and a big flame would simply blow holes in the metal. Also, it was very important to get the flame just so—not too big and not too small.

I put my cigar on the workbench, sat down on a milk crate and slipped a set of tinted goggles over my glasses for eye protection. It took a few minutes to get the combination of oxygen and acetylene just right, but eventually the perfect bright-blue tip was achieved.

I hunched forward and applied the tip of the flame to the cracked metal. Just at the moment it started to make the transition from cherry red to yellow, the phone rang!

Now who in the universe could be calling me after midnight on a Saturday?

I looked at the perfect flame and sighed. Should I put it out and go through the hassle of trying to regain the magic flame? Aha! A compromise beamed through the murky recesses of my brain. I carefully tucked the still-burning torch in the loop of the footpeg, making sure it wouldn't slip. The phone kept ringing.

Thinking it might be important, I sprinted for the phone. Or rather, tried to sprint. My toe caught a coil of the welding hoses and I was flat on the floor before I knew what happened. Then I heard a creaking sound and looked up to see the bike and stand toppling over because the welding hose was stretched taut.

I put one hand up in a feeble attempt to stop the impending disaster. This move did nothing to slow down the tumbling mass, and a moment later I was under the big Maico and the work stand. The pain was very real, as many sharp edges had hit my tired body, but a hissing sound caught my attention in a hurry. The end of the torch had snapped off and oxygen and acetylene were filling up the garage at an alarming rate. Also, the gas tank had split on the side and a nice puddle of pre-mix was spreading on the garage floor.

I looked over at the cigar, sitting on the edge of the work bench, with its tip glowing red. The phone was still ringing. So here I was, pinned, lying in a pool of gas, with flammable gases surging into the garage, with the lit cigar in the middle of all this. What did I do?

What else? I answered the phone.

"Hello."

"?Hola? ?Esta Fernando aqui, por favor?"

"No. Fernando is not here."

"Oh. Perdona me, senor."

"No, it's no problem. I'm just lying here in a pool of gas, ready to be ignited into a giant ball of flame. Is there anything else on your mind?"

"Nothing? Well, then, I'll just say goodnight, senor. Adios." I painfully extracted myself from underneath the mess and hobbled to my feet. My thigh was bleeding again. I picked up the cigar, figuring I should probably get rid of it, but then figured, what the heck, and took a big puff or three.

Then I dialed my two friends and told them I wouldn't be joining them for riding in the very near morning, and I refused to go into details.

I then shut off the welder, left the bike on its side, clicked off the lights and went to bed, hoping the drill hole in my thigh would quit throbbing enough for me to go to sleep.

Fat chance.