BIKER BOY
















Max wrote in the comments on June 29th Blog - When's The Baby Due, that he bought a new bike and is hauling major butt on the back roads of Seoul.

Here's Max's first two wheeled bike. He's set to haul major butt on the back roads of the park across the street from where we lived.

I hope Max's new bike doesn't have training wheels. At his age, unless Max has been drinking, he certainly doesn't need them.

Notice the incline on the driveway. It's steep. When this picture was taken we owned several cars one of which was a VW bus. Like most vintage VW's it had a stick shift.

First order of business in any driver's training school back in the day: reverse gear is the locking gear for the transmission whether you're parked nose up or nose down a hill. People look astounded when I share that piece of information with them. Yes, it does not make sense to but a manual transmission in reverse when you're parking on a hill.

Reverse is the locking gear? That's a fact, Jack!

So, the wife being a naysayer, still preferred to park uphill with the bus in first gear. Logically, that was good thinking. But better logic dictates that when it comes to matters all mechanical a wife listen to her husband.

One day, after grocery shopping, the wife parked the bus and started bringing groceries in the house. The driver's door on the bus was left open.

Long story short, there once was a light pole in the planter where Max is sitting on his bike. Had it not been for the light pole being there to catch the open door on the bus, the VW would have gone chugging backwards down the driveway and onto the street - all the while in first gear.

To this day, reverse remains as the locking gear on a manual transmission. Believe it.

Or suffer the consequences.