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O’Larry A Motorcycle’s Intoxication      

When I was 13, I had a little mini-bike with a 5-horsepower Tecumseh engine that Dad had gotten for me one day in Salt Lake.  But this little mini-bike was broken down most of the time, so one day during summer vacation Dad took me to a motorcycle shop across from Provo High School. 

We soon found something that I liked, and the only thing that remained to close the deal was the question of how much credit we would be given for the mini-bike. 

The owner of the shop scratched his head and looked at my little mini-bike in the same way a horse-trader might look at a mule that was being passed off as a horse.     “About the most I can give you is seventy-five dollars,” he said.      

“Wow, that’d be great,” I said.  “That’s more than I thought we’d get–”      

Dad poked me and told me to be quiet, and then he began to dicker with the man and I didn’t say anything more.  When Dad and I left the shop we had managed to cut a deal on a new Bridgestone Trail 90 that I could pick up as soon as I had paid off the balance from my after-school work at the dry cleaners on 5th North.      

But this wasn’t easy to do because I only made 70 cents per hour (not exactly union rates), and as the days and the weeks passed I began to grow despondent.  It was summertime, and all I could think about was my Bridgestone Trail 90 sitting in the window of the motorcycle shop across from Provo High School.      

Then one day John, who must’ve known how badly I wanted that motorcycle, took me by the arm and pulled me out the front door of the cleaners.      

“Come on Finn,” he said.  “We’re going to the bank.”       “Why?”       “So we can get some money to get that motorcycle.”      

Together we walked down University Avenue to John’s bank, where he took out a small signature loan.  Then we went to the motorcycle shop, paid for the motorcycle, and then brought it back to the old BY High School across from the cleaners. 

Together we started it up, and I’ll never forget the sound of the motor and the smell of the gas and oil mixture that came out of the exhaust.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited as I was at that moment.  I spent the entire day riding my new Bridgestone Trail 90 around the grounds of BY High School (the police couldn’t bother me there). 

I was one happy kid.

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