Capturing the Past  In a few weeks I'm planning a motorcycle weekend. My middle bro Ray and my high-school friend Dave are planning to come up from Georgia (Lawrenceville & Rising Fawn, respectively). Dave's bringing his Honda Magna 750 in the back of his truck, while Ray will pick up his Honda Nighthawk 750 I picked up for him.

The goal is to ride for a day or two together, and then they'll pakc both bikes into the truck & diddy mau back to Georgia. All three of us are re-entry bikers, with me having the most riding experience lately, about 60,000 miles in the past five years. Dave picked his bike up about a month ago, while Ray just recently got his license.

I first rode on Dave's 1971 Honda 450 in the summer of '72. He even took me to get a haircut on it. I remember riding a hundred miles an hour on the back of the bike, wearing my McCallie blazer, while we raced to the back of Lookout Mountain to get to a barber we knew...who was closed. We then had to race to the foot of the mountain, where the St. Elmo barber was still open.

The next year, Ray bought a brand-new Honda 450. I vividly recall the first day he brought it home, stalling out as he humped and bumped it up the hill to our Franklin Street/Bragg Avenue house. I also vividly remember our mother absolutely collapsing in tears on the living room floor when she learned he'd bought a bike.

Now, 35 years later, the three of us will ride together. It's sort of a nostalgia trip for me in a way...the three of us were close those early '70s summers, and now, three decades later, we have a chance to spend some time together.