Submitted by Lydia Switzer
After taking the half-day refresher course at the motorcycle school in Springbrook, I felt a bit more relaxed and comfortable with the impending road test I was booked for late that afternoon. The refresher had included a group road trip: riding in formation; following someone else’s lead; not hearing my own motorcycle’s engine performance at intersections over the sound of others. Of course, when being road tested, I will be following instructions from someone else again—but it will be me riding alone. The tester drives behind me in a car and gives me instruction via one-way radio sans the group dynamics. I never was much of a team player.
Riding a motorcycle is like riding a bicycle but with power far beyond my own thigh muscles. More horsepower, more vulnerability. It’s like mixing dough with a kitchen aide instead of a wooden spoon: You could lose a finger in the beater of the kitchen aide, worst thing you could do with the wooden spoon is break it.
It’s like riding a horse instead of walking. The jump from leg power to horsepower takes skill. If you don’t know how to control the horsepower, you could find yourself on the ground very suddenly. I had that happen once.
It was the summer of 1963. After much encouragement from my two older sisters and me, my father had bought us a “saddle horse” for $60 in Ponoka. We didn’t own a saddle, nor had we ever received any instruction in riding. But local culture said we could ride. We relied on the good manners of the horse to teach us. Unfortunately, the same was more or less true of the horse, and he was considerably bigger and more capricious than us. He was a tall, red, three-year-old gelding with a white blaze down his long face. He threw his large clumsy front feet to the sides when he ran, making the motion less than smooth—with only mane to hold onto.
Sukiyaki we called him—after a popular song of the day. Someone had taught him to stand and tolerate a human on his back; and only after valiant determination often resulting in being lifted off your feet when he swung his head in protest, you might get a bridle on him. Then you could lead him over to something you could stand on in order to get on his back. Once you got on it, a wagon, tractor wheel, fence board, he’d neatly step just far enough away so you couldn’t quite reach him. As a seven-year-old, I’d sometimes spend a whole afternoon just trying to get to where I was on his back. And the victory of that achievement was bittersweet because then he would not move. Trying anything my limited experience and imagination could muster, I may as well have brought a book and sketchpad because we weren’t going anywhere.
But that summer day in 1963 was different. We were haying. We had limited farm equipment, so one of the neighbours was engaged to bring his tractor, baler, and stooker to put the sweet-smelling alfalfa and grass my father had mowed into manageable packages. This was definitely something that interested Sukiyaki. And my father was available long enough to help me onto the horse’s back.
We spent the whole long hot afternoon plodding around the hayfield, about a half-mile from the barnyard, stopping at his whim to taste the sweet grass the mower missed when turning a corner; sampling the flakes of the dried version missed by the baler for the same reason. I actually believed I was in control.
As chore time, but more importantly, coffee time approached, Sukiyaki and I volunteered to lead the way home and alert my mother of our impending arrival. I was feeling pretty smart as Sukiyaki obeyed all my steering commands as we threaded our way through pieces of pasture on our way home. As we got closer to the yard, he picked up his plodding pace to a gait that made it a bruising challenge to stay on board. I tried pulling back on the reins, but he had the bit in his teeth and didn’t have to pull hard to have his way. As we passed through the last open gate before the homestretch, his pace quickened some more, as did my pulse. I pulled hard on the reins to get him to turn off the path, assuming that would make him stop. It worked for a few seconds, and that is all I remember. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the couch in the living room with a cold cloth on my forehead and half my face; my head was throbbing, the heat of the afternoon pressing in on me. My blackened eye was swollen shut for a week or two, and I no longer played at mastering Sukiyaki.
I passed my motorcycle road test—even though I missed a crucial shoulder check entering a busy highway from the acceleration lane. I was apparently more concerned with getting the Honda 250 to go fast enough to keep up with traffic.
Editor’s note: Interested readers are welcome to submit short stories or essays not exceeding 1000 words and only to be published when circumstances allow.