race day and a dead dog.

Jerry and myself were out cruising one day, about 1978ish, we decided that route 234 (at the time it was just called Pequot trail) would be a better ride than the Interstate. Not wanting to lose the time of using the interstate we decided to apply highway speeds to the twists of the trail. 

Jerry's point of view: Flying down Taugwonk road, (I don't name the damn things), Klay is ahead of me and pulling away, We flew under the Interstate, banked into the corner at North Main street, and entered the esses, as I came out of the sweeper, I could just make out the tail end of Klay's bike banking right and disappearing around the corner into the esses, I gave it throttle in pursuit, Lean hard over right, snap over to the left, then back right and left before hitting the sun again out from under the trees. As I speed along there is no sign of klay, but there is a headlight coming up fast from behind, I slowed down and klay flew by me. "How the Hell did I pass him in the esses without seeing him?"

Klay's point of view: Flying down Taugwonk road, (I don't name the damn things), Jerry is behind me and falling back. I decided to add a little more throttle, leaned the bike over hard into the right hand sweeper at North Main, banked hard right again into the esses, threw it left and right again. Fifty five miles an hour through those twists, last left of the esses, throw the bike over, hard lean on the bike, found a small stone, maybe two inches in size with the front tire, the bike, leaning left skipped straight forward, only way to save it was to stand it up, Floof, no longer on the road, down through the dirt, up the hillside getting thwacked by the Mountain Laurel, (it's the State Flower you know), keep the throttle cranked, as long as forward momentum continues I am making ground, down off the hillside, back across the sand and onto the pavement, Jerry is ahead...can't have that...more throttle.

Another day, on different bikes: Jerry and I are out cruising around, we were just driving along at a leisurely pace, not because we were older and wiser, but because we were both on old school choppers, hard-tails, raked. and extended springers. Even at this excruciating slow speed we came up behind an Olden. (Olden = Older den dust) woman driving an old green blue Nova. This woman is scared, not because she is cruising along at a rate of speed a horse could keep up with, but because she had two motorcycles in her rearview mirror, We could see this, she spent more time looking in her mirror than where she was going. As we entered onto Pellegrino road, we could hear a woman calling a dog, a couple seconds later the dog burst out of the bushes in front of the woman and raced across the road, she never saw it, she never slowed. There was a dull thud and the sound of fur skidding across the pavement, the old woman continued on, Jerry stopped, I chased down the woman. I pulled her over a short ways down the road and we both headed back to the dog. Arriving back there I found Jerry sitting on his bike getting a verbal thrashing by an upset woman because he had killed her son's dog. As I parked and got off my bike her husband had arrived, and he explained to her that if Jerry had hit the dog with the chopper there would be more than a dog on the ground. The little old lady came over, she apologized, we left.

Ten years later, we are sitting at table at the Firehouse enjoying Steaks cooked on the grill, when I related this story, The Captain got up, said, "Was this like..in the early 80's?" I told him it was.
 He asked,"Pellegrino Road?"
 I said yes.
 He said, That was my Dog!!!" ... "I cried for a week".  

Needless to say, the room broke out laughing.