My Grandfather always used to say that I was so madly keen on motorbikes because my mother rode pillion on the Harley behind my Dad right up until a month before I was born.  He used to explain that he reckoned the sound of the uneven beat of the Harley’s engine was somehow infused into my little brain while I was still in my Mum’s womb.

A second opinion on why I love motorbikes was put forward after I was diagnosed with Autism and Asperger Syndrome: I had a “Special Interest” (or something more like a total obsession ) in the topic of motorbikes that was a significant indication of Asperger Syndrome.  The term “Asperger Syndrome” has more recently been replaced in medical literature by the term “Autism Spectrum Disorder” often shortened to “ASD”.

In the story, “Jack” refers to my late father, John Daniel Smith, who was usually known as “Jack”, “Wenche” (a Norwegian name pronounced like “Van’-ka”) refers to my mother, Wenche Smith, now in her 93rd year and resident in Geelong, and “Ottar” refers to my late uncle, Ottar Abrahmsen, my mother’s younger brother.

The article which follows is entirely fictional.  It is my imagination picturing how my last motorbike ride before I was born might have happened:

“Potato, potato, potato!”

Can a story begin with those three words? Has copyright already been breached? The Harley-Davidson Motorcycle company attempted to trademark the “potato-potato” sound of its V-twin engine in February 1994, but after six years of litigation, withdrew their application.  A multitude of motorcycle magazines has used these words to describe the sound throughout the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first.  So it seems it might now be safe to start a story with these words.  But just to be safe, the word will be repeated three times, rather than twice.  Three times sounds better, anyway!

“Potato, potato, potato!”

The elderly Harley wheezed into life after Jack’s first kick.

Preparation had taken a while: grease the rockers with the flat cheese-head style grease gun; grease the fork linkages, grease the saddle pedestal, grease the steering head; check and top up the oil; check the chain tension and wipe off excess oil; give the whole machine a wipe over with a rag; open the fuel tap, tilt the choke valve in the carby, gently turn the motor to suck in some fuel mixture, turn on the ignition switch and then it was one steady kick on the bicycle pedal kick starter.

“Potato, potato, potato!”

Jack looked down at the idling engine with a feeling of satisfaction as each pushrod did its job and lifted one end of its rocker so the other end could depress the inlet valve. “Come on, Wenche, we’re ready to go!” he called to his bride of eighteen months, now heavy with the weight of their first child, expected within the next month or so.

“Potato, potato, potato!”

Tiny puffs of dust erupted from the red scoria* of the Bloomsbury Street back yard a metre or so rearwards from the fishtail exhaust and drifted away while settling back into the scoria.  Wenche’s younger brother Ottar stepped off the low, wooden back verandah and opened the unpainted paling gate, set at an angle of 45 degrees, which gave access to the short common driveway between this house and number 7, next door.

In moments, Wenche was out in the yard and carefully arranging her skirt as she mounted the pillion pad fitted to the parcel rack of the Harley. As she did so, the baby within her womb seemed to leap for joy at the sound of the bike.  The baby had been moving inside her womb for months now, but always seemed especially excited whenever she mounted a motorbike.  There were two bikes she rode: the Calthorpe belonged to Ottar and the Harley belonged to Jack. While the Harley clearly said, “Potato, potato, potato!” the best the slow-revving single cylinder engine of the Calthorpe could manage was an almost colloquial, “Spud, spud, spud!” Tonight was a night for potatoes rather than spuds! Clamping her arms around her husband she exclaimed, “Let’s go, Johnny!”

Balancing the bike and its precious cargo on his right foot, with his left heel Jack depressed the clutch pedal and smiled at the satisfying “clunk” from the gearbox as he pushed the gear lever forward in its gate to the first gear position. A slight twist of the right handgrip as his left toe gently  pressed forward the clutch lever saw the machine begin to move towards the gate.

“Potato, potato, potato!”

Ottar closed the gate behind them as the Harley gathered speed down the drive and leaned right to turn into the street in the Chilwell dusk.  This was to be his big sister’s last time going out together with her husband on the Harley to see the movies; the bike was to be sold this weekend to provide cash for baby necessities.

“Potato, potato, potato!”

The lamplighter from the gas company paused and watched longingly as the bike turned left into Fyans Street and then right into Pakington Street.   Wenche smiled with delight as the little baby within seemed to be dancing in delight to the tune of the exhaust.

“Potato, potato, potato!”

Jack waits patiently as the Newtown tram screeches its way around the sharp curve across his path.  It suddenly halts in darkness as the trolley-pole comes off the overhead wire and bounces about on its springs unleashing spectacular showers of sparks.  The conductor alights and expertly reunites the trolley-pole with the wire, boards the tram and with two clangs on the bell lets the driver know he’s back aboard.  The baby in Wenche’s womb gets all excited as he hears the tram: another sound which means adventure!  As the tram grinds its way up Aphrasia Street, Jack releases the clutch and the Harley continues towards its right turn into Aberdeen Street where Jack must take special care while crossing the junction of the three tramlines.

Wenche has no way of knowing the baby she carried would turn out to be autistic.  In fact no ordinary people even knew the word.  And on that evening in August 1946, nobody in Australia had ever heard of Hans Asperger and the syndrome which would later bear his name.  Jack would never know during his short lifetime.  The baby himself would not know for more than fifty years when a diagnosis in far away Hong Kong would help him understand a peculiarly interesting half-century of life.

“Potato, potato, potato!”

The bike slows on the approach to the neon-bar traffic signals at Geringhap Street.  Only one green bar remaining and it must turn to red before the bike can reach the intersection. The unborn one is still excited. Wenche has no way of knowing that this exposure to the “potato, potato, potato” sound will result in a lifetime love of motorbikes for this little one yet to be born. The set of green bars on the traffic signal flash on and the Harley continues along Ryrie Street. Right turn at the next traffic signal into Moorabool Street and pull up just near the cinema.

“Potato, potato, pot . . .!”

The ignition is switched off, the bike is parked safely, and the happy young couple enter the picture theatre.  The baby within settles down for a nap after his exciting ride.

 

*scoria is a word, in common use when I was a kid, to describe a gravel made from very light-weight volcanic rock. The rock had been formed on the surface of lava flowing from a volcano, where the lava became filled with thousands of tiny bubbles which remained in place when the lava solidified. Scoria was commonly used for driveways, and many streets and country roads in Western Victoria were covered with scoria before the days of sealing roads with bitumen.