WHEN THE ENGINE STARTS

I bought a terrible rigid-framed BSA D1 Bantam for $140 in 1959. Insuring and registering anything as offensive to good order as a motorcycle in those days required that I enter the “assigned risk pool.” I took the subway there and I stood in one of the several lines. The window closed as I reached it, so I moved to another line. Eventually I had the essentials—plate and registration.

The great day came—to ride from my strange new life to my old familiar one, 200 miles up through New Hampshire and Vermont, crossing Lake Champlain at Crown Point and then into the Adirondack Park.

My little