Winning Awards!

Excuse me a moment, I’ve just a couple of more connections to make. Could you hand me that screw driver, yeah, the one with the green handle. OK, the relay is secure, now I’ve got to reconnect the ground strap. Where’s that 10mm wrench? Ah, done at last.
Step back a bit, this could be loud. “BLAAM!”.
Oh that sounds good, nothing like an air horn. Watch out, I’ve got to hit this button a couple of more times.
“BLAAAM,” Think I woke the neighbors yet?
“BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Hey, sometimes you’ve got to toot your own horn, after all, who else is gonna do it for you? And I’ve got what to toot about. I earned two major awards this month.

The first is the 2000 APEX Award for Publication Excellence (thumb through this magazine and read that sentence again) and the second is a BMW Motorcycles 300,000 Mile Award. Neither award is on par with a Pulitzer prize, which arrives with a six figure check or an Oscar for which I could dig my Tux out of mothballs, buy my wife a slinky satin dress then parade for an international television audience. So instead I mounted an air horn on my bike.

One more time, “BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!!!!!!”

As with all journeys, there is a story behind them. Comparatively, the BMW Award was much longer in coming than the Apex award. Well, maybe not. I started learning printing in seventh grade at the Orangetown Junior High School. I learned how to set type by pulling each letter out of a California type case and placing it in a composing stick. I printed assorted business cards and invitations on a pilot press. By the time I got to High School, photo offset had taken hold and I was printing the school paper, along with being the photography editor. I still have samples of all that old work. during my Senior year in High School I got a job on the local newspaper. I’ve often said that if it wasn’t for wood shop and graphic arts I would have never graduated High School. I studied photography in college then returned to New York City to work in the advertising business. Eventually I opened my own studio in downtown Manhattan and worked as a fashion photographer.

There is a fabulous, little known fact about the fashion business in New York City; from Memorial Day to Labor Day no-one works on Fridays or Mondays. They all have country/weekend/vacation houses that they must go to. So not only can’t you book a model but there are no photographers, make-up artists or hair dressers either. It was the perfect field for someone who wanted to spend weekends traveling by motorcycle. At the coffee maker on Tuesday morning everyone would be talking about so-an-so’s party at the beach and I would tell tall tales of two wheeled travel. I’ve often thought that my career in the fashion business might have reached greater heights had I attended those Hampton beach parties, but truthfully I was happier being in the middle of bum*#@^ nowhere, sweating in my leathers while gassing up my motorcycle at the only filling station within a two hour ride.

The BMW Award started with my first serious motorcycle. I bought an ‘83 BMW R 80 ST. I didn’t start out to be a Beemerphile. I was shopping for a motorcycle to travel long distances and happened to like the R80 when I saw it. It’s inaugural voyage was to the first Rocket City Rally in Huntsville Alabama. Nine hundred and sixteen miles. Cockily, I figured I could do it in eighteen hours straight. I loaded my camping gear, kissed my wife good-bye and hit the road. Four hours later I crossed the Delaware Memorial bridge, my butt was so sore I pulled into the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge and got a room. (Mikes Famous Harley-Davidson is now on that very spot.)

I finally made it to Alabama around noon Sunday. I rode into an empty campground. There were a couple of members of the Alabama Beemer Club still cleaning up.

“Hey guys,” I called as I took off my helmet. “I just got in from Brooklyn, where’s the rally?”
Well, I missed the Rally, but those who where there took me on an incredible ride that encompassed all the Poker Runs and Tours that they had during the Rally, after which they argued over who would buy me dinner and who’s lawn I could camp out on. That weekend trip turned into ten days and I made friends that I’ve kept in touch with all these years.

After 140,000 miles, 10 rear tires and 14 front tires the R 80 ST became a K 75 S. I wanted a bike with more current technology and more power to carry my ever increasing collection of camping equipment. Then in 1985 I bought a K 1100RS. On September 20th of this year the K 1100 RS will be mine after 60 payments. (At 1.9% APR!!! If you want a BMW, you’ve got to check out BMW’s financing deals!)

Both the motorcycle and the magazine have launched me on more journeys that I have the ink to print. I’ve ridden across the Mojave Desert and the Alpine mountain range. I’ve been lost in the back woods of North Carolina. I rode moto-escort for a photographer as he shot pictures of Lance Armstrong crossing the finish line at the Core States Classic bicycle race in Philadelphia. And I’ve stayed awake for days finishing this publication so all of you could read about it.

So...

“I’d like to thank the Academy and the Board for these Awards, a special thanks to my wife who stood by me all these years and my parents and professors....”

Aw, screw it!

“BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!”

Possibly the End of the Line

A few years ago I was standing in a bike shop on Long Island while the owner whined. “There’s no brotherhood among bikers anymore,” he spouted, comparing the new days of yuppie piloted Harleys versus the old honor among thieves culture. Thinking about the shops that owed me money long past any chance of collecting, supposed writers that promised articles never delivered and the other daily mundane disappointments of being in this business, I agreed. Both of us were wrong, only I learned the hard way.

On Saturday night the 17th of January I was having difficulty breathing. My asthma was acting up. A couple of puffs on my inhaler didn’t help, I could feel my lungs continue to tighten. By midnight I was feeling worse. Asthma is unique disease, it tortures you in your childhood, leaves you alone in your twenties and thirties then comes back with a vengeance in your forties.

Not realizing how sick I really was we called a cab. My wife and I headed for Nyack Hospital. During the ride I was getting exponentially worse. The cab driver flew down the street. He blew through the first stop sign at twice the legal speed, took the first right on two wheels and went completely airborne at the crest of the hill. His speed was a major factor in saving my life.

A block from the hospital I couldn’t breathe at all. Terror gripped my chest. I fought for air. At the entrance to the emergency room my body surrendered. Complete respiratory failure. Then cardiac arrest.

There was no white light, no out of body experience. No floating in a canoe down the river to oblivion. Just nothing. Now I view that as proof that my time on this earth was not up.

The emergency room scene was the reality that mirrors those television doctor shows. Respirator, defibrillator a lot of staff working very fast. They restarted my heart. A respirator pumped oxygen into my lungs.

My wife called my parents and they headed for the hospital. My family practice doctor arrived. He called in a Pulmonary Specialist that drove up from New York City at three o’clock in the morning.

It took ‘till 6:30am for the team of doctors and nurses to stabilize me enough to be moved to the critical care unit. My parents went home. They had aged a lifetime in one night seeing their first born near death. The hospital promised to call if there was any change but the staff was not very optimistic. Five thousand people a year die from similar asthma attacks.

Not that I remember anything after the cab arrived at the hospital, nor do I remember any of the following ten days that I spent in a coma. I pieced the story together from what my wife told me.

Business-wise the timing was pretty poor. Not that spending ten days in a coma was ever on the list of things I wanted to do in my lifetime. The edition of CC Motorcycle Newsmagazine we were working on was our largest of the year. The plan was to distribute 10,000 copies at the Cycle World/International Motorcycle Show. It didn’t look like I was going to be in any shape to pull that off.

My wife stepped in and cracked the whip with the staff. She wrote a column to fill the page where my column usually appeared. She assembled the notes on my European Adventure story finishing the first installment. She organized all the boards and computer discs, delivered them to our printer and had 10,000 copies delivered to our booth at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. Additionally she supervised our staff for the entire show then came to the hospital every night to see me and talk to me. Many have told me since, “your wife’s a rock, she’s definitely a keeper.” I truly love my Roberta, I knew she was special from the first day we met.

At the motorcycle show word of my illness started to spread. As members of our staff wandered about each was asked about my prognosis. The Christian Motorcyclists Association held a prayer vigil at our booth. When conversations turned toward my fate all went quiet.

Meanwhile the story had reached the motorcycle community on the internet. Calls came to the critical care unit from across the country and around the world. Riders that I’ve communicated with but never met had called to check on my progress. They all sent their prayers.

At the request of my neighbors, a group of believers in ancient Indian ways sequestered themselves in a teepee on the Arizona desert. They built a ritual fire and began a “sweat”. As they chanted and prayed perspiration poured down their bodies soaking the desert floor. That day I woke from the coma.

Every day since my vision is more clear. I’ve contacted most of my friends, among them I include those of you that advertise with us. Unanimously I’ve been informed, “we prayed for you.” Everyone asked if there was anything they could do. Was there anything that I needed?

One of my nurses reminded me of the proverb, “if you can count your true friends on one hand, you are a lucky man.” I am much more lucky, I have many more true friends than digits and limbs. I now believe that so many guardian angels were called to hover over me that there must have been a shortage everywhere else.

I count those blessings with each activity of daily life. I remember moments that others may take for granted as milestones of my recovery. The day I was able to feed myself, the day I tied the laces of my sneakers. The day I was able to prepare my own breakfast. The day I was strong enough to pull my Super Sunday T-shirt over my head without help. I look forward to the day I can ride. You see, ten days in a coma can turn a marathon runners muscles to mush.

John Haymond, an Attorney whose name you probably recognize from ads on these pages said to me. “In my business I deal with a lot personal tragedies and the families that survive are those with spirituality.”

John was absolutely correct. Whether you believe in Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha or Sun, Fire, Earth and Water, it’s your spirituality that counts. Spirituality is the bond of brotherhood.

There definitely is a Brotherhood and it goes beyond bikers.

Thanks to all of you for sending your prayers and caring so much.