Monday, May 31, 2010

The Nifty Fifty--A Memorial Day Weekend Memory from 1965


A lot of people will be blogging today about Memorial Day memories that honor the millions who have served our country in the past. I'll get to that, too, but first I want to recall a Memorial Day weekend sojourn I made back in 1965. I remembered this particular 45 year old afternoon, because of all the motorcycles we saw on the way to and in Lake Placid this past Friday and Saturday. There were so many beautiful bikes on the road, some tricycle-style, some pulling trailers, roaring along the beautiful Adirondack roads. Certainly, Memorial Day must be a favorite holiday for bikers.

When I was a senior in high school in 1965, the Honda was the bike to own. My friend Russ owned a "Nifty Fifty" like the one in the photo above. He let me ride it in the parking lot of Eastway Plaza, when we were both working at the Sibley's garden shop. I wanted one bad!! Even better would have been a Honda "Super 90," the motorcycle of choice for the 17 or-so- year-old guy attending RLTHS. I still remember seeing Steve Kaulback whipping down Empire Boulevard toward the bay on his Honda 90, helmet-less, his jacket forming wings behind him as he rode. Impossibly cool! We thought a 90cc was a big bike! I knew a guy who owned a Honda 160, and we wondered how he kept that powerful hog on the road, and there was a kid in the village who owned a 250, and we were quite sure he'd be heading west to join the Hell's Angels before graduation.

Anyway, to the memory. Don and Helen and I drove down to Palmyra Motors on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend in 1965. We wanted to check out the Honda motorbikes and motorcycles they sold there, and they were holding a drawing for a "Nifty Fifty." Also of importance, the Invictas were playing in the parking lot. The Invictas were, depending on who you talked to, either the first or second coolest band in the Rochester area. It was between them and Wilmer Alexander, Jr. and the Dukes. The Invictas had a local hit called "The Hump," which I may have mentioned in an earlier blog. These were the incredible lyrics as I remember them: "Do the hump, pretty baby come on! Oh, come, on! Oh come, on. You know that I'll always love you so. You know that I'll never let you go. Come on, pretty baby, I'll show you how to hump. . ." And over and over. "Hump" had the same slang meaning then that it does now, so, of course, in 1965, this giant hit could not be played on the radio. Instead, WBBF and other stations played the Invictas B side, "The Hook," the very same song with the humping replaced by hooking.

But that day, the Invictas were doing "The Hump" in all their glory, complete with light blue, British-cut suits, knee-high boots, and Fab Four bowlcuts on the Palmyra macadam, probably only a few hundred yards from the place where Mormonism was born. They were, of course, astounding. I was waiting, though, for the drawing for the "Nifty Fifty." I wanted to win with all my heart, because winning was the only way I would ever get any kind of motorcycle, even one with 50 cc. My parents had made it clear their would be no motorcycle in the Ellstrom garage. So I waited for the drawing, then I deflated, because, of course, I did not win. And not winning is the last thing I recall concerning that well-remembered Saturday afternoon, although, I'm sure we continued to have a good time. Writing about that day just now has been a good time, too.

At the end of my freshman year of college, I took another shot at motorcycle ownership. I came home from college and announced that I was going to save money for a bike. The same evening my mom and dad decided to help me buy a car, and that car turned out to be my much beloved 1963, Adobe Beige Corvair Monza convertible. Sometimes, things just work out!

Of the true meaning of Memorial Day, let me say that 1965 was near the beginning of the Vietnam war, whose veterans deserve to be highly honored as do the veterans of all the conflicts that the U.S.A. has found itself involved in since it became a nation. Let me offer a special Memorial Day tribute to my brother-in-law Paul Baker, who died in the spring of 1969 in a Vietnam jungle. I'm so sorry, Paul. I wish I could have gotten to meet you and know you. I hear you were one really great guy! I'll bet you would have liked a motorcycle, too.

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