Thinking of My Buddy Steve Today ......
Beautiful day here today. Had some rough weather come through Sunday, but you'd hardly know it today.

Got the Grapes and Berries planted and laid out the planting sites for the new trees.
Ordered some top soil that should be here in a day or two. I really need that soil for planting the new trees. I plan on raising them up some when I plant because the drainage sucks so bad on this soil.

Anyway, I got to thinking of my Bestest Buddy ever, Steve who past away 2 years ago.
We'd have been out riding motorcycles on a nice Spring day like this.

So I'm gonna repost a story I wrote several years ago about him.

Originally posted December 2006. There's another good, Steve Story at the link.

No Really, I Don't Want to Buy a Damn Flower ..........



No, This post has absolutely nothing to do with Billy Idol. The picture just makes me laugh.

I can picture him doing a Christmas special. Ok, maybe not.


Anyway -

I've written HERE before about my Bestest Buddy, Steve. The only person I've ever seen get run over by his own motorcycle. Yeah, that's an accomplishment most Riders can't brag about.

I was out in the Garage a bit ago smoking. It's really nasty outside tonight and it reminded me of a night a long time ago when Steve and I were on a rode trip with similar weather ................

We'd already been riding for 2 weeks up into and around in Canada and had crossed back into the States at buffalo, NY. We were on our way to West Virginia to see his family there and We'd already had a shit load of good times. Even though it had rained for the first eight days of the trip we'd had a great time already and it looked as if the weather was gonna improve. It was bright and sunny that morning as we came through Customs and re-entered the States.

Then we ended up on that G-D Awful, Toll Road around Buffalo. Holy Crap! A toll Booth every 30 - 40 yards! We spent all of our breakfast money in the first 4-5 miles on tolls. That's when I saw a sign heading South.

A big Green Sign and an Arrow, saying "New Rochelle". Well, Shit. Laura Petrey? Dick VanDyke? Hell, that's all we needed to see after the Toll Road of Buffalo. South it is!

It turned out that Hwy 62 was a hell of a nice ride. I really don't know if we even went through New Rochelle, NY. Didn't matter. The weather was great and the road was nice (At least it was way back then). We had a great ride across New York and into Pennsylvania.

Then the weather went to shit. Started raining and the temperature dropped into the low 40's. Now, I'll bet Hwy 62 is a hell of a nice ride in Penn. It follows the Allegheny River and is curvy and I'm sure, it's fun to ride in good weather and daylight.

It was friggen' miserable that night. Neither of us had decent rain gear and we were soaked and freezing. I mean COLD. We kept pushing on. Mostly because we were to stupid to stop, but there wasn't any place to stop anyway, for what seemed like forever.

We finally ended up in Oil City, Pennsylvania. We pulled into a 7-11 type Gasso, to fill up and warm up. We topped off the bikes and headed inside to get some coffee and warm up. Standing outside of this place was a Moonie selling flowers. I never see Moonies anymore, but there were a lot of them around then.

He tried to sell us each a flower by getting between us and the door. We both growled, pushed him out of the way and kept heading towards the coffee, figuring we needed that more than a damn flower.

We hung out inside warming up, till the clerk started getting nervous. We then went outside and Damn, that Asshole Moonie, tried to sell us a flower AGAIN.

Knowing Steve like I do, when he put on his Game Face and told that guy, "You bother Me one more time about those Flowers, I'm gonna Fuck You up" - I knew what was coming.

Sure enough. Not 2 minutes later, Moonie Boy came back hitting us up to buy a flower. Steve and I both had a coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other.
Steve calmly put the doughnut in his mouth and .............................. WHAM!! He blasted Moonie Boy right in the chops.

Flowers, teeth and Moonie Boy flyin' everywhere. Damn, it hurt me just seeing him land 4-5 feet from where he was standing. He was just laying there, spread eagle on the ground.
Out like a light.
Flowers all over him.
Bleeding.
It was beautiful.

Then the Cop, who had been parked in the alley walked up. SHIT.

He looked at Moonie Boy.
He looked at us.

Back at Moonie Boy.
Back at us.

Nobody said a word for what seemed like a loooooong time. The Cop just kept looking back and forth between us and what was rapidly becoming, in my mind, an Abstract Art exhibit titled - "Moonie Boy with Bloody Flowers in the Rain".

Neither Steve or I wanted to say a damn word. We just stood there holding our breath. I was thinking to myself, "Well at least it'll be warmer in jail than where we've been tonight".

Finally, the Cop says to Steve - "I told him not to bother you two". And he calmly walked back to his car and called for EMS to come pick up the "Art Exhibit" still bleeding in the parking lot.

We hauled ass and kept motoring.