Early morning on a deserted highway approaching Taos, a sparrow lost its life when it hit my left shoulder, sending my left hand off the motorcycle's grip and into the air much like the pose of a bronc rider; had it hit my right throttle/brake side I'd have entered Valhalla with clean leathers and a birdie perched on my unsore shoulder.
Another trip riding 'tail gunner' in a group of 7 bikers, we wound through softly banked curves of Highway 60 by the copper mining towns of Globe and Superior enroute to Tombstone (the 'back way') when my right cheek immediate hurt and burned like that of lit cigarets that sometimes strike us in the face. I leaned toward my right rear-view and saw a bee's ass pumping into my cheek, just below the zygoid, his rhythm as if to say, "oh YEAH baby," and I ended his life with a smack...and was the only one not laughing when we stopped for lunch as I got hit with stares at the red, golf ball-sized knot on my face appearing like I'd taken a surprise punch.
Enroute to an annual biker's event, three of us were in pace with the 80-mph flow of a crowded I-10 West when what looked like a beer can came flying up from the left side of the biker to my front and left, striking the toe of my boot, careening up and over the quickly-ducked head of the biker behind me, striking a pickup's hood ornament and flying to a harmless crash landing in the grassy median. The lead biker pissed and moaned he'd lost a 4-lb footpeg he'd had since '73 and mounted on subsequent scooters refusing acknowledgement that he'd nearly broken my leg, killed the biker behind me and could have done the same to the pickup's occupants save for lucky ducking and deflection.
Lotsa UFOs hit us bikers--cups, bugs, bolts, stones, beer cans, small carcasses, big loogies, cigaret butts--and we know it's an assumed risk, but when a marble-sized stone flew through the open driver's side window of my car on the freeway and struck my flabby left cheek the other day, I regarded it as a sign and still seek its meaning.
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