Guino is a stuffed penguin. He is not an actual penguin. He is a 9-inch-high stuffed animal somewhat resembling a penguin. Over the years he has accompanied me on numerous motorcycle trips. He rides strapped to the back seat. These days he has a special harness. On this particular trip, I had not perfected the harness, which precipitated a situation.
Daniel and I were riding our Valkyrie motorcycles in Virginia out of Massanutten. We would run down the interstate and then turn off and find our way back on the secondary mountain roads. One morning, we were running down the interstate, and Guino flipped off the back seat. Daniel, who was behind me, did some fancy riding to avoid running over the penguin, then rode up next to me indicating we needed to stop. This was well before we had bike to bike communications, or even cell phones. He told me what happened, and we began to ride up and down the side of the road looking for the penguin. We looped back several times looking for him, with no success. We turned around in a cut through, to go back for another search. When we got to the next cut through, Daniel kept going when I turned in. The highway split, and I didn’t want to get separated, so I just sat there knowing Daniel would come back to that spot eventually.
Soon a service truck pulled up. Two workers got out and said, “They are watching you on the cameras, and want to know what you are doing.” I said, “Cameras?” They replied, “Yes there are cameras on the top of those high mast light poles.” I said, “We are looking for a penguin.” I was thinking that will get Big Brother all riled up. I got a real funny look from them, but before they could carry me off to the loony bin, Daniel rode up.
I said, “Did you find the penguin?” Daniel replied, “Yea, he’s in my saddle bag, thinking about what he did.”
The two service truck workers never said a word. They just shook their heads, got in the truck, and drove off.
Guino had to stay in the saddle bag until I made a more secure harness, and he learned to behave.
