I ran one of my stories here and it kinda snowballed a little.
You might wonder about that peculiar lookin' dragon that is my avatar. That dragon sure gets around. It first appeared on my Zippo lighter, then on my Sidecar, then as my avatar, then it traveled in two different directions. My good friend Mike Hahn bought my sidecar and the dragon is riding on the sidecar in California and other points where Mike might want to take it. The other direction is on tee shirts of the South Carolina VRCC members. Glad to give permission to my southern friends.
The Korean Dragon was engraved on my Zippo by a papasan in Korea in 1953. Although I no longer smoke the Zippo is still around although the dragon on it doesn't travel much! The Zippo shares a special place in my 'momento' drawer.
What about the story??? i thought that you would never ask
. This is a true story and I gave up long ago trying to figure the odds of this happening..............but it did. Here it is( again)
A Short True "Believe it or Not" Story
In the summer of 1983 , I owned an '82 Honda 900F, a nice bike.
I decided to visit my sister in Minneapolis. To make the trip interesting, the plan was to get there
by way of the upper peninsula of Michigan and so I did.
I packed my gear into a couple of soft saddlebags, added some camping gear, and, although I
had quit smoking years back, I put my trusty Zippo lighter in my pants pocket for lighting the
camp fires. I left New Haven, got on I-69 and rode north at a little more than a leisurely pace. The
weather was beautiful, riding was, well you know, and everything was fine until I got close to
Grayling Michigan traveling on 175. My soft saddlebags had tilted and were touching the upswept exhaust
pipes, so I stopped in Grayling for gas and lunch and tightened up the straps across the seat to
make those bags behave.
Now the skies were turning dark. Of course I rode on, it's not agonna rain. I was wrong! The
skies opened up and I had to stop under an overpass just shy of Big Mac, and put on the
rainsuit. No further problems and the sun was shining again as I crossed the bridge on the
concrete, no grating for me that day.
The ride west on highway Two (my favorite) was great with the view of blue Lake Michigan on the
left. I stopped at a motel , for the night, on the east side of Manistique. The temperature was 95 degrees and the motel didn't have AC, normally not needed with winds blowing off Lake Michigan. However, the owners found a nice fan for me to use.
The next morning was bright and clear and I rode into Wisconsin and headed west on highway 8
through Rhinelander. Farther west I noticed that a big thundercloud was coming up from the
south and about to cross my highway. Naturally I turned up the wick, somewhere on the other
side of 85mph (Politically correct speedometer that year). I'm motoring now. Oh crap, blue lights in my rear view mirror! I pulled over and maybe my white hair helped, whatever, I only got a warning.
Ok, back on the bike, at a slightly more easy pace, riding into the storm with the usual too late
drill on the rain gear.
By the time I got to Minneapolis, the chain was dry and squealing, and I was wet and grumbling..
After a two day visit with my sister, I headed back towards home. I bypassed Chicago, rode
down to Kankakee,(now there’s a name) then caught Lincoln Highway 30 and got back home, safe and sound………. EXCEPT that my lighter was gone.
! The lighter that went to basic training with me, the lighter that went to Korea with me,
the lighter that was engraved by a papason in Korea. Where did I lose it? Somewhere along the
1600 or so miles of road, gone for good.
Here is the rest of the story .as Paul Harvey used to say.
The following summer, the wife and I drove to the UP on vacation.
As the lighter was still on my mind, we stopped at that overpass by the bridge. It could've fallen
out when I rain suited up. It didn't . I gave up on finding it.
We traveled all over the UP, ,Munising, Houghton, Copper Harbor, the works. Beautiful place, the UP.
As luck would have it, we came back on highway Two, drove through the town of Manistique, and
motored east on highway Two.. This was the same route that I had taken a year ago on the Honda. We passed the motel on the outskirts of Manistique that I had stayed in last year. I wondered, could it be? Nah!
Oh heck, it’s worth a try, I decided.
I turned around and drove back to that little motel on the outskirts of Manistique, that motel where I spent the night a long year ago.
I pulled into the parking lot, got out, and. went inside to the office thinking that they're going to know that I'm a fool.
I asked the desk clerk; "Ma'am, in your lost and found would you by any chance have a Zippo
lighter with an engraving of a dragon and the words Korea 1953 on it" She reached under the desk and
pulled out my long lost friend and said; "Is this it?" Tears came to my eyes, why I don't know.
And then she told me the rest of the story. . . The lighter was found under the bed a week later. It
was sent to the last occupant of the room. It was returned because those people knew the personal value
of this worn but not worn out old Zippo. Maybe it was an omen of things to come. The image of a Korean dragon on the lighter was similar to the Valkyrie’s image, a fire eating beast. Thirteen years later I bought the Valkyrie
Wayne, Solo1
