Merlin Makes it to Maine

Yesterday my new friend Merlin Bianco and I rode about 120 miles, over the Kancamagus Highway to Conway, NH, and down US 302 to Raymond, Maine.  

Merlin, Duncan and Dan, with Rocio, Suzi, and Whitehorse Gear in the background.

Before hitting the border, we stopped at Whitehorse Press (and Whitehorse Gear) in Conway, New Hampshire, and had a good talk with owner Dan Kennedy, for whom my son Jesse worked for a year as an editorial assistant, his first job in his professional field of writing and publishing.  Dan and Judy Kennedy hired Jesse from a lifeguard job at Sea World's Discovery Cove in Orlando, Florida.  Jesse learned a lot at Whitehorse, and loved the Kennedys.  I was interested in stopping there not only because I like the Kennedys, too, but also because I wanted to look over their choices of high-quality tank bags prior to my June departure for Alaska.

Note that the bikes have crossed the border, completing "48 in 24" for Duke and Merlin!

From Conway we continued east on 302, and soon entered Maine at Fryeburg, where Merlin scored his goal of 48 states in 24 months on his Harley named "Duke," and where I stopped to top up on oil while Merlin charmed the ladies at the Visitor's Center.  Then we headed on toward Sebago Lake for lunch.

As I searched for the first restaurant advertising fresh lobster, I noticed that my oil filler plug was missing, and had an "Aw, shit!" moment.  The Irving station where I bought a quart of 10-40 oil had offered me a paper funnel, which I'd accepted and used.  Hence, I had set the threaded filler plug on the right side cover of the Suzuki's engine, where "I couldn't forget it," in order to hold the funnel with my left hand while pouring with my right.  Then, in removing the funnel and discarding it and the empty oil jar, causing me to walk away from the bike, I did forget it.  My crankcase was open to the air, and a fine mist of oil was coating my right boot.

Two old codgers in Raymond, Maine

As our lobsters boiled, Merlin and I went out to the parking lot, where Merlin opened the plastic spares kit that he carries in the "basement" of Rocio and produced a roll of aluminum duct tape.  He soaked a rag with gasoline and used it to clean the engine case around the oil filler port.  Once applied to a de-greased engine, the adhesive-backed aluminum tape made an excellent field-fix.  After the mandatory, if expensive, celebratory lobster lunch, we bade each other happy travels, and parted.

I rode back to Fryeburg with a wishful eye on the opposite shoulder of the highway, hoping against hope to see a small oil filler-cap.  At the Irving station near the border in Fryeburg, I figured I had my best and last chance to reunite the bike with its missing part.  I parked at the edge of the drive, dismounted, and started toward the convenience store, then saw two women wearing Irving uniforms.  I asked one, "Did anyone turn in an oil plug?"  "No," she said somewhat curiously, leaving me with a faint hope.  "But I found one!"  She retrieved it from a window sill, and accepted a "Thank you!" hug.  "I knew someone would be looking for that," she said, "'cause I'm a biker, myself."

On the way home, I stopped and treated Suzi to a new "Cortech by Tourmaster" tank bag at Whitehorse Gear.
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Alaska trip status update: I am presently leaning toward taking my 1983 Suzuki GS1100e on the Alaska trip.  Suzi is an amazingly capable tourer, and a delight to ride in the mountains.  Of course, the new tank bag would also come along if I were to ride my '82 Honda Silver Wing Interstate.

Greg "Pappy" Boyington reunites with a Squadronmate (and I make a friend)

Larry Forand, USMC

On Saturday, 28 April, 2012, Shirl received a call that she had been dreading.  It came from Norma Forand in Florida, who reported the death of her husband, Larry.

Larry Forand had been Shirl's music teacher from the time she was nine years old through high school, in Westborough, Massachusetts.

Larry and Shirl had a special friendship, and it had grown over the years to involve all of our two families.  Larry and Marion, his first wife, lived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for most of the years that Shirl and I were raising our four kids .  So, Ft. L. became a regular stop on our family's winter vacations.  Each time we saw the Forands, we felt as close to them as if we saw them every day.  They were good people.  Then, in 1989, Marion died of cancer.

A few years later, Larry met and married Norma, and she became our new friend.  I sometimes thought she was a bit curious about the close relationship between Shirl and Larry, but she came to see that it was nothing she had to worry about.  They were simply two simpatico souls with similar values, kind hearts, and a shared sense of humor about the absurdities of the world.

Larry has been fading for the past several years, and at 88, his ailments finally took him from us.

After receiving Norma's call, which reported that Larry would be buried in the Lake Worth National Cemetery today with full military honors, since he had been in the U.S. Marines in WWII.  Larry served on Guadalcanal, and in an aviation support company for the F4U Corsairs of VMF214 ("The Black Sheep Squadron") in the Solomon Islands, under the command of Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington.

Shirl and I discussed whether we, or she, should make a trip to be in attendance at the burial ceremony.  As I have responsibilities today at the University, and as I had committed to attending a WWII submariner's funeral in Vermont yesterday, Shirl decided to fly down alone, to rent a car, and to attend Larry's service at Lake Worth.  Kindly, our friend Alexandra Mutiu volunteered to drive Shirl to the Manchester Airport late Sunday morning for her afternoon flight.

So yesterday, I donned my warm jacket (chilly, windy day), and rode to rendezvous with some fellow Patriot Guard Riders (NH PGR) at the McDonald's in Hillsborough, from which we would travel as a group to Bellows Falls, Vermont to stand in a flag line at the Larsen funeral there.  In the parking lot at McDonald's a Harley rider arrived, towing a wooden micro-camper trailer behind his bike. It was a home-designed, self-built rig, and its owner introduced himself as Merlin Bianco of San Francisco.  His rig had California license plates, so I invited him to "Hotel New Hampshire" for the night, if he needed a place to "crash," and was willing to ride another two hours north after the funeral.

Merlin said, "Is there a shower?"  I said, "Of course!"  He said, "Then I accept."

We rode over to the funeral home in Bellows Falls, about an hour from Hillsborough, and there, in the parking lot, as we were setting up for the flag line, I explained to Merlin that I was "batching it" tonight, since Shirl was on her way to Larry's funeral.  I mentioned that Larry was a Marine, and had been in Pappy Boyington's squadron.  "Yep," said Merlin, "VMF214.  I knew Pappy for the last four years of his life."  They had met while both were working airshows on the West Coast.


By the way, there is a motorcycle ministry in California called "The Black Sheep Ministry," and Merlin Bianco spent some six years as a lay minister in that organization.

Adevarat!  Da, da, da, da.