this blog began as a section on my site called “Infinite Diarrhea” which I took down very shortly after starting it because … people were reading it. This, in turn, was causing problems in my already failing marriage …
What is it with motorcyclists?
I rode behind one all the way to work this morning and, every motorcyclist he passed, they exchanged waves. Numerous cars passed him, bicyclists, too. There were even pedestrians. Did he wave to them? No: only other motorcyclists.
Now I see folks in cars waving infrequently but also indiscriminately. People in cars wave at motorcyclists, boaters, hang-gliders, skateboarders, people in wheelchairs, even people sitting in buildings going nowhere.
Bicyclists don’t wave too much, being somewhat wobbly but those who do wave as indiscriminately as car drivers.
Truckers don’t wave much at all, or if they do, they’re so high up we can’t see them doing so but they are known for pulling their horn for entire yards of schoolchildren.
Not motorcyclists, though. Motorcyclists wave only at each other. It is a subtle wave, a subdued one, often performed just below the left handlebar; a quick flap of the hand, perhaps accompanied by an even smaller nod of the head. It’s an acknowledgment of an assumed brotherhood of cool.
Cross-country skiers are known to act much the same way but then they’re way hell to breakfast out in the goddamn woods at a season when even the squirrels know better than to venture out – cross-country skiers wave only to each other because there’s no one else to wave at!
But motorcyclists: what is it with motorcyclists?
