I do hear you, deaddirty-- sadly, my mother died in 1972 of a heart attack at age 35* and my father died in 1993 at age 72 of lymphoma. In fact ALL my dad's male siblings died at age 72 of one cancer or another.
What matters now is my husband and my friends. And the fact that they matter to me has indeed modified my behavior: I am not quite as reckless with the autoerotic stuff as I once was.
OTOH, it was a joy to hit 110mph on my Hayabusa a week ago on rt495 heading north from rt111. It's a speedway out there. I love it. ((Caution: cheap rationalization ahead.) I wasn't really going so much faster than the other traffic: they were all doin' 90.)
And this past Monday I was playing tag with this other biker, heading east on rt2, when we lit into a speed trap at about 90mph. I think I managed to slow down to about 70 in the 55 zone.
Shit, I thought, my goose is cooked! Hello, stupid high insurance rates for the next decade.
It was a two cop assembly line.** The first cop with the radar, the second cop writing the tickets. And I saw the radar cop lookin' at all of us, through his 'scope, frowning.
But ticket cop was busy, and we were with a whole platoon of cagers (derogatory biker term for people driving cars,) so nothin' happened. I kept eyeing my rear-view in paranoid-mode for about 10 minutes. But cops are allowed unlimited speed, and I remembered a fundamental truth: cops are as lazy as anyone.
Maybe this is a cop strategy: visible speed traps make everyone slow down for at least 2 miles. But they also use up two cops and two patrol cars. The wise biker remembers this well.
This is all related because if I don't get to roar around on my superbike when the weather is nice, I become impossible to live with. My husband will tell you.
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* My own 35th year was most peculiar.
** State Police. Only Statey cops can patrol state routes. Statey cops are kinda scary.