Vern was making a rare trip up the ladder to his attic. I don't know what drove the initial exploration of that forgotten realm, but I do know he found treasure. Grinning and wincing as his locked-up knee scolded him, he held out the find. His first riding boots: Villas, veterans of his riding days in the early '70s.
"You know, Rock," Vern said, "I think I want to be buried with these on." He held them in his hands and we both stared.
I knew Vern's health was going downhill, and the pause of his actions while navigating the steps and handling the boots reminded me that this was not the time for smart-ass remarks.
The boots were well-beaten, the liner crumpling in his hands, the bottoms worn smooth, and three of the four metal tap-like ends gone. Vern set them down and they rested there on the table between us like some forgotten bastard child, begging for recognition.
Memories, like the ground-in California dust, are imbedded in the leather. Vern and I both learned how to overcome the laws of physics while trail riding to the rhythm of endless S-turns through the pine and manzanita in the coastal hills and Sierra Mountains of California. Those were the days, circa 1970, and the appearance of the first Yamaha DT-1s. It wasn't all trails and mountains though; we both rode Triumph 500 singles in the woods as well. We rode everywhere we could, buoyed by youth and exuberance.
"Momentum: That's the key, Rock. An object in motion wants to stay in motion."
Oh, the places those boots have seen! I remember my own favorites, like the razorback ridges with barely a trail through the brush at Clear Creek. There's a view from up there that stays with me even now: the Central California Valley to the east, and to the west the sun setting in the Pacific Ocean. There's Mercy Hot Springs, Pinoche, China Grade all the way to the Pacific Coast. Those are rides we took for pleasure and adventure, but those boots have seen countless enduros and motocross races as well. We lost plenty, but won some too.
Those boots also visited Southern Oregon around that time. There's dirt from Soda Mountain caked in, the whisper of the Jacksonville Hills, with their roller-coaster-smooth, seldom ridden trails. Even dust from the Nevada Desert is still in the stitching, impossible to remove.
I sat on Vern's shop stool, following those threads of nostalgia, and we talked about how my Suzuki TM125 never could beat those silver Honda CR125 Elsinores at the Santa Cruz Fairgrounds. As I glanced around, I noticed his trash can and the expedition up the ladder made sense. He'd already thrown away some old knee guards, stiff gloves and goggles.
I wondered if the boots would suffer the same fate, and found myself a little nervous when he reached for them. I tried to stop myself, "Aw, hell," I thought, "they're just old boots, right?" But I'll be damned if he didn't take them back up the ladder, lay them in a box, and, like an honor guard, laid them to rest.
Leaving, I felt my throat close up a little as I glanced back at Vern and the attic. Just old boots, I thought, nothing special...