Life: One of my first loves:

1969.. one of my favourite years and I had a couple of objects of desire that focused all of my attention. And they were.. not in any specific order.

1. Julie Vanek.

2. My astronomical telescope.

3. The Holden Monaro 327 GTS

4. The Suzuki TS 125 Stinger motorcycle.

So as I said.. the above list is not in any order of preference.. but there you have it.

Julie was at my school the day I started and I thought she was good stuff! I guess in today's parlance I would have said she was hot! But sadly, like the Monaro 327.. well she really was beyond me.. but I kept on keeping on!

And then one day, not long after Neil walked on the moon a group of us were standing outside the shop where we would go each day to buy lunch (now Katrina Christ's Studio) and this red motorcycle went past. And it went past ever so fast! With a trail of blue smoke from its exhausts and the exquisite sound of two cylinders firing every second stroke!

I turned to Alan White and said something like.. "What the fuck was that?"

Julie said to me.. "What did you just say?"

Mmm.. "What the heck was that?"

Ignatius chimed in with.. "It had a Suzuki badge on it I think!"

That very same afternoon after school found this young man in Mayfairs in Adelaide Street, in the heart of the city.

You see, Mayfairs were the Suzuki dealer back then.

And there on the showroom floor I found it!

Wow!!!

The Suzuki TS 125 Stinger.

A twin cylinder two stroke motorbike that looked to this 16 year old like it came out of a Bond Movie.

God.. how could man design and build a machine so beautiful? The salesman told me it would do 75 MPH and with an optional hot up kit 100 MPH was possible.

I sat on it, I twisted the throttle, imagined me and Julie heading to the Gold Coast on it on a sunny Sunday morning.. and I wondered how I could get one into my life.

The fact that I couldn't even get a licence for another year was irrelevant.

Give me this bloody beaut bike mate! I just have to have it!

That night I showed the Suzuki brochure to my parents.. a very frosty negative reception indeed.

"Why do you want a motorcycle?" my mother asked.

"Freedom!" I yelled back!

"But you are free now," said my Dad.

"Gees.. you two just don't get it.. it's the ability to go where I want, when I want to!" I said as I went back to my room to stick the brochure onto the wall.

"You will be mine" I said the next day as I dressed for school whilst admiring my new toy!

Here is what this two wheeled freedom machine looked like back then.... (Except mine was going to be candy apple red!)

My ideal freedom machine in 1969.

And so it came to pass.. that I never ever owned one.

Like Julie Vanek, and the Monaro GTS, the Suzuki TS 125 was not to be mine.

No.. somehow by the time I was 17 I owned a clapped out 1963 Black Mini 850.

My less than ideal escape machine. Blew as much smoke though!

Oh dear!

And some days even now when my mind wanders.. I wonder if there is still one of these classic motorcycles out there with my name on it.

After all.. it could / should have been my first real love!

(Sorry Julie)