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Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
THE PENCILNECK vsTHE GREAT OUTDOORS
One of the great things about being raised on a farm is that unless yourparents wanted you infesting the place all summer long, they bought you a dirtbike, or in my instance, as this was in the good old days before trikes got lawsuitedinto quads…a bright yellow Yamaha 175 Tri-moto, complete with rear cargo rack.It had a top speed of 55 miles an hour, no matter whether it was uphill,downhill, crosswinds, rain, cold, two passengers, gravel, pavement, fallow or mudand for some reason, the Tri-moto had no rear suspension. Some madman atYamaha must’ve thought that the big knobbly tires were enough. In fact - youtrivia buffs may be interested to know, the 175 Tri-moto was the very first trikethat had front shocks. A nice, if unappreciated at the time, benefit of thisarrangement is that it gave me kidneys of iron. I loved this thing, and for afourteen year old too young for a driver’s license, it represented freedom!Porter had an awesome bike, and the next year Foo finally bawled andsniveled enough so that his Dad just bought him a damn trike. Unfortunately, poorFoo got a 185 Honda. The shame must’ve been fierce!The funniest thing about his ‘trike’ was that he couldn’t even start it! Idon’t know if you’ve met Foo, but to see him now, you’d think that when they puthim together, they said “We won’t skimp”. Foo is on the large side of big, but hewas kind of a squirt until age 15.Or 20.
 
Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
This was before electronic ignition switches, you had to grab the pullerand pull, like a lawn mower
(before electronic ignition switches)
. On the Yamaha, thecord was on down by your left foot. It was easier to start from a standingposition, but pretty quickly I could reach down while sitting and start it up like awhiz. This was important when The Fellas were on site. This was even moreimportant when The Ladies were around.Not Foo. He would want to hop on my trike and zip off, but he couldn’tmanage it. Sitting. Standing. Swearing. Nothing worked. Speed was the key.You had to commit and follow through. Foo just couldn’t get it. He’d grab on, sethis jaw, mumble something we couldn’t quite make out, grab the puller with bothhands and begin a jerky ‘clunk clunk clunk clunk’ as the rope uncurled. His headwould jerk back with each ‘clunk’ like he was catching uppercuts. Veins stoodout on his temples. His eyes would be hard shut and he would open them at theend of the rope in a slim hope that somehow the engine would’ve caught.Naturally, we encouraged this kind of performance at very chance. Eventually, ina peppering of language that was always pretty crisp, he’d have to ask one of us tostart it for him. We managed to get the maximum effect out of each and everystart up. Soon, we had parents and teachers haunting us, aching for a look at Footrying to start The Trike. Tour busses patrolled the streets, crammed with payingcustomers hoping to see the boy who couldn’t even start a Tri-moto.When a Mexican circus tried to recruit him, we had to relax it a bit.Since I was always a bit of an outdoorsy type, and even though I was TheNew Guy, I began broadcasting the idea that maybe we ought to hop on our ridesand go do a spot of camping on the weekends. Why wait until school was out? Acouple of others may have fooled around with the camping thing late in the fall,but I was the real promoter behind…The Campouts!
 
Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
Pretty quickly, somebody came up with the idea of maybe trying to get ahold of a little booze. The little overnighter soon swelled to 8 guys, and on a coldFriday night, we descended on Gooma’s place.Gooma was a year ahead, Grade 9, and lived about 5 or 6 miles due westof our farm. The campout spot was on a low hill facing the sunset, in a pastureoverlooking a small creek. The cattle had cleaned up the smaller trees and thelower branches of the several large ones dotting the hillside, and the grass wascropped low to the ground. Except for the cow pies and dead branches all over theplace, it might have been groomed for the purpose.Across the road from Gooma’s house was a large sort of lake, and wedrove down to check it out. Once on shore, Bim Bim, Foo and I figured it’d be agreat idea to try and swim across it. I was a great swimmer, Bim Bim said hecould swim, and Foo said “Well, Owen’s a great swimmer!” We started off, andmade it across in pretty good time.We got out and waved that we were ok to the others, who didn’t seem tooconcerned. The mosquitoes however, were overjoyed that three new vendors hadshown up, and they began to sample our wares with enthusiasm. We dashed back into the water and headed back.About 10 or 12 strokes into it, Foo began to thrash, and got a littlepanicky. I swam up behind, got him under the arms and started towing him.Looking back, I’m sure that he wasn’t really in that much trouble, but having melug him back was a lot less work than having to do it himself.About half way back, we heard my trike start up. This was bad. I still hadthe odor of city boy on me, and outside of my close little clique, I hadn’t really fitin yet. I looked around to see that Toe and Gooma had wondered if those big tireson the Tri-moto would make it float. I powered back to shore, leaving Foo
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