Miles O'Neal

Transportation User

Yeesh. This started out as just recording interesting memories. There's some stuff in here that I'm obviously not real proud of. Maybe you can avoid some stupid things I've done!

Transportation Methods I Have Known

This page will be growing over time, but it's not under construction any more than you are. It's just growing. Look it up in a dictionary.

Transportation Methods I Have Known

As I See Them

So fun factor enters in, but realize that I can have fun with the most boring vehicle known to humankind (the Dodge Aries?), so long as the passengers can't reach my throat or the car's controls.

One of my best friends in high school, Martin O'Rourke, hit the hemi on the head with his observation,

"I've finally figured out what's wrong with your driving. You drive everything like it's a motorcycle."

(My actual reply was "So?", followed by revving the Impala's engine and dropping it into Drive, squealing up to the downtown Augusta speed limit of 30, which I maintained. Martin tried to crawl under the floor mat, because one of Augusta's finest had just pulled alongside us. He ignored me, much to our mutual relief.)

The REALLY Fun Ones

Two Wheeled, White-Knuckled Terror

• 2001 silver Mazda MX5 Miata. Next best thing to a motorcycle! We bought this used in 2005 when we decided to sell Esther our first Protege. I really wanted another bike, but since I work with teenagers, it's a lot easier to get parents to let me take them places in a convertible than on a bike. It's also a lot easier to talk in a convertible.

  Lightweight, quick, responsive, the Miata has few faults. It's small; at 5'11" I'm a bit cramped, but less so than on a sport bike, and more comfy over long distances. It has almost no trunk space. But otherwise, about all I could wish for are the optional hard top (didn't come with it), a bit more power (esp. with the A/C on), and a bit of lumbar support. That said, it's still incredibly fun to drive. Sometimes I jump on the highway or a back road late at night and just drive for a couple of hours. Top down, of course; the top stays down when I'm in the car unless it's around freezing (even then, maybe), raining harder than a drizzle, or my wife or someone is in the car who needs to arrive somewhere with their hair in good shape. I just run the heater or AC when the temp gets too extreme, with the top down anyway. Then again, I foten just left the windows down and moon roof open on previous cars!

• 1983 red & white Honda VF750F Interceptor V4.
  Easily the most fun vehicle I've ever owned. Able to leap across intersections in negative time, this turned out to be Motorcyclist's "Motorcycle of the Year" for 1983. At the time, it was the closest thing you could get to a race bike for the street - except it actually worked as well on the street as it did on the track. Usually I ride things into the ground, then trade or sell them. This one wass slowly being brought back to life. Not as good as bikes now, of course, but way too good to throw away. Only 4 per dealer were sent into the USA, and the vast majority of them got wrecked. I finally sold it to a friend who wanted a bike to work on, because I had neither the time nor the money to rebuild it. I hated that.

  For a while at JHK I was working a later shift (we were time-sharing the limited terminal ports on a ModComp), so most days I left 2-3 hours before I needed to be at work (about 3 or 4) and took the looooonnng way in. One day right after I got the 'Ceptor, Mike Williams (on his brand new Honda Magna 1100) and I were ripping up some twisties that had moved from rural into suburban, without really paying attention to that minor detail, when a (what else) Volvo pulled out from behind some bushes in front of us. A truck was coming the other way on this two lane road, there was a narrow bridge ahead, and all we could do was stop as hard as we could. I'm ashamed to say I was doing 100 on a suburban neighborhood street! That car grew really fast, and Mike's light grew to fill my mirrors, and I managed to match the car's speed about 2 feet off her bumper. It was a good 5 minutes before my heart rate dropped below 100. No other bike I've owned could have stopped that well - and it's a good thing Mike was well behind me when it happened. I breathe hard today just writing about it.

  Had my first major wreck on it. Now it languishes in the garage, awaiting new mufflers, seat, fairing and some engine work (probably the cam chain tensioners).

• 1971 Yamaha GT6SB/GT7S 80cc, two-stroke ``enduro'' bike.
  In actuality this was a street bike with a high pipe and slightly knobby tires. Ran like a scared rabbit up to nearly 45, and took a few more minutes to reach its clocked top speed of 50MPH (laying on the tank helped). It was green, green, green. Bright, shiny, green. Got as much dirt time as street time, and friends and I ran it into the ground. Did I mention how green it was? I had a quite non-matching, gold, metalflake helmet. Should never have sold it, but felt it was too uncool for college. Fool. In the meantime, though, Martin O'Rourke and I rebuilt, tuned, and otherwise mechaniced the Yamaha every chance we got. I'm certain no non-racing two-stroke ever got more attention than this one!

  My first non-Miles-powered bike. I was as green as this thing was. Which explains what happened next.

• 1974 red, red, red GTO with hand-built 400
  This one actually belonged to Mike Williams, who loaned it to us on several occasions. As Mike said, "It's not a real GTO. This was the year after they killed those off. It's a Nova with a hood scoop and Pontiac decals."

  But, this car could bury many a GTO. It was Mike's project car (or as his wife Melinda said, "toy"). My wife used to get annoyed with me; as she said, "you drive like a redneck in it." But Mike always made me promise to drive it "...right, like it's meant to be driven, like I would drive it - don't baby it." I never had the chutzpah to take it around curves on two wheels at 70 or 80 like Mike did - it was his pride and joy, and I wouldn't chance it. Eventually, Sharon drove it, and the same "evil look" came over her, and she peeled out. After that, she drove it as much as I did, and never harassed me again. In fact, she loved trying to smoke me when I was on the Interceptor!

  I was once driving a co-worker and our boss and his wife in the Goat, when I mentioned The Dukes of Hazzard. Michelle started choking, unable to decide whether to scream in horror or laugh out of control (yet she watched Dallas). We were approaching an intersection with a lovely, great bump in the middle of it, so I floored it and let out my best rebel yell. She managed to sit forward as the trannie shifted, and grabbed my throat just as we became airborn from the bump. I managed to croak out that I wasn't slowing until she let go, which she did. She screamed at me. Craig (her husband) sat bug-eyed. Tom just said, "Not bad. Can we try again?". Michelle wouldn't speak to either of us for several days, and Craig looked at me strangely for a while. Didn't seem to affect my review...

• 1973 white Kawasaki 350 triple, two-stroke
  A fun little monster, able to wheelie at will, pretty good handling. Kind of small for me, and it buzzed a good bit on the interstate, but it seldom stayed behind anything I wanted around, and it put up with a lot. Larry wouldn't take anything for letting me use it for 6 months (he only rode during the summer), so I did lots of maintenance for him. I put a new tire on. A $20 Cheng-Shin. Pulling out of the dealer's, I cranked it hard left and opened it up, and the rear end stepped out about 30 degrees. Flat tracking! Oops. Maybe it's just new. 1,000 miles later I realized - it's just cheap. Bought Larry a much nicer tire and used the first one for a planter.
• 1978 black Yamaha XS650E vertical twin.
  Nothing special in itself, but it was the first bike that was mine, all mine in my adult life. Sharon was even excited about it. Rode it much too hard. Within under 40,000 miles it was toast - I played in the dirt on this behemoth, spent way too much time doing 80 MPH or idling on the interstates around Atlanta, tore up backroads - generally gave it no respect - but regular maintenance. Had a blast anyway. Eventually sold it for next to nothing at a yard sale, but by then I had 30,000 on the Interceptor! We'd tried the Want Ads, but the only calls were far more interested in Sharon's anatomy than the bike.

Some Fairly Fun Ones

Even Boxes Can be Fun

• 195x Renault semi-doodlebug-thingie
  This was Mom's & Dad's first second (sic) car. Dad bought it in 1965 for $99. It had holes in the floor, and smelled like very used doodlebug thingies were supposed to smell - slightly musty, with a hint of burnt and unburnt hydrocarbons. Like how I figured a WW I aeroplane cockpit would smell.

  The holes in the floor were wonderful. El Paso had several flash floods a year. We lived near the mountain, and the way home for Dad from UTEP (then TWC) was along Railroad Drive - which became a canal to carry all the water from the mountain to the desert. Several times Dad came home grinning. Everyone else was flooded out, stuck in the road, and while his shoes and socks were wet, at least he was home! Without the holes, it would have, Bug-like, simply floated away. Instead, the water spouted up through the floor, sloshed around, and ran back out holes near the back.

• 1978 tan Chevy Chevette
  My wife bought this just before we got married. In 30K miles, we went through a couple of electronic ignitions, the manual transmission shifter linkage fell apart in traffic, and we had a 5MPH bump with a 60s Dodge product that nearly totaled it.

  We played sports car with this one. Slid it all over the place. After we first saw Star Wars, it became the Aluminum Falcon, constantly shifting into hyperdrive and zapping Tie Fighters with its headlights (garnering looks from the cops, but no tickets, fortunately).

• 1995 really, really red Ford Windstar.
  This is the first car we have bought that was really what we wanted at the time. Over 160,000 miles in 7 years, and we still love it like it was new. Or we did. Except for the transmission, which was replaced once and rebuilt once (both under extended warranty) and is warning us now that it's tired of life yet again. The design engineers took a step backwards in placing the "environment" controls, and the AC/heat control choices are abysmal - but no more so than most USA-made vehicles. Otherwise, we love it. And is it red! I don't expect anyone to claim they couldn't see it.

  The Taurus V6 in this beast is great. The van accelerates well, handles curves at least as well as the average car, and the OEM tires are decent, and slide progressively, giving a delightful squeal well before traction disappears. Or it did...

  The transmission stinks. It's so bad now it stays in "limp mode", which mean sthe onboard computers won't let it past second gear, and you have to manually shift to L2 to even get out of 1st. Time for a new vehicle.

  I used to call it the Big Red Thing or the InterChuys Ballistic Missle. Now it's more of "The Big Red Rock Beside the Driveway".

• A Pair of Proteges (2001 sand, 2003 green). When I gave up on the Interceptor for a while, we bought a 2001 Protege with a moon roof. Nowhere close to a bike, but at least it was sort of open. It's had very few problems for well over 100,000 miles; we sold it to Esther w while back when she needed a car.

  When the Tempo blew its cool again (radiator petcock let go; the previous radiator had simply split in two) we bought Sharon a green 2003 Protege. We didn't spring for the moon roof, but later wished we had. It's holding up great, too, other than when deer run into it.

  These are nowhere near sports cars, but are reasonably peppy and responsive, and other than having no lumbar support and the headrests being too far back, are comfortable. For basic cars, they're pretty cool. And they hold up really well if you take care of them, rather like Honda Accords.

Some More Fun Ones

Two Wheeled, Pink-Knuckled Terrorist

• Various tricycles, roller skates, a scooter, and a Radio Flyer wagon
  My first serious wreck was on a trike, towing a Radio Flyer. Clifford Bossie & I had been playing who remembers what with our trikes for hours. It had gotten dark, and I stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, and Clifford ran into me. I ate the bars on the way down, and broke all my front teeth, seriously repositioning them all along the way. The dental surgeon who pulled them left fragments. It took two more visits to get all the pieces out. The permanent teeth grew in the screwball way the baby teeth had been knocked, and it took several years of braces in Jr. High & High school to mostly straighten the mess out. Poor Clifford. My parents blamed him (well, so did hysterical little "it's not my fault!" Miles.
• A 16" used red Murray bicycle with a skull & crossbones sticker on it.
  My first bike. Rode the wheels off it until I outgrew it.
• An honest-to-goodness 20" red Scwhinn big hunka steel with front basket.
  All my first real 2-wheeled wrecks were on this one, including my first head dive from showing off, and my first run-in with an auto. This bike was stolen several times - by the same intellectually-challenged kid with clue-challenged parents.

  I remember riding this thing to school in all kinds of weather. In the 6th grade I even did this carrying a trombone by its case's handle looped over one handlebar. I once lost it on this bike and nearly lost my best friend (Don't do this!)

• A 27" racing Schwinn Continental with all sorts of trick components,
  bought from a high school friend, Martin Goodale, when he upgraded to a serious racer. Tooled all over on this puppy. It just ate up the mileage. I remember taking on Atlanta rush hour traffic (Northside Drive) one hot, early September Friday afternoon. Fighting up the steep hills to fly down the steep back sides, keeping up with traffic (40 - 45 MPH), praying really hard none of those cars nosing out of side streets would actually pull out in front of me. They didn't. I had my visit with friends for about 2 hours - just enough to stop sweating, get back to breathing normally - and rode home the same route.

  Left it unlocked in front of Techwood Dorm (named for Techwood Housing Project, in which it was located - the first federally funded slum) Dorm in college one night when I was drunk or stoned or something equally brain-dead, and ``Voila!'' (a French word meaning, "You have the brains of a turnip, so you deserve this") it had disappeared the next morning. Imagine that!

• Britsh Racing Green Bridgestone 400 10 speed
  Given to me by Dany Guindi when he moved to Guatemala with his new wife, Rosi. Really nice road bike - light, good derailleurs, good brakes - even if they are sidepull.

Basic Transportation

Two Wheeled, Tan-Knuckled Sowhatster

• A 26" yellow J. C. Penney's 10 speed.
  How the mighty had fallen. Heavy. Not a precision instrument. Met my budget, barely. I bought it the summer after my first failed attempt at college, to replace the stolen racing bike. Just something of my own to get me to work. Don't recall what happened to it, don't really care. Most exciting thing that ever happened on it was riding slowly up a looong Augusta hill at 2AM after work (closing shift at Arby's), some rednecks hit me in the rear end with an egg as they drove by.

  It's probably home to a particularly nasty breed of wasp somewhere (the bike, not my rear end).

• A 26" red Schwinn with front and rear baskets.
  Built like a tank. Single speed, which was rough in hilly Augusta, GA. Used this for a paper route. It was stolen off our front porch, and never recovered. I replaced it with the racing bike (I never planned to throw papers again).

Basic Transportation II

Where Boxes Get Their Name

• 1956 Ford or Chevy coupe of some sort
• pre-1960 Ford Fairlane
• 1960 Ford station wagon
• 1964 Ford station wagon
• 1965 Plymouth Valiant First stick shift car I drove. Basic, runs forever transportation. This was the family second car for at least a decade and over 200,000 miles.
• 1969 Chevy Impala
  For all its problems (the experimental pollution control was a disaster), it was resilient. Once, I lost track of what gear I was in while playing Ricky Racer. I accelerated in what I thought was L1 (but was D) to nearly 30, and threw it into Drive ... No! It's Reverse! Help! It screeched to a halt, the poor 327 making nasty dying sounds as it tried unsuccessfully to run backwards. It cranked right up, and never showed any ill effects. Unlike me, who finished that trip like Emma Goad (the little old blue-haired lady who looks under the steering wheel, and has no accelerator pedal (from the minds of Nick Pomponio and Paul Moczynski)).

  I learned to drive in this car. I had an amazing talent for driving, and excellent depth perception, which nearly gave my Mom more than one heart attack when I happily and intentionally missed something by an inch or so.

• 1966 yellow Ford Econoline work van
  Ran great til the engine blew. Went through about 5 clutches. Rebuilt engine was never right. Hauled lots of stuff in the back, including several of my many moves. Had a blast on a couple of sleepless road trips with it. On my wedding day, the water pump blew just as I arrived at the home of some friends who were going to hem up my suit for me. Had to bum a ride to my own wedding. Fortunately, we'd planned to take the Chevette on the honeymoon.

  I named this one ``Shirley'' as in ``Shirley the Lord has provided this van, and shirley the Lord is all that keeps it running!''

• 1966 white Ford Econoline work van
  Between the two, I should be able to keep one running. Both gave up the ghost about the same time. Sold both for under $200. The buyer had one running within a day, and used the other for a trailer.

  We called this one ``Josephine'', but I have no idea why.

• 1979 black Ford Mustang (wannabe)
  Ford had a lot of gall putting the Mustang logo on this joke. This isn't a muscle car, or even close. It's more of a heavy Pinto without the exploding gas tank option. We went through 2 camshafts on the poor, little 4-banger in less than 90,000 miles - turns out there were oil problems. The first rebuild happened just a few thousand miles before the extended warranty ran out (the dealership forgot to replace the motor mount bolts, which made for an exciting dash into morning rush hour traffic!) Shortly after the second rebuild, blew a head gasket. Traded what was left for work on our...
• 1978 VW passenger van
  Bought used from the Mussros with ~90,000 miles on it. Ran great until an oil filter failure (and water in the engine - I'll have to write that one up some day). Sat in the driveway. Our 2.5 year old son, knowing the van was "broken anyway", threw a rock at it, shattering the rear window. The tornado finished it off, and we sold it at a yard sale for next to nothing, along with my XS650.
• 1988 ``sand beige'' Ford Tempo.
  Basic transportation, but a vastly improved 2.3L 4-banger compared to the bogus Mustang we had. Over 223,000 miles with no major troubles other than completely ragged-out shocks (duh), a sway bar, and a radiator, and 5 fuel pumps within the first 4 years (and a 6th around 160,000). Fortunately we bought the extended warranty, so we paid a grand total of $25 for fuel pump work. It has been hit numerous times by people who "didn't see it" or just ignored it, but it's always been repaired and still runs fine. I could understand this color being considered camoflage in the desert, but these accidents were all on tree-lined roads in Atlanta or Austin! The biggest problem (other than fuel pumps) is the sorry job of painting and windshield replacement done after the tornado damage.

Transportation Methods I Have Known

As They Came and Went

Those known by oral tradition, photos, etc.

1. 1956 Ford or Chevy coupe of some sort
2. pre-1960 Ford Fairlane
3. 1960 Ford station wagon

   Remembered, but not really mine

4. 1964 Ford station wagon
5. 195x Renault semi-doodlebug-thingie
6. 1965 Plymouth Valiant
7. 1969 Chevy Impala

   Mine, all mine!

8. Various tricycles, roller skates, a scooter, and a Radio Flyer wagon
9. A 16" used red bicycle with a skull & crossbones sticker on it.
10. An honest-to-goodness 20" red Scwhinn
11. A 26" red Schwinn with front and rear baskets.
12. A 27" racing Schwinn Continental with all sorts of trick components
13. 1971 Yamaha GT6SB/GT7S 80cc, two-stroke ``enduro'' bike.
14. A 26" J. C. Penney's 10 speed.
15. 1966 yellow Ford Econoline work van

    Ours, all ours!

16. 1966 white Ford Econoline work van
17. 1978 tan Chevy Chevette
18. 1978 black Yamaha XS650E vertical twin
19. 1979 black Ford Mustang (wannabe)
20. 1978 VW passenger van
21. 1983 red & white Honda VF750F Interceptor V4
22. 1988 ``sand beige'' Ford Tempo
23. British Racing Green Bridgestone 400 10 speed
24. 1995 really, really red Ford Windstar
25. 2001 "sand beige" Protege (who thinks up these color names?)
26. 2003 dark green Protege
27. 2001 silver Mazda MX5 Miata

    Just on loan

28. 1974 red, red, red GTO with hand-built 400
29. 1973 white Kawasaki 350 triple, two-stroke

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