The BAD BOY IMAGE!

Hollywood set the bad-boy standard in the early 50s with James Dean. A young Hoosier from Fairmont, Indiana, Dean played an angst-ridden youth. Teens identified with and idolized his portrayals in “Rebel Without a Cause” and “East of Eden.” Two weeks after his third and final movie, "Giant," wrapped in 1955, Jimmy perished on a California highway. His silver-streak of Porsche could not avoid a car crossing the road. Dean’s early demise at twenty-four immortalized him as the bad-boy icon forever. ?

A decade later, the Class1965 Crawfordsville High School boys still attempted to emulate James Dean. One of my classmates came dadgum close. We will call him James Dean Jr.

He came rumbling up to the school parking lot, riding a motorcycle. I am not talking about a ring-da-ding-ding Moped. It was a full-blow bad-boy’s bike, a Triumph, I think. As James Jr. kills the throttle, we notice his tough-looking jacket has a club name stitched across the back in big gold letters. He knew he could not use the name Hell's Angels for fear of death and dismemberment. So Jim settled on the name Road Angels. James Dean Jr.'s bad-boy grandiose entrance became discredited when a classmate pointed out he had misspelled Angels. Doh! He was a boastful member of the Road Angles.

The Bad-boy image was a lost cause for this skinny little runt with big ears and a chest like a xylophone. I could never pull it off. It would be like Barney Fife pretending to be Sheriff Andy.

Oh, I tried to look cool. I even sent off for the Charles Atlas mail-order bodybuilding course. What a joke. You had to be built like an orangutan to attempt the simplest of beginner exercises. Goodbye, Mr. Atlas! Why worry about some bully kicking sand in my face? Central Indiana has no sandy beaches.

Don Carter and I got our driver's licenses at about the same time. Neither of us could afford a car, so we rode on a copper-colored Moped. That little motorbike had a centrifugal clutch that took four city blocks to reach the speed limit in town. Two guys riding double on a Moped screamed, "GEEK!" even louder when we swung wide, turning the corner at the entrance of Eastern Acres. The front wheel dropped off the edge of the fresh asphalt spilling us and our books into the ditch just as a convertible full of girls drove past. Yeah. There is no way to look like a bad boy riding a Moped

Soon after, I scraped up enough cash to buy a used Honda Dream 305cc touring bike. It was a one-owner black beauty with a square headlight. The bike was all chrome and high-gloss wax shinier than a new silver dollar. The first owner had even waxed the seat so the young lady riding on the back would have to hold on tight as she slid forward.

By today's standards, the engine sounds small. But in 1965, most of my friends were riding 90cc and 160ccs. I think Dad was prouder of my purchase than I was. Mom, on the other hand, thought we both lost our senses. Convinced that I would perish on the highway like James Dean, Mom had no spirit of adventure. She finally drew the line when I brought the bike into the house to work on it.

“Out! Out! Outside!”

To ease her concerns for my safety, I bought a helmet to protect my cranium and a bright red and white striped jacket so other drivers could see me coming. I looked like a deranged bumblebee.

Just as I was beginning to get that proud bad-boy vibe, I glanced across Delaware Street. There was Sherry on a bright red Honda 305 Scrambler. Varooom! It was a bad motorcycle. Designed for speed on and off the road, that Scrambler 305 made my street bike Honda look wimpy, wimpy, wimpy in comparison.

Alas, even Sherry, the cute young lady across Delaware Street, looked tougher than this bad-boy want-to-be.

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Story and graphics by Chuck Clore

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