Bikes and Books, Part 1: Hamlet

The two most important tools any motorcycle restorer must have:

1) a good socket set
2) a sledgehammer

I was prepared for the former, but the latter caught me by surprise.

Let me back up a bit. A few months ago I decided to restore a 1975 Honda 550/four. Like most foolish endeavors, this one has its genesis in a desperate attempt to impress a woman. My wife has a weakness for guys on bikes; I have a weakness for my wife. Put the two together and you end up with me in the (unheated) garage on a cold December afternoon trying to coax a rusty swingarm axle out of its socket.

Reasoning was to no avail, but I have three kids so I'm used to that. I tried to yank it out with a pipe wrench but it was so rusted that whenever I pulled or twisted the swing arm moved up and down as well.

After lubricating the axle with a few choice and very well-oiled words, I stopped to regroup. I'm not a mechanic. I'm not mechanical. I'm not even mechanic-ish. I'm the guy who opens the hood of the car and says, "Yup...that looks about right," nods a few times, scratches himself authoritatively, and goes back inside, forgetting to shut the hood or turn off the car. Without a manual, a clear set of operating instructions, I'm lucky to toast a piece of bread.

This must be how Hamlet feels after his father is murdered. Faced with a daunting task, a task for which he has no training and no natural inclination, he's left to fend for himself, a reluctant immigrant to the dark land of revenge. Though he's savvy enough to recognize the diseased state of this new world, he's seemingly powerless to change it. He knows he ought to avenge his father with speed and dexterity, that this is what sons do, and yet he cannot seem to stir himself out of his lethargy. This, by Elizabethan standards, is most unusual, and Hamlet himself bemoans his own unnatural response:

"How stand I then
that have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
excitements of my reason and my blood,
and let all sleep?"

And as I sat there in my garage, swearing at my motorcycle but actually doing nothing, I couldn't help but notice the uncomfortable parallels between myself and the Prince of Denmark. It would be so easy to postpone, to wait until I have just the right tools or just the right weather. But I don't want my enterprises of great pitch and moment to lose the name of action. I don't want to find myself on the stage of my life surrounded by the corpses of my supporting cast.

So I took a cue from Laertes, put a little poison on the end of my sledgehammer, and proceeded to beat the tar out of my swingarm.

"The time," I said, "The time
(WHAM!)
is out of joint. O cursed spite,
that ever I was born
(WHAM!)
to set it right."

It worked. The axle grudgingly slid from its lair and the swingarm collapsed to the ground, silent and still in defeat. I whooped and hollered until I saw all the rust, rust that I will have to clean, rust that will eat away at both my bike and my schedule.

Out, out, damned spot.