Always keep your cool !!

Today I picked up my repaired Transalp after I had an encounter with a blind (!?!) car driver and his car doing a U-ie just when I was overtaking his car, he was in line in a roadblock… Anyway, today January 3rd, the outside temp was around 1 or 2 degrees Celsius… not to bad to ride if you’re packed in well. This makes me think of a story my mom told me several times…

My parents apparently are some motorcycling pioneers over here in The Netherlands… My father and one of his brothers used to own a 98cc motorcycle and later (after ’56-’57) these two brothers both owned a identical 350cc Jawa. Proudly my mom tells me: “Theirs did 49 km’s a liter of gasoline, ours did 50"The tradition is that on January 1st you visit your family and in laws to bring them your New Year whishes in person. It must have been January 1st 1955, I guess, my parents were dating at that time and my father came to pick-up my mother at her parents where she was living still. He came to pick her up to go to his parents… on a 98cc motorcycle. The last days and the last night it had been snowing so the streets and road were very slippery. Not a lot of people had enough money to buy a car and especially these days, with the snow, people used the public transportation. On the corner of a street there was a bus stop, totally packed!! My parents came to that corner on their bike and the only thing my father said to my mother was: “Whatever happens, don’t scream or yell.” My mother proudly tells me: “I didn’t yell”

So my father in these days already understood that:

Whatever happens; always keep your cool!

(On thisone I see wedding rings so this picture must been taken after January 4th, 1958, in front of my grantparents house - mom's parents)