Old Blastard: C-3 Boy is a harbinger of coming ride

So I'm walking the dog at too-dark:30 this morning, looking at the clouds keeping the stars at bay, feeling the moist and chilly wind on my graying whiskers and thinking that, maybe, I'd see if my 2004 Rockorolla might get a little sudden acceleration syndrome on the way to work.

Of course, I'm talking like an old guy, a freshly-minted 52-year-old, whose apparently ready for his rocking chair. I seem to have gotten over that desire to ride when it's cold and now, I think, I've gotten over my desire to ride when its chilly. How long, I worry, will it be before I get over the desire to ride?

I'm whining to the dog. I'm stewing. I'm fretting. And then I hear the unmistakable sound of a 49-cc engine winding up hill and I see the little light hang a right and there he is: C-3 Boy.

C-3 Boy has for the past three years served as my harbinger of days to ride. When I'm whining and ready to wimp out, C-3 Boy rides by and tells me that 32-degrees is not so cold, especially when I have the gear and he doesn't. When it's too hot, C-3 Boy rides by telling me to quit whining and break out the mesh pullover.

You've probably seen a Yamaha C-3. It's a popular little scooter that looks a lot like a motorized Igloo lunch box, you know the square Thermos-like plastic boxes that you keep a six-pack in when you go tubing down the James River.

Yeah, I thought you'd know what that looked like.

Anyway, the C-3 is solid little beer cooler on wheels and very popular among the scooter crowd who aren't too young to drive or too drunk to keep a license. C-3 Boy is a guy in my neighborhood who, for the past few years, has ridden his little motor to work, passing my house, my dog and myself every weekday around 6:15 a.m. I can't necessarily set my clock by him, but I can decide to ride when I see him.

He's not a crazy git, like R.P. R.P will ride simply because he can't take not riding anymore. While that's admirable and not unlike myself 15 years ago, I've gotten older and the idea of slamming these old, brittle bones down on the pavement doesn't intrigue me like it once did. So, when C-3 Boy put the lunch box up during the snowstorms and icy melt off of the past few months, I gladly joined him.

My problem is that I get used to driving the 'rolla, what with its stereo playing Greg Allen's "It's Time that Time was Overcome" CD or the iPod blasting out "Long Live Rock" by John Entwhistle, Keith Moon and those other two guys. It's comfy. It's got music. It's got a heater.

I love the Blast and I love the cold wind sneaking in between my FirstGear and my skin, freezing a small little dot of neck like a small hole in a space shuttle heat tile. I actually do love that, but not like I used to. So I've gotten lazy. I was happily lazy with all the snow, twice getting quick rides in the days before the snows hit.  But constant cold and the threat of ice made me lazy at the end of February. The weather got better and the icy runoff a little more sparse and I heard the buzzing whine of C-3 Boy as the dog did its business.

It was time to ride again.

So, for the past week or so, I've been on the Blast and having one, making my way to work and to the courts and to where ever I need to go. Yesterday, in the rain and protected by my Waste Management-approved, high-viz yellow Vest and waterproof FirstGear and Tourmasters, I rode quite happily even as the temp dropped. It's a hoot. I had forgotten how much fun it is to have people stare at you like you're nuts when you pull up next to them in their cars while the rain pours down.

You can't help but feel superior.

And, since I can't feel superior if I don't ride, I owe a small debt of gratitude to the man on the scooter scooting by in the morning.

Thank you, C-3 Boy, you're humble and lovable and a good influence.

Now, if we can just get you on a real motorcycle......