The motorcycle’s wheelbase was too long for the elevator, so my roommate and I heaved the front wheel into the air and stood the bike in a corner. One of us pressed ‘7.’

Just as the doors were closing here came the building super at a not-too-dignified trot, shouting, “Stop! You can’t…!” Door closure kept the rest of his words from us. Up we went.

After some administrative delay, we were summoned into the presence of higher management and not invited to sit. We were “in the dock.”

The expected lecture followed, finishing with an exhortation to behave always as gentlemen to those who serve us.

“I am told by Mr. Greene that you slammed the elevator doors in his face. For that you must apologize.”

My roommate Charles seamlessly adopted identical tone and formality of speech. “Sir,” he said, “I am obliged to remind you that the elevator doors are electrically driven and close at only one speed – that which is designed into them by the manufacturer. They cannot slam. They can only close.”

Sherry was not served.



Another motorcyclist friend and student had begun with a Harley 165 cc "Hummer.” Next to his desk (on which he wrote Soc Rel papers) was a Gunk tank for cleaning parts. In the corner next to the tank stood a pair of header pipes and megaphones for his second motorcycle, a sporty Honda 125 Benly twin.

One night as the friend was sleeping he was startled awake by a sudden smell. The rubber drain line on the bottom of the tank had swelled from solvent exposure until it ruptured, allowing a puddle of the famously smelly parts-cleaning fluid to form.

As he told this story there was another listener besides myself—a music student on a tuba scholarship. He picked up one of the Benly pipes and looked it over. Then he disappeared to his room and shortly returned—with a tuba mouthpiece. Improvising a joint between exhaust pipe and mouthpiece, he experimented. This could be done easily as the header pipe was sized for a 62 cc cylinder—about an inch.

His face lit up as he found he could play notes.

“Come with me,” he commanded. Once arrived in his room he searched out a “Music Minus One” recording for practicing a Bach horn concerto. He put it on his turntable and it began to play, with himself supplying the horn solo on the Benly pipe. Not all the notes were possible, but the overall effect was tremendous in so small a room—followed by his unforgettable short lecture on historic valveless horns and trumpets. He was enjoying himself.

A third motorcycle later appeared—a 1950s Triumph 500 twin with a great long stroke and designer Edward Turner’s middle finger to common sense, the spring hub. Since it had almost no travel and no damping, what could be reason for its existence? It was a way to provide a small degree of rear suspension with essentially no changes to the existing chassis—just as his 1936 Triumph Speed Twin engine was made to fit into the frame of an existing single-cylinder model.

I was expected to time the magneto on this classic. I followed the steps outlined in “Modern Motorcycle Mechanics,” by Nicholson (no philosophical overtones). Prepare a spoke by filing notches into it, spaced 1/16 inch apart, by use of a triangular file. I prepared this special tool. Removing a spark plug, I inserted the tool as near vertically as possible, then backed up the crank until the piston was at top dead center. I found a notch that lined up with a particular plug thread and backed the engine up until the piston and spoke had descended five marks—5/16 of an inch. This was the firing point. The rest was just arranging that the strip of cigarette package cellophane, placed between the closed circuit-breaker contacts in the magneto, should just come free at that point.

Without involvement from the Philosophy Department, the resulting satisfactory engine performance showed that the book contained truth.