Scooterin' with the Amish

by Grace Delcano

Grace Delcano spent way too much time in central Illinois. She remains the avatar (or is it avatrix?) of Champaign's Porridge o' Hate Scooter Club, even a year after moving to Chicago. Grace is also the west side's leading asuang authority.

Rockome Garden's first annual motorcycle/scooter show was Sunday, June 18 in Arcola, IL and attended by Dave, Chris & myself from Porridge o' Hate SC and Ryan from Second to Last SC. Some old guy showed up with a 1961 50 Special on the back of his truck, but the rest of the scooters were Shriner-ed up Cushmans. God love 'em, they're crazier about their scooters than we are.

There were 91 assorted bikes & scooters, and it wasn't overrun with new Harleys, so that was cool, too. There were not too many vintage cycles, but there were some insane enormous Goldwings (cruise control, climate control, stereo systems, with sidecars better furnished than some studio apartments), along with an GI-Joe-lookin' all-terrain Harley that oddly enough drove around all the puddles on the parade route. I won the "furthest ridden" trophy for riding 200+ miles from Chicago on a 1963 Pinasco-kitted Vespa GL. People kept coming up to me all day long, saying "I heard you rode all the way from Chicago," when their eyes were really saying, "You are one fucking loon".

Other awards:
Best Scooter - Old guy with backfiring Cushman Eagle (light on the flags & badges)
Oldest Scooter - Old guy with a lawnmower engine shoved in a pedal bike frame (1937?), organizers need to rethink what they define as a "scooter".
Best Motorcycle - Who cares? Just kidding. Really, I am.

Rockome Gardens, an Amish theme park, is fun in that retro-cheese sorta way. It's kinda hard to describe. You can, among other things: admire fences, arches, birdhouses, fountains, etc. that look like some guy just discovered mortar and went wild sticking rocks & shells in it; watch a big bale of hay get turned into little bales of hay, make your own jump rope, admire the house made of Fresca bottles, buy a slice of a tree cut by the horse-powered buzz saw and have your name woodburned into it, go on a buggy ride, have some ice cream & funnel cake, shop for Amish quilts/furniture/apple butter, and see the haunted cave. You can't pet Teddy Bear the miniature horse because he bites... and stuff. Look out for the animals in the petting zoo. Dave got bit by an emu & Rye got bit by a goat.

Scooters, motorcycles, and small animals with issues.
You can't beat that for fun on a Sunday.



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