Notes from Maine - 2021/08/15

When we were kids, we were allowed to ride the minibike out back at my grandparents’ house. They had a big field out behind the barn. The interior of the pasture was grown up with weeds, but it had an oval track around the perimeter and a big corridor down the middle. My sister and I would take turns on the minibike. When we turned twelve, we were finally allowed to ride “Killer,” the motorcycle. 

One summer I came to my grandparents’ house without the rest of my immediate family. I was ten years old, so I was only allowed to ride the minibike. There was a ton of gas in the milk shed and nobody else to share the minibike with. If I wanted to, I could ride in circles around the back pasture all day long. On sunny days, I would more likely be down at the lake. On rainy days, I would kick around inside or explore the barn. It was the overcast days when I would take the minibike out back and see how fast I could go before I lost my nerve.

Pointed towards the barn, I stopped in the middle of the wide corridor. The minibike stalled because I didn’t give it enough gas. The year before, the engine idle had been set too high and the clutch had worn out. When my father replaced the shoes in the friction clutch, he turned down the idle at the same time. Because of that, you had to keep the throttle slightly engaged to keep the engine running.

For a moment, I sat on the minibike, looking up at the gray sky. Back then we had this thing called “boredom.” You might remember it. It was later replaced by cellphones.

I don’t think I panicked when I felt the first sting. The minibike had a blisteringly hot muffler that would sometimes bite a careless leg. I jerked away from the pain, but I didn’t panic. The next dozen stings happened so quickly that I hadn’t even registered the buzzing sound. Just before stopping the minibike, I had rolled over a Yellow Jacket nest, and they swarmed out to attack. 

By that point in my life, I was well aware of beestings. This was different. Yellow Jackets don’t die after they sting. Their stinger is not barbed, so they’re free to pull it out and drive it in again and again until they’re out of venom. In that first second, they got me dozens of times. I didn’t know what to do. The barn was too far away. I pulled on the handle to start the minibike and it ripped through my fingers. I tried again before I started pushing.

I still remember every second of this. I stopped after pushing the minibike about ten feet and waved my arms frantically around my head to try to get them to stop stinging my face. Somehow, on the next pull the minibike started and I streaked back to the barn, ditched the minibike, and ran through the shed into the house.

My grandmother was sitting in her arm chair, reading a book. 

I stood in front of her, sobbing and unable to form words.

She asked me what was wrong and a Yellow Jacket freed itself from my curly hair and flew across the room. I shrieked and dropped right back into panic, swinging my arms around randomly. Eventually, she figured out what was wrong. Upstairs, she dabbed each of the welts with a cotton ball dipped in Calamine lotion. I heard her whispering as she counted the stings on my back. She got to forty before she stopped. 

Later, I overheard my grandparents talking. My grandfather blamed my hysteria on the movie “The Bees” which had come out the year before. My grandmother commented something about what a sensitive kid I was. The next day, my grandfather handed me a broom and he carried a can of gas. He found the nest, poured gas on it, and set it ablaze. At least I assume that’s what happened. As soon as I saw the first Yellow Jacket, I was running back to the house with the broom still in my hand. The broom was intended to be used in case the fire started to spread. In that moment, I didn’t care if the entire state burned to the ground. 

During a commercial break of Merv, a few days later, he told me that he had run over a bees nest with a lawnmower one time and it didn’t bother him at all. A passing neighbor said, “Say, Dick, I think you’ve hit a nest there.” According to him, he just smiled, waved, and kept mowing.

I’m not sure what I was supposed to learn from that.

When I’m talking to my nephew, I try to remember the Yellow Jackets. Things that don’t bother me at all might be very real and very painful to him. I hope that I’m doing better than my grandparents at honoring his experiences. The process of getting over things, over and over, makes it too easy to dismiss the pain of others. Then again, the world is a hard place and eventually we need to learn to stand strong despite the difficulties. 

I guess the real takeaway to this story is this—minibikes are essentially boring. Sometimes they can be extremely exciting but in the wrong way.