Lessons on choppers learned in dentist office waiting room
It was March of 1978 and I found myself among a group of equally apprehensive patients in the waiting room of Dr. Rintrona’s dentist office.
Neon lights buzzed from above and the air smelled of peroxide. The faux leather chair made a funny noise as I slid across the seat to sift through a pile of magazines for a read that would appeal to a 12 year old.
Buried among the stack of Newsweek, People and Time magazines I discovered a singular copy of Chopper magazine.
It was a great find as I had never seen one before. I flipped through the pages filled with bright photos and gleaming homemade machines and became curious as to how they were constructed.
The men featured on the pages appeared to be in their 30’s and sported handlebar mustaches or full beards. They looked hardened—not like someone you would invite over for a dinner party.
I thought them to be modern day cowboys who rode along freely on the open road.
I was so entranced by the whole Chopper scene that I had completely forgotten that within the hour I was going to have a drill in my mouth and a cavity in my molar filled. The magazine had become a portal into another world—a world I never knew existed.
I carefully poured through each page and wished I had brought my sketch book along. But I did my best to capture each image to memory.
I tried to create a memory log of information about Fat Bob Sporty and The Shovester—a chopper built to look like a gleaming diamond. Then there was a low bobber style chopper called the Starship that was so cool I had to put every line of it into my head so I could redraw it when I got back home.
I packed a lot of imagery into my 40-minute wait. When I was ushered to the dentist’s chair, my mind was filled with cool motorcycle designs rather than the angst of being on the receiving end of a Novocaine-filled needle.
When I got back home that day I had no trouble coming up with a number of chopper designs of my own.
To this day, whenever I see a chopper, I am reminded of the great filling Dr. Rintrona gave me so many years ago.
Mitch Lee is an Adirondack illustrator & storyteller, ving in his boyhood town of Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com
