Travels with Lance Johnson

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From Montpelier France to Paris to New York to two of us with the same name on one flight to the Great Smoky Mountains to our lucky day when getting arrested in Nashville.

Travel by Plane or Bike with Lance is Never Boring

He was one of those Amerigringos who, sweet, good person that he was, thinks that if they don't understand, you just say it louder, in English. I'm an different sort of traveler, who prefers to remain less distinguishable in the background - which was hard to do in Japan, but it's easier in France if you don't talk.

But Lance is nothing if not resilient, resourceful, and a fun traveling companion.

On our first night in Montpelier, France, we arrive at 4 AM, jet lagged and starving. We walk out into the warm autumn air, head for a street where we see lights. Everything is shut down except for the Love Pub - which promises to be a restaurant as well, so we go in.

We've just gotten off a jet, checked into a hotel, and wandered outside, but already we've had several preliminary adventures which I'll save for elaboration.

I speak a few words of French, and read a few, and could pick it up but not fresh off the jet. We get menus. There is not another living customer in the place, and I doubt they were holding any dead ones propped up at any tables as shills, but there's considerable discussion about where we will sit. The Love Pub is kept open by a waiter and the chef. There is no one else. Fortunately.

We look over the menu and stumble and point (I'm still nervous about my French having been considered, in Paris, degourasse) and whatever we select, they're out of it - which should be no surprise at 4:AM.

Finally we score a hit, and we order....Lapin - which is a word I don't know - go ahead and grin you bastards - and we get Lapin, which sounds exotic and tastes vaguely like chicken and veal, with some ugly but tasty brown gravy, but, you see, we can tell from the skeleton, bony ribs visible in the carcass on our platter, that this is no animal we've ever seen before - perhaps it's a mara. Couldn't have been, I didn't hear about maras until later, up north of Toronto. In the zoo.

We eat the lapin, drink wine, eat all the bread - French bread with the capital F deserved, and the waiter and chef watch from across the room. Lance has something stuck between his teeth - a bit of Lapin, which I know enough to pronounce lapanne, even if I have no idea what we're eating.

He says, "I need a toothpick!" We don't see any on the table, and I suspect toothpicking might not be a big feature in the culture of French haute cuisine au lapin. But Lance is really suffering and getting fidgety.

"Do you want me to ask them for a toothpick?" "No." "Well what then? You don't even know how to say 'please'" (I don't know the word for toothpick, but I could get around it with une petite chose comme fait du bois que on' s'utilisez entre les dents pour .... or some such) Lance says "No I'll just go and ask them, I can do it" He's a big man, and full of confidence, and of lapin and it's 5AM and we're jet lagged and there's no one around, so I let him loose..

He saunters, yes saunters, he's a big guy, over to where the waiter is, in fact, waiting, or more lounging, tipped, very thin and angular, against the jamb of a large window into the kitchen. Chatting, waiter with chef, the two of them watch Lapinned Lance hop-lope over to the window.

"Toothpick" he says, as if they might be mind readers. "I need a TOOTHPICK!" They both turn blank stares towards Lances unpicked teeth as he bares them in a dog-grin, lips curled impossibly back to near his ears, at the chef and cups his fingers together, thumb touching ends of the rest of his fingers in what I suspect is a remarkably French gesture for an americanigringo.

"Quoi?" I am close enough to follow both the questions of the French crew and Lance's louder attempts to communicate. "I need a TOOTHPICK, I HAVE SOMETHING STUCK BETWEEN MY TEETH" Lance repeats, louder now, and he gives that grimacing dog grin, showing a lot of teeth - they might have in fact seen the lapin if they'd just looked closely instead of leaning over backwards to get away from Lance's forward-slanted upper body as he groans "Mmmmmph, moooopyhhergu gurgle" as he gestures towards his mouth with his francophiled hand movements.

In French, of course, the waiter asks the chef "what the hell do you suppose he wants?"

The chef has taken a step back from the window where things are getting a bit loud. "I don't know, but he certainly seems to be in distress" "Well what are we going to do?"

The chef, long accustomed to solving with food that which carpenters solve with a hammer and nails, thinks for a moment, . but before he can reply there's another outburst, still louder, ".

HEEEY, TOOOOTHPIIIIICCCKKK, CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND? I NEED A TOOOTHPIIICKKK!"

Ummph mmmpght.

Lance is getting a bit red now as he makes a tooth picking motion with his hand, his fingers bunched together poking desperately at the side of his jaw.

"Merde!" says the waiter, "give him another basket of bread."

The chef turns, picks up a full bread basket and passes it through the window to the waiter who proffers it to Lance.

Lance stops dead. Frozen for the most brief moment, and today, twenty years later I can still see the montage.

White-uniformed chef, eyebrows raised, peering from under his chef's hat, out of his bright kitchen at Lance, the waiter, black pants, white shirt, no tie, skinny, a shadow of beard cropping out of his late hours of work, the two of them wondering how to help this crazy American, and Lance, French toothpicking-hand-gesture in mid-air, frozen in front of his bared teeth, as he leans forward towards the two Frenchmen.

Slowly he lowers his hand, the one with the thumb on fingertips, and reaches for the bread basket.

My friend is silent as he takes the baguette. Lance turns and walks back to our table where, thankfully, the lights are less bright than at the kitchen window. My motorcycle buddy cannot see the tears in my eyes.

Johnson, country boy, Northern Maine, his mom is named Goldie, Lance, a Down'easter, IBM third-line manager, comes to France to meet with lab directors and computer whizzes, far from the best potatoes in America. But there's no toothpicks in Montpelier.

He places the bread basket on our table as he sits back in his place, picking up his napkin from the floor as he lowers himself into his seat. Every move is slow motion. He reaches forward, takes a piece of bread, breaks it, places a portion in his mouth with that special and new French hand position, and begins to chew.

Sotto voce, I whisper," Lance, what the bejeezus are you doing?"

He looks at me with that little grin he gets: "Hell, Dan, You gotta take what they give you."

Our Lucky Lucky Day in Nashville, Tennessee

You wouldn't think that finding ourselves in handcuffs, surrounded by angry police, would be a part of good luck, but it was.

I'm Riding my BMW Airhead and Lance is on my old 850 Norton Commando. My friend is a Harley rider at heart. Don't fix anything just ride it til it drops.

One morning Lance is falling further behind. I turn around and ride back to hear him sputtering along on just one of the Norton's two cylinders. On the old Norton the spring on the left side ignition points has broken. Not a surprise considering the age of the bike.

Look at that long thin U-shaped spring and imagine how it snapped right in two at the apex of the U. That's not something you can repair in the field.

Lucky moment number one: the Norton 850 Commando is a two-cylinder motorcycle, each with its own set of ignition points. So if one of them breaks you've still got one cylinder, and in fact the bike will actually run enough that you can keep going, albeit a bit slowly.

Lucky moment number two: We limp into Nashville, Lance on one cylinder, and are amazed to hear that there's a Norton dealer in town - and not far. What amazing luck. I mean there couldn't have been ten Norton dealers left in the whole of North America!

But the dealer's closed and notes stuck on his door make clear he's not been there in weeks. Across the street the burger shack cook tells us "Yeah nobody's been there in months" - we're desperate. Stupidly within earshot of the cook we discuss the temptation to help ourselves to a much needed part.

Lucky moment number three: In a chain link fenced area up against the Norton shop is a pile of busted old motorcycles, and there on its side is a Norton! We can see the points cover. What luck!

Geez. A screwdriver and one minute and we could "borrow" a set of used points and get back on the road, leaving some cash in an envelope for the owner. As the skinnier one I slither under the fence and start to remove the points cover.

But Burger cook has called the cops. "Hey George!" He tells his cop pal, "There's a coupla yankee motorcycle gangsters busting into the Norton Dealership!" Sirens shriek, lights flash, and we're up against the cop car. (Whatall yall, a cupla newyork queeahs stealing shit?") We get arrested for breaking and entering - all we needed was a set of points.

The cops and the handcuffs didn't feel very lucky.

Lucky moment number four: But by god the Norton dealer himself shows up! Probably the cops had called him so that he could check to see if we'd stolen anything else. But as a fellow biker, the owner takes pity, shoos off George and Fred who grumble as they take off our handcuffs, then brings us inside to sell us a brand new set of points for the left side of the bike.

"Hey Lance, let's get a replacement for the right side, too" I beg. He does.

Lucky moment number five: Not two hours later on down the highway Lance and the Norton are falling behind again. Puffing on just one cylinder ... again. This time it's the right side. But this time, by luck, we had a spare set of ignition points right in Lance's pocket!

And we're already experienced in changing ignition points, having practices on the Norton's left side. I've got this! he says and crouches by the Norton's right side to remove the ignition set cover.

Eight minutes and we're rolling again, on to our campsite (where three bears were just waiting for us).

Notice that nice clear fairing? My pal returned it to the dealer for a refund after our trip, complaining that it didn't keep us out of trouble.

By the way you can still buy a Lucas Points Set for older Norton, Triumph, or BSA motorcycles; we found the pair shown above at the Eurotrash website https://www.eurojamb.com/, though the price has gone up a bit. Replacements are also made by Daiichi Manufacturing. Are you listening Lance?

Cute Baby Bears in the Smokies

Now in the Smoky Mountains, Lance disappear for a day while I set up camp. Darkness is falling when he comes back.

"Lance, where were you for so long?"

Lance explains his shopping trip: a story about how he ran out of gas, was picked up by a woman in - of course - a pickup truck for an afternoon of sex; I'm impressed, but darn if he doesn't then admit that it was all made up. He really went shopping for bacon for our breakfast. Bacon? Ought we to hang up our food?

Back at the campsite we're in our tent ready to sleep when we're invaded by a mamma and two baby bears. Lance really really wanted that bacon for or breakfast.

But the babies wanted bacon too, and they wanted it now! There was a lot of growling and shouting that echoed across the campground. Bears! Bacon! Banging pots and pans!

Quickly the other dampers gathered behind the latrine stockade fence and shined their flashlights into our site as, after banging pots and pans caused only a growly sort of bear laughter.

Outside we could see the bears tearing up everything they could find.

Lance has an idea: "I know, they're afraid of dogs!" Dressed in white long johns and white T-shirt, ghost-dog Lance crawls half out of our tent and there, on his hands and knees, begins to bark, yip, and howl in his best dog imitation. Baby bears don't like dogs, especially not white ones screaming and making a fuss.

But they didn't run away like they should have. Instead they climbed up the tree in the center of our campsite and called on their mama to rescue them from the big white dog.

Mamma bear came stomping over to handle the man-dog.

Coward as I was I crept out under the back of our tent, slithered around to my Beemer, started the motor, revved the engine and blew the horn repeatedly, drowning out barking Lance and making a helluva racket.

Mamma called her babies down and the three of them, one baby carrying Lance's bacon in her mouth, they ambled off into thicker woods to enjoy their porky snack.

Our pots and pans were ruined.

Why Were there Two Lance Johnson's on the Flight from Paris to New York?

In the Paris airport Lance wanted to handle our check-in, ticketing, and so on. He holds the tickets (against my better judgment) and at the last minute, at the gate, he says "OMG I lost my ticket".

In a flurry they hold the flight and he runs back to the counter to buy another ticket (IBM expense account?). We start again through the gate and Lance hands me what's supposed to be my ticket. He steps ahead, presents his ticket and walks through. Then my turn comes and the agent pauses: "Your ticket says Lance Johnson!" She exclaims. (He's lost my ticket, not his, and then bought a second ticket in his name.) Frantic, I push through the gate explaining "Yeah, there's two of us!" and we're the last two to board the plane.

Lance wanted to handle the rental car return. As our plane took off with the two Lance Johnsons the real one confessed to the impostor:

"I couldn't find the rental car return place at the Paris airport."

Uh oh. "What did you do with the car, Lance?"

Nonplussed he grins

"I left it parked under an Avis Car Rental billboard I saw along the highway. They'll find it there. The keys are under the seat."

Then there was the car park ticket lost at hotel in Montpelier, big fracas at checkout. Or at Montpelier where we enjoyed a trip to the beach and Lance wanted to get closer to the beautiful topless women bathers so he borrowed a surfboard. (He doesn't know how to surf). Lance cut his hand, got blood all over the bathroom wall back in our hotel. They thought we'd murdered someone.

We won't discuss Doreen Tignanelli at IBM.

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