Twenty-five years ago Mendelson Joe gave me a guitar, a Guild. It was small, he said it would be perfect for me, it has been. I didn’t have any interest in motorcycles but a couple times he told me I would fly if I wanted to try it, because I was small. After he moved to Howland street (where his return address was The Howland Institute for The Arts, he kept the Kawasaki in the kitchen. He told me lots about motorcycles, and motorcycle magazines and gossiped about motorcycle people like Rush’s drummer who seemed a bit twisted. I don’t doubt advocating for Ayn Rand might negatively correlate with one’s mental health. Joe said motorcyclists are in less accidents than other drivers, “Do you know why that is Bob? Why is that, Joe? Because drivers of cars can get in more accidents, one accident for us is often death.” Made sense. When I moved to the country he worried about me frequently being on the highway. He sent reflective velcro strips for my rear bumper and a label-maker-stick-on sign for my steering column C-O-N-C-E-N-T-R-A-T-E. This type of friend was like a brother, uncle, dad. Unexpectedly, one day he gave up the motorcycle. I asked why. He said he was getting onto the 401 highway and forgot to shoulder-check. It was as though he made the decision years earlier, if he ever made a life threatening error, he quits. He liked living with those kinds of lines in the sand or maybe making lines in the sand are what helped him live. I liked where he lived in the 80s on Ossington because it was next to a tyre store and there was a large Michelin sign with their icon, a tyre bodied bald man with glasses. He was very strict about a lot of things. When you went over to his house, especially the first time, within a second or two of the door, he would point your attention to the hand painted sign by the shoes. RULES OF THE HOUSE #1: Touch No Art. #2: See Rule #1.