I have never known my dad to be much of a bettin’ man. He is simply too fiscally conservative to spend his money on games of chance. More to the point, he’s a tightwad. But there was this one time when he bet the Methodist preacher that his motorcycle would start on the first kick. This was a bet I had seen him make before, and he had won every time.

Dad’s motorcycle was a 1971 three-cylinder, two-stroke Kawasaki 500. This was a much-ballyhooed bike from the motorcycle racing circuit. Several of Dad’s friends had checked it out and concluded, “This is a bike that could hurt you.” Coming off a motorcycle accident earlier in his life on another bike that had left him with a broken kneecap and that could have been much worse, my dad needed to hear those words. Though I...

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