TGW

In 1982, while riding through Calgary, after working in lake Louise, I was passing by a Yamaha dealership. I was riding my bought new in Edmonton, 1981 650 Maxim when I spotted the brand new shiny black 750 Seca sitting on a small concrete pad used to showcase certain bikes. The Seca sported a red strip on either side of its cafe styled tank. It had just finished raining lightly, and water drops shimmered along its surfaced. I slowed down as quick as I could but had to drive up ahead to the nearest intersection and pull a U'ye. I stopped along side of what I thought was probably the most beautiful bike I had ever encountered over my 22 years of young life. Within 40 minutes, and after having traded in my 1 year old Maxim and writing a check for the difference (which I think was around a $1000), I sat upon my beautiful new XJ750 Seca and drove down the road to highway 2. Over the next three hours, I was the proudest and happiest I've ever been (marriage and children the only exemption)! I sold that bike only a year later, through tears, to help pay my way through college, it was in mint shape, of course. Not a scratch on it. Although I had managed to put nearly 8000 miles on the odometer! I never road again. Until last year when I found a 1982 Yamaha Seca 750, nearly perfect but repainted in a copper color. It had 38,000 kilometres on it but looked beautiful and sounded beautiful - just as I remembered it sounding - with a whirring, winding clatter. Coincidently, the bike was for sale in Calgary, where I first laid eyes and then acquired my first Seca. I drove to Calgary, paid exactly what I had sold my bike for, three decades earlier, and drove away, again down Hwy 2, in bliss. I will never sell it.