Bøger af Albert Drake

First-hand accounts of riding & racing motorcycles in the 1950s."Sometimes, on certain mornings in early fall, when there is a light fog and the air holds a hint of moisture, I can recall so clearly the sound of a single's exhaust."Thus begins this journey into memory, back to a time that has to be called the Golden Age of Motorcycles. British bikes--BSA, Triumph, AJS, Matchless, Norton, Velocette--had invaded roads and race tracks previously dominated by Harley-Davidson and Indian. In the open land surrounding cities bikers were blazing trails, making Hare and Hound courses. If there was a rule it was "run what ya brung", never mind about insurance, licenses, headlights, mufflers, crash helmets. There never was a time when so many were so free on two wheels.

"They drove in silence, the shadows already beginning to flatten, and soon the knife disappeared; the Indian sat back and sighed deeply, as if he was exhausted by simply driving. Chris suddenly found himself less worried about their being found murdered beside the road, and more concerned about the rumbling in his stomach. He dreamed of home, the cool shade of his back yard where he could be right now eating peanut butter sandwiches and reading comic books. When he left home, he had thought he would be right back, and how it looked as though he would be in Celilo tonight, hungry, fighting the cold desert wind." The short stories and poems in "Tillamook Burn" capture the mood of growing up in Portland, Oregon during and after World War II. Highly evocative, they include memories of fathers, the fading Oregon landscapes, and studies of forgotten characters of the period. Includes "The Chicken Which Became a Rat," which was included in "Best American Short Stories 1971."

Mill Sederstrom steps into a time warp when he returns from college to the small house where he grew up. But the world has changed, and Mill learns that one can't go home again-- not easily, nor completely anyway. Family pressures mount as his parents urge him to find the Big Job. He meets his younger brother, Tonto, and his gang--the "pavement dancers," a lethal group. A woman takes him to a roadhouse called "The Place," but it is not his place, the gangster who owns it tells him. The tension between brothers grows when Mill becomes involved with Tonto's girl friend. The uncomplicated life Mill had hoped for soon becomes complicated, and when serious trouble threatens he has no idea which of the several antagonists is responsible. Selected as one of the 100 books that best define the state of Oregon and its people by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, "Beyond the Pavement" is an adult novel about hot rodding and changing times. Set in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon in the '50s, Drake weaves local landmarks and historical events into a book that is both literary, and evokes the pulp fictions of the past.

"One Summer" is a semi-autobiographical novel that evokes the sights, sounds and smells of small-town Lents through the eyes of an adolescent boy growing up on the edge of 1940's Portland, Oregon. Drawing from personal experience, as well as historical events of Portland, Drake weaves the story of a teen reaching adulthood in the summer of 1948 that is simultaneously nostalgic and honest. Chris and his friends read Real Clue and Detective Comics at the Mt Scott drugstore, hang out at the movies at a time when John Garfield was starring in "They Made Me A Criminal," and listen to "I Love A Mystery" on the radio. Meanwhile, hints of the adult world intrude on Chris' idyll: the responsibility of a paper route, involvement in petty crimes with his friend Mal, and a plane crash on 92nd Street. "One Summer" taps the feeling of being young, looking for adventure, and finding it in the most surprising places.

In this collection of 46 essays, many of which were previously published in Old Cars Weekly and Goodguys Gazette, Drake examines a boy's desire to be mobile. He takes the two great themes of the 20th Century, motion and competition, motivation of the great builders of the Industrial Age, and brings it to a personal level. These essays, some memoir, some lyrical, start with the chemicals that imprinted brains -- gasoline, hydraulic brake fluid, exhaust -- and caused young men to wrap their lives around machines as surely as any drug. Next comes the Wheel: the baby carriage, the scooter, the sidewalk flyer. Before there was power there was gravity and the soap box racer, when every driver had to reinvent the Wheel. And of course, a moment that looms large for every rider: that first bicycle. There are essays analyzing reading material: anthropomorphic fables, the Motor Boys books, the comic strips, True Magazine, wartime reading fare. Some define a time period: buying a squirrel knob, painting tires white, overhauling an engine in the driveway on a weekend in order to get to work on Monday, painting a car with a brush. Some are unsentimentally frank: a boy and his father getting a 1934 Terraplane home on a winter night, the father who refuses a gift, the boy riding home on a runningboard, the group of naked high school boys who discuss the merits of new cars after a shower in the locker room. Some highlighted historical moments: a piece on a new 1941 DeSoto and a 1942 Mercury, the problem of rationing gasoline and rubber, the use of old cars as bomb shelters in case of an atomic bomb attack. Among the memoirs are essays about a family camping in 1937, traveling to North Dakota in a 1935 Packard and to California in a new 1941 Chevrolet; it is not possible to separate the machine from family history or even global events. An essay on the Fisher Body Craftsman Guild Competition, where boys were asked to build models for a scholarship, brought reality to dreams.