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A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.

On a motorcycle I know I'm alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of that fall through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than Pana-Vision and than IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard. Sometimes I even hear music. It's like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind's roar. But on a motorcycle I hear whole songs: rock 'n roll, dark orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed. At 30 miles per hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree- smells and flower- smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it's as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane.

Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy.

Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep, sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride.

Author Unknown

North Carolina Motorcycle Eductation Foundation

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ALAMANCE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Graham, NC - Carol Pettigrew -
(336) 506-4149

BLUE RIDGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Flat Rock, NC - Martha Sneed -
(828) 694-1743

CALDWELL COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Hudson, NC - Penny Whisnant -
(828) 726-2242

CAPE FEAR COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Wilmington, NC - Debbie Fauson -
(910) 362-7175

CATAWBA VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Hickory, NC - Louise Garrison -
(828) 327-7000 Ext. 4326
lgarrison@cvcc.edu
or Cathy Buchanan - (828) 327-7037
cbuchana@cvcc.edu

CENTRAL CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Sanford, NC - Landis Phillips -
(919) 776-5601

CENTRAL PIEDMONT COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Charlotte, NC -(704)330-4223

COASTAL CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Jacksonville, NC - Steve Forney -
(910) 938-6294

COLLEGE OF THE ALBEMARLE
Elizabeth City, NC -
(252) 335-0821 Ext. 2250

CRAVEN COMMUNITY COLLEGE
New Bern, NC - Charlene White -
(252) 638- 7361

DAVIDSON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Lexington, NC - Dwight Freeman -
(336) 249-8186 Ext. 361

DURHAM TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Durham, NC - Jim McDaniel -
(919) 686-3532

FAYETTEVILLE TECHNICAL
COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Fayetteville, NC -
(910) 678-8279 Registration
(910) 678-8309 Info.

FORSYTH TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Winston-Salem, NC -
(336) 761-1002

GASTON COLLEGE
Dallas, NC - Melissa Fox -
(704) 922-6251 or (704) 922-6250

GUILFORD TECHNICAL
COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Jamestown, NC -
Shrell Lindsay
(336) 454-1126 Ext. 4114

HALIFAX COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Weldon, NC - Lyndel Williams -
(252) 536-7273

JOHNSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Smithfield, NC - Kim Gamblin -
(919) 209-2034

LENOIR COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Kinston, NC - Evan Duff -
(252) 527-6223 Ext. 713

MCDOWELL TECHNICAL COMMUNITY
COLLEGE - Marion, NC - Brad Ledbetter -
(828) 652-0674

MITCHELL COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Statesville, NC - Diane Pritchard or
Cabanna Pierce - (704) 878-4266

NASH COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Rocky Mount, NC - Claudia Bowden -
(252) 443-4011

RANDOLPH COMMUNITY COLLEGE -
ASHEBORO -Asheboro, NC -
Mary Sampson - (336) 633-0216

RANDOLPH COMMUNITY COLLEGE-
ARCHDALE - Archdale, NC -
Carol Nunn or Clara Barracato -
(336) 862-7980
hcnunn@randolph.cc.nc.us
cabaracato@randolph.cc.nc.us

ROBESON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Lumberton, NC - Jennifer Lowery -
(910) 618-5680 Ext. 133

ROCKINGHAM COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Wentworth, NC - George Ferguson -
(336) 342-4261 Ext. 2154

ROWAN-CABARRUS COMMUNITY
COLLEGE - Salisbury, NC -
Kaye Parks - (704) 788-3197 Ext. 241

SOUTH PIEDMONT COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Wadesboro, NC - Sandy Huntley -
(704) 694-6505

SOUTHWESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Franklin, NC - Susan C. McCaskill -
(828) 369-0591

SURRY COMMUNITY COLLEGE -
Dobson, NC - Greg Smith -
(336) 386-3331
smith@surry.cc.nc.us

VANCE-GRANVILLE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Henderson, NC - Donna Dodson -
(252) 492-2061 Ext. 316

WAKE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Raleigh, NC Kathy Butler - (919) 662-3449

WILSON TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Wilson - Barbara Boyette - (252) 246-1195 Ext. 340

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