A Pine Crik Hollow Home
Former Pine Creek resident David Charles Kirby, the son of Roy and Eva Buck Kirby, recalls his life and times growing up in a remote Pine Creek hollow and in Calhoun County.
He attended a one-room school taught by his mother and graduated from Calhoun High School in 1954, with a BS degree in agricultural engineering from WVU (1959).
Professionally he is a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator and Professional Engineer in WV, OH, and PA, having worked 22 years as Loss Prevention Engineer with Factory Mutual Engineering; 20 Years as Process Safety Engineer with Union Carbide in South Charleston; 12 years a Sr. Principal Engineer with Baker Engineering & Risk Consultants of San Antonio, TX.
He is married to the former Betty Estep of Mt. Zion, their children, sons, Dr. Kris N. Kirby, professor at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts; and Gregory D. Kirby, of Parkersburg, Safety Engineer at Cytec, Willow Island, WV.
Kirby's recollections reflect life from the Great Depression to the fabulous 1960s, earlier tales can be found under People, Humor and History.
Motorcycle Stories (Part 5)
Other Peoples Stories - I solicited comments from Kris and Greg, my two sons. I got them involved in dirt bike riding at an early age. It is much simpler to just cut and paste from Gregâs emails (augmented by Krisâs).
Gregâs Input - So that means that Kris would have been 12, going on 13, for the "Wheelie" incident. I, too, was an eye witness to the "Wheelie" incident. It was as he was heading back to the house, and was just below the crib. It would technically meet the definition of a wheelie, if the definition of a wheelie was "the brief instant immediately following front wheel separation from a bike in level flight." It was quickly followed by denial, acceptance, and then anger.
Every instance of towing ended tragically. So I learned a few things. I quickly learned that you ALWAYS want to be in front, but Dad had already learned those years before so I didn't get to pick. I learned that when you came up to a rose bush, Dad would carefully pick his way through, and then once safely clear, he would gun it and drag you through like you were being pulled through a cheese slicer. And, I learned that a bike being towed through the mud, if you front tire gets sliding either way, the bike gets pulled over in the other direction towards the rope. Surprisingly, once a dropped bike gets sliding in the mud, it puts up only slightly more resistance than a bike rolling through the mud. So the Tow-er (Dad), aside from a brief tug on the rope, doesn't necessarily realize that anything has gone wrong. So the Tow-ee (Me) can muster up a frantic "Whoa!â but the Tow-er (Dad), having throttled up for the unexpected increased resistance, only hears "Go!â And let's not forget Pat Ferrell getting a broken headlight from the tow hook.
I remember watching Pat Ferrell happily riding along ahead of me on a trail up on a ridge. I think he started through a place where it was hard to see the ground (maybe in mud or grass) and there was a smooth log just slightly off parallel with his front wheel. His wheel hit it and was shunted to the side, and he went down instantly, and his head hit the ground pretty hard. Even with a helmet on he was knocked silly for a while, and didn't seem to remember who he was. Anyone else remember that? I'm sure he doesn't. Another thing I remember about Pat is that he and his bike always looked better at the beginning of a ride than at the end. I don't remember that he was particularly unskilled, maybe some hand/eye (and elbow/knee) coordination issues, but mainly it seemed more like a curse of some sort. His bike could have been the title character of a Stephen King novel. I can't imagine that he would have enjoyed it much, and then one day he just quit coming.
Mike Ferrellâs Input - My first motorcycle was an old electric start 125cc Yamaha that Dave found for me in Charleston. We put some gas in it and Dave took me out to a very gentle slope to see if I could climb it and come back down in one piece. I wound the bike up as tight as it would rev and hit the slope in good shape. I got about a third of the way up the slope and the bike stopped running on me and started rolling back down and I bailed off the seat. Lesson number one learned-always open the fuel valve on the tank before climbing any hills.
I traded the 125 for a 185 Suzuki which was an improvement on my part but was still pretty anemic for the type of riding Dave was doing. My general approach was to sit out of the way at the foot of any of the really dangerous big climbs and watch Dave conquer the summit.
My next bike was a 360 Bultaco Alpena and it was not able to mount an all-out cavalry charge to reach the summit of most hills. The Bul pulled like a farm tractor while Daveâs 250 Yamaha ran like a gazelle.
Bultaco made its mark in the motorcycle market with trial bikes. Trials riding is a completely different type or riding that requires very slow and precise riding over impossible terrain, sometime even requiring the rider to come to a complete stop on the bike to determine his next move. The riders are judged by how many times one of their feet touch the ground (called a dub). At the end of the trial the rider with the fewest dubs is declared the winner of the event.
This is the background for the development of the Bultaco Alpina.it was basically a trials bike with a bigger gas tank and a higher seat than the Bultaco Sherpa which the trials bike.
My Bultaco had several unique features not seen on other bikes-like a reverse gear. One time we had just laid down a barbed wire gap in a fence, rode over it, shut the bikes down and refastened the gap. I should mention that the kick starter was on the left side of the bike and the preferred (only) method of starting the bike was to stand on the ground on the left side of the bike, place your right foot on the kick starter, grab the handlebars and jump in the air in such a manner as to place your whole body weight into depressing the pedal. Sometimes you succeeded on fourth or fifth try and sometimes the bike took exception to such gyrations and would elevate you a few feet in the air or on rare occasions over a road bank. However this time when I put the bike in gear and released the clutch it promptly took off backwards and drove me into the recently erected fence gap.
Another time we had ridden up the hollow from Daveâs place and climbed an old location road that would take us out to the where the Pine Creek Road intersects the Joker ridge road. From this location there was an old county road that ran the ridge all the way back to the Barnes Run road just down from the Mt.Zion cemetery. Dave was riding about 40 yards in front of me across a grassy meadow at a pretty fast clip when all of a sudden my bike lunged sideways and went down like I had just hit a wall. While the bike stopped immediately the rider was propelled ahead and was a perfect example of Newtonâs First Law of Motion (a body in motion will continue in motion unless acted upon by an outside force). Dave looked back and could not see me or my bike since the grass in the meadow had not yet been mowed and it was 2 feet tall. When I finally got my wits back we saw that we had ridden through fence gap and the barbed wire used to make the gap had wrapped completely around my brake pedal and when all the slack in the wire was taken up it not only applied enough pressure to lock up the rear wheel but it also jerked the bike 90 degrees to my intended direction. When I came to my senses we proceeded on to Mt.Zion and down The Pine Creek hill to our starting place.
See  part 1
And  part 2
Also  part 3
And  part 4
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