Easy Rider

Okay, we’re back in St. Louis, after a long (but mostly interesting and beautiful) drive back from our family vacation in Toronto. The house looks the same, although the grass was pretty high and the pool pump was sucking air because the water level had dropped during the 110 degree Fahrenheit days. The street still looks the same. The neighbours still look the same. The garbage guy came on Monday, just the same as always.

But something has changed. Something is different.

This week, since being back in St. Louis, I have seen at least a dozen Vespa scooters. The last time I saw a motorized scooter was in Brussels where it seems that every high school student owns one. Beware of driving right before school starts and in the early afternoon, when school is out, when thousands of teens are zipping in and out of traffic, doubling up on the tiny seats and shouting back and forth to each other, clutching cell phones and school bags. Scooters are extremely practical in a city like Brussels, where parking spots are few and far between, gas is expensive and roads are crowded.

My first exposure to Vespa scooters, however, was in Rome many years ago. There, in that ancient city, amid the ruins and the dusty heat, there is a constant buzz, like a distant swarm of bees, broken occasionally by the roar of a nearby engine revving up. It is the sound of Rome. It is the sound of its people, of which I think several hundred thousand must own scooters! Most of the drivers are impossibly gorgeous young Italian men and women, expertly navigating roundabouts at breakneck speed, swerving around tourists who struggle to signal, read a map (argue) and drive at the same time. Somehow, they just make it all look so darn glamorous. The girls would hitch up there pencil-thin skirts and straddle the bikes, while the model-handsome boys would nearly always have a nonchalant girlfriend hitching a ride.

But, in St. Louis, the riders seem ... well, how should I say this ... they seem ... uh ... a little larger than the Belgian and Italian riders I’ve seen. Also, they are ... oh dear, how should I say this ... definitely not teenagers, if you know what I mean? So, what’s with the scooters? I was so curious that I searched VESPA+St. Louis online and, guess what? There are two stores! The photos on the site show handsome, young men and women either posing beside a shiny new bike, or sitting astride a bike, laughing with other riders in the sun, in some idyllic place.

I searched every photo to find the type of rider I’ve seen in St. Louis, but I could not find one. I did not find the older lady in grey sweatpants and a Land’s End windbreaker hunched over the handlebars leaving the grocery store. I did not see the six-foot-plus bald guy, whose wide buttocks engulfed the tiny scooter seat. I did not see the wannabee biker guy with his dog riding in the side car. Who are these people and why on earth did they buy a scooter?

Is it a new kind of toy here in the Land o’ SUV? We certainly do not have the same traffic congestion and parking issues as in crowded European capitals, although to be fair, there are some folks who would like to reduce gas consumption here. The VespaUSA website shows several models, advertising that “reducing traffic congestion and saving fuel never looked so good”. In Europe, the Vespa is not a toy. It remains an inexpensive and practical means of transportation – the impetus for its invention in 1946 in war-torn, poverty-stricken Italy.

To be honest, I can’t think of any practical reasons to own a scooter. I move two children to and from school and various sports programs and buy more groceries than could possibly fit into its storage compartment. I can, however, think of several fun reasons to own one! I feel myself falling under its spell. I already feel the wind in my hair. I’m thinking of the colour I like. I’m already relishing telling friends how little gas I use! I’m picturing how Italian I’ll look. Young? Well, let’s not push it – ha!