After high school, I attended the California Highway Patrol Training Academy in Sacramento. After graduating from the Academy, I joined the force in 1967. Five years later, I decided to become what I considered the ultimate in law enforcement?a motorcycle officer for the California Highway Patrol (CHiP).

To me, being a motorcycle police officer was like being a fighter pilot. You had to have guts, and it didn't hurt to be a little crazy.

After a grueling two weeks of training that included hours of slow-speed balancing work on a motorcycle, I was ready to become Ponch and Jon, my heroes from the popular late 1970s television show "CHiPs."

I reported to my area office in Torrance, eager to begin my thirty-day training with experienced motorcycle officers. My part was easy. I didn't have to write tickets, investigate accidents, or even arrest bad guys. I just rode the freeways of Southern California looking cool.

Every ten days I worked with a different training officer. One, a crusty veteran officer named Jack Woods, didn't like the assignment.

"In my day they didn't have training officers," he grumbled. "They just gave me a motorcycle and told me to write some tickets."

Jack's idea of training was to ride fast and force me to catch up. Our first day together, on the 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift, he said, "Pay attention, son. Your job is to stay on two wheels and follow me for ten days. Don't ask a lot of questions, just do what I do." And with that, Jack cranked up his Harley-Davidson, twisting the throttle like he was trying to get away from me. I took off in hot pursuit.

Not much happened that afternoon. I just tried to keep up. At dusk, Jack took an off-ramp, stopped on the right shoulder, and motioned me to pull beside him.

"Let's have a little fun," he said with a shady grin. "We're gonna finish the shift riding on surface (non-freeway) streets."

It was scary riding through the business districts with Jack. He took corners so fast that it seemed his bike's handlebars would scrape the pavement as he leaned into the turns. A shower of sparks rooster-tailed from his foot boards each time he leaned into the turns. When I attempted the same tight turns, I thought I was going to crash, burn, and die.

I couldn't get my foot boards down low enough to make the sparks fly without causing my rear wheel to slide out from under me.

I finally caught up with Jack at a red light. I sheepishly asked him how he managed the impressive pyrotechnics.

"First thing you do tomorrow," Jack advised, "is take your boots to the shoe shop and have metal taps put on the heels. Then when you're riding, you can casually let your foot slide off the foot boards when you take the corners. You'll always get real nice sparks." Once I knew the trick, I wasn't so impressed. I never got metal taps.

I survived Jack. I was now down to my last training partner?another cantankerous officer?Wilbur "The Toad" Kennedy. He was nicknamed "The Toad" because his voice on the police radio sounded like a toad croaking.

Wilbur's job was to orient me to extreme high-speed pursuits. After practicing for days, Wilbur decided it was time to hit the Harbor Freeway (now Interstate 110) that runs from downtown Los Angeles to the L.A. harbor. Wilbur instructed me to enter the freeway and then run at progressively higher speeds to build my confidence in the machine and my abilities.

On the last high-speed run, urged on by Wilbur who rode behind me and talked through the radio, I managed to get my 800-pound machine over 100 miles per hour. I was petrified. Suddenly my handlebars started oscillating. I had entered the high-speed wobble zone, a phenomenon unique to Harley-Davidsons that usually occurs only on motorcycles operated by inexperienced riders. I tried to get out of the wobble?by easing the throttle and then re-applying it?but nothing worked. I just knew I wasn't going to live to see tomorrow.