By Phil Englehard

 

The rumble of engines heading for Motorcycle Week festivities in Laconia each June can be a pain in the ear for many New Hampshire residents.  For others, it's a siren call.  For Phil Englehardt, it was an invitation to buy a Harley police bike, purchase some fitted leathers, get a tattoo, sell his successful donut shop in Seabrook and roar off into a new life --- starting with a beer blast at the Wiers.  In his mind.  Actually, Englehardt did something better than leaving the rat race for open road. He wrote a book about it. And he imagined the process and the possibilities so vividly, and describes them so well, that this slim, fast-paced pseudomemoir, might just save a few marriages. After all, getting in fist fights and sleeping on the ground, even next to a leather-clad biker babe, is probably a lot more romantic on the page than on a post-middle-age body.

 

In the book, Englehardt's alter ego,-Ian Payne, sells his business, the famous Honey Bee Donuts on Rte. 1, to one of his more intrepid employees. In real life, he's simply turned the management of the shop over to him while he promotes his book. He still drops by on weekends to sign copies and greet the regulars.

The story is an intoxicating punch made with equal measures of philosophical reverie and raw sensuality. Like, the pudding-wrestling tent at Motorcycle Week, the prudish should probably keep their distance. When asked how much of his yam is based on actual experience, Engelhardt replies, "I have lived plenty of it."

 

Paperback, 190 pages, ISBN: 0-9744588-0-5