After building and moving into the house in Painted Hills, Patti and I began to get acquainted with a few neighbors. One of our first social invitations was from Julie and Frank DeLis, who lived two houses east of us. Frank and Julie owned the two International House of Pancakes restaurants in Spokane and they had invited several of their friends, business associates, suppliers, and a few neighbors to a dinner party. The following is my adventure around the party, and the beginning of a long and interesting friendship with Ray Willman.

The party was held on a hot summer evening, and it was a sort of dressy affair. Patti and I didn’t know many people there since we were new to the neighborhood, and as a result we felt a little isolated. About an hour into the event, I noticed a tall, mustachioed man about my age sitting across the room. About the same time he spotted me and asked, “Are you as bored as me?” I said yes, and then he said Frank had a motorcycle in the basement, and would I like to go for a ride. For some unknown reason I said yes, and we immediately went to retrieve the machine. At that point I had no idea who he was and if he knew how to ride a motorcycle, but going for a ride seemed like a better idea than sitting around bored.

The DeLis house sat on a slope about 50 feet from Mohawk Drive, with an approximately eight-foot steep bank down to the road. Since the house had a daylight basement facing the road, we simply had to open the sliding door and roll the 100cc dirt bike out. With that, Ray got on and I mounted behind him. To make our getaway we simply coasted down the slope and the steep bank, then bumped through the dirt gutter and onto the road.

After coasting a couple of hundred yards Ray started the motor and away we went. After another short distance Ray suddenly turned left, hit the power, and up the steep bank we went, diagonally into the woods.

So here is the picture: two guys who don’t know each other dressed in nice clothes riding an underpowered motorcycle through the woods as it was getting dark.

At that time, there was no development behind the houses fronting on Mohawk Drive. But there were several old logging roads and trails all over the hills, which we explored for probably one half hour or so. Finally we found ourselves at the water tank on the hill above Frank’s house, so we decided to go back to the party following the access road to the tank.

But as luck would have it, Frank and his fish supplier had built a fire in the middle of the road next to the house and were grilling a large salmon on a grate over the fire. Enter Ray and Ken barreling down the road marginally under control heading straight for the fire.

Somehow Ray managed to maneuver around the cookout and we were off to the basement with Frank running behind yelling, “You bastards. That’s my motorcycle!” And so my adventures with Ray Willman began.

Needless to say, our return was greeted with mixed feelings. Our wives, Frank, and a few guests were pissed, and others gave us high fives. All in all I had a great time even though I got filthy dirty—and a talking to.

Ken Kaiyala
12-3-2014