DONATING THE GUZZI

 To everything, there is a season... 

(Ecclesiastes 3:1)

In the summer of 1967, after moving on from Chico Junior High, Bill Reed*, my ninth grade English teacher, took a job managing the Channel 9 auction. He’d been a casualty of staffing cuts at Chico Unified. KIXE studios were then housed under the dome in the administration building at Chico State. Bill asked a few of his former students if we’d like to volunteer to help move merchandise on and off the set. I was the only one who bit.

 

The following two summers, Mr. Reed, then soon to be station manager (if he wasn’t already), asked me if I might volunteer to catalog donated items, manage inventory coming on and off the set and distribute merchandise to high bidders after the auction. He offered to double my pay but then reminded me that ‘Two times nothing is still nothing.’  Again, I bit. 

 

The day we closed our distribution location in 1969, Mr. Reed showed up with an envelope. I’d seen a one hundred dollar bill once before, but I’d never actually possessed one. This one, I would put to good use. 

 

With it and a few other shekels I’d cobbled together, I made a down payment on my very first motor vehicle, a brand new Honda Trail 90. Oh! The places I explored! I’ve been riding a variety of motorcycles ever since.

 

Fast forward nearly 60 years and I find myself less confident in the saddle. Aching joints and slowing reactions have told me it’s time to dismount for good. It is time to part with my beautiful, low mileage 2022 Moto Guzzi travel model that gathers dust in my garage. 

 

Honoring William T Reed who progressed to much bigger (but perhaps no better) things with PBS and remembering our station’s earliest days, I have donated the Guzzi to KIXE.

 

...to everything, there is a season...

 

© 2026

Church of the Open Road Press

 

* One summer evening after the auction had concluded, Mom invited Bill and Marianne Reed to dinner. At the table over a couple of Lucky Lagers, Mr. Reed and my dad discovered they both spent some years of their youth in the Mojave; both attending Barstow High. Dad shared that during his senior year (about 1935), he played center on the Barstow Bulldog football team. It was the first time the Bulldogs won the Desert League championship. Bill shared that he, too had played center and during his senior year in the late 50s. That was the year the Bulldogs won their second Desert League championship.