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Message started by Armen on 09/11/16 at 02:15:13

Title: Perspective
Post by Armen on 09/11/16 at 02:15:13

Sometimes I get really wound up working on my bikes. When things go wrong, it's easy to think it's the end of the world. Memories like this help me put it all in perspective:

So we are at the Motorcycle Museum at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. By most counts, the best bike museum on earth. Five stories high, bikes from pre-WWI to modern racers. All sorts of amazing machines. This is the second location of the museum. The first was pretty amazing, and this one is off the charts.
Up a few floors is a display with two bikes, lots of pics, and some memorabilia. The bikes were ridden around the world (by a couple I knew) for two years. At the first museum they had an entire wall to themselves, now they have a more modest, but still significant display. In the bookstore are copies of the guy's book detailing the trek.
Standing there thinking about all the work I did on his bike-a BMW R100RT-auxilliary fuel tanks, skid plate, different oil pan, auxilliary lights, and so on. Her bike was originally an R69S, basically an antique BMW. More of a romantic choice than a practical one for a trip of this magnitude. Partway through, she shipped the old bike back and bought a more modern BMW R80, which is the bike on display. I never worked on that bike.
Next to me a person starts a conversation about the trip, the bikes, and the guy who wrote the book. This person has obviously drunk the Kool Aid, and believes the book. The gal from the trip had once described the book as an interesting story, but not the trip she went on. To say the writer is a bit of an egotistical narcissistic blowhard would be an understatement. I shake my head, tell the guy a bit about working on the bikes, and what a jerk the guy was. How he repeatedly tried to rip me off, was an abusive bozo, and how his cheating on his lady even after their wedding invites were printed up, finally made her give up and leave him.
I also thought about the time I spent on the bikes. After one of the many flog-a-thons on the R69S I nodded out (way long hours as their deadline approached) and crashed my car.
Once they were on the road, there were times I'd get a panic call from their secretary "They are broken down in Southern TrashCanistan, can you try to get hold of them and help?" On the phone forever with an international operator, then run around and scare up parts to get to them somehow.
When he came back and wrote the book, he didn't mention me at all. Later, when I was over at his place working on the bikes he offered to sell me a copy, and inscribed it with some generic few word nothing. I double-checked to see if he mentioned me and the work I did, then threw the book away.
Got myself pretty wound up at all this. It would have been nice to have 15 seconds of fame-be mentioned in a book being sold here at the best bike museum on earth. But, zippola.
I look over and my buddy Walter is standing by a Ducati. It is one of the ST (Sport Touring) bikes. He owned one once. This one is covered with road dirt, stickers, decals, and so on. The storyboard on the platform details all the long-mileage runs the bike has done (San Francisco to Key West, etc) in ridiculously short times. But Walter is staring at the windshield. On it is "In Rememberance of Leah Oliver". That would be Walter's daughter. Killed in the towers on 9/11 on the eve of her 25th birthday.
Softly Walter says "I only met this guy once, and talked to him for a short while. Told him I had an ST and we got to talking. I had no idea he put this on his bike, or that the bike was here." He shakes his head, takes a picture of the windshield with the words on it, and just stands there for a long time.
Oh, right, where was I-feeling sorry for myself that some loser didn't mention me in his book. Never mind...
Life is all a sense of perspective. Sometimes I have to get hit in the head real hard to remind myself how that works.
-Armen

Title: Re: Perspective
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 09/11/16 at 05:09:56

Everybody needs those moments..

Title: Re: Perspective
Post by ohiomoto on 09/11/16 at 05:28:00

Dang Armen, that was a long post. So long that I almost didn't bother reading it. But I'm glad I did. Thanks for sharing.