Angels in Pick up Trucks...

I made it to Colorado! I was thawed out after a cup or two of Joe and an egg McMuffin. I even entered into a pretty fascinating conversation with a fella who rode from L.A. to New York on His Harley. Isn't it interesting how an old bike can just get people to talking. Let me explain.

If you're reading this, and don't really like motorcycles, but you enjoy talking to interesting people, I have an idea for you. Plop down between 3 and 4 thousand bucks and buy a cool old bike (if it doesn't look cool to you, it probably won't to anyone else either...so make sure it's a conversation peice). Then ride it down to the local java joint or diner and see how many conversations it starts. Now please understand, you will not experience the same thing if you're on a high dollar cruiser and you're decked out in leather. I'm 6' 3" and a little overweight (my Doctor would differ on that) and when I put on the biker attire, well as my wife would say, "man, that's a lot of leather!" Well when I would pull up on my chromed out, loud piped cruiser and then haul 250 pounds of black leather off that sucker, women would pull their kids off the street. Men would grunt and nod, but never did any nice person come up and say, "wow that's a cool bike".

Old bikes attract everyone. Kids are my bike's biggest fans. Even young mothers with children will walk up and talk. Old guys that served in Europe come up and try and figure out the year of the bike, and skaters stop to say, "Dude...whoa"! I've had more people ask, "what's it like to ride in that sidecar?" I had one lady tell me that it was on her bucket list (you know- things to do before you kick the bucket) to ride in a motorcycle sidecar. If you enjoy chatting with perfect strangers then don't buy a big cruiser unless all the strangers you want to talk to have a lot of hair and leather (nothing wrong with hair mind you...wish I had more of it!). Just a shameless plug for conversation bikes, sorry for the diversion.

Well back to my bike. It wouldn't start. Interesting thing about conversation bikes, they will also include conversations you actually have with your bike...and those conversations usually are more colorful than the other ones you have with strangers about your bike. I tried everything and it wouldn't work. So I rolled it down to a little Radio Shack/Subway sandwich shop. The two business shared a space but did have a wall between them...they weren't selling electric sandwiches. The reason for stopping there was it was the only building for at least another 100 yards and there was a little piece of shade in front extending out onto the parking lot, and that summer sun was starting to assert its authority.

Here's where it gets interesting. If you remember my first blog I talked about the old farmer that stopped to help when my air cleaner hose busted (you don't see old guys stopping for just any bikers along side the road...he just probably wanted to look at the bike). Well I had two more old guys make comments to me about the bike that I now had strewn out over two parking spaces. Both of these guys taught me a lesson that day.

The first guy wasn't any help. Now if you're religious, this may sound offensive...I don't mean to sound judgemental my self...but let me make an observation. This fella looked like a religious sort. I don't know exactly what that looks like...he just did. He got out of his conservative, non-luxury, minimally equipped Oldsmobile and gave me a good look up and down. I was waiting for a comment about the bike, but all he did was give me a look like he had been weaned on a pickle and asked, "You're keeping your language clean aren't you?"

Well who the...um, who does he think he is? Was he more concerned that I adhere to his own list of behavioral and moral standards than that I was a person just like in him, and in an obvious tight spot? I think so. I didn't quite know what to say except "so far" and then I think I may have muttered under my breath "but if you don't leave it's gonna get ugly". It occurred to me that he probably thought, that he had just done a good deed. By pointing out my own need to be good (on the outside), he was somehow doing God's work. Isn't it the insides that need to get cleaned up before the outsides are affected? Don't know, just throwin' that out there.

Now there's a church near where I live that likes to do the same thing to us folks in tight spots. They use their reader board to remind the rest of us that we're all sinners. My favorite sign of theirs was "liquor is distilled damnation!" Well doesn't that just bless your innards? I pulled right over and gave my heart to Jesus on that one! I wanted to write them and congratulate them for telling me the same thing Jesus told his mother when she asked him to turn water into WINE in the Gospel of John, chapter 2. Imagine that. Or maybe not.

Needless to say, I wasn't much blessed by this old guys "unsolicited religous interjection". But I think he might have felt blessed by his own boldness and willingness to be a witness for righteousness sake. Hope he digested his subway sandwhich well.

Then another old guy came by. Now before I describe him...let me remind you of the scene; A very big, overly muscular (that's what we old guys call fat) fella, sitting in the parking lot of a very small town in Colorado, next to one of the very few buildings in this town with pieces of his very old, foreign made BMW (Japanese bikes aren't really foreign anymore...you will find Kawasaki, Yamaha and Honda shops everywhere...but not BMW, or Ducati or Ural etc.) laying all over the place. And this fella has by now, no doubt, a look of angst and perplexity on his now red and sweating face. Would you want to start a conversation with this guy? I wouldn't. And I know him pretty well!

This old fella pulls up in a dodge pickup and yells out the window, "need a hand"? Now there's a question I can imagine Jesus asking instead of that distilled damnation thing. I looked up at him with a smile as my glasses were greasily sliding down to the end of my nose and said, "sure, I'm all out of options". Out in the middle of nowhere this fella gets out of his pickup, saunters over to me and says, "I'm a retired BMW mechanic, I've worked on a few of these old ones".

Yeah right! What in the world is a retired BMW mechanic doing on the outskirts of the Kansas prairie? He starving that's what he's doing! I haven't noticed any BMW combines or tractors, or even cars for that matter. He wasn't just passing through, he said he was from "around here". "Around here" may have been his "Northern hemispheric heavenly assignment"! He stepped out of the truck and I'm not kidding you here, within 25 seconds that beast was running. After I thanked him, and shook his gnarled (farmer-looking) hand I asked him if I could pay him. "Nah- just enjoy the ride", he said. I wiped my dripping face, turned back to start the reassembly process and he was back in the truck heading out of the parking lot. You know, he never asked me if I was keeping my language clean either. And no I didn't get his licence plate number.

Was he an angel? Well I'm not sure, but it seems there was a lesson to be learned that day for me. Am I going to be the type of person who "confronts" someone who's hurting, about their outward behavior without considering their interior condition or am I going to be the kind of person who steps in to help without asking questions...even help someone who looked as bad as I did that day? I think that only an angel could have seen through the grease and sweat and still would have been willing to help me at that point.

I really can't answer the question though, but I've got a hunch. My hunch is that I better do a good job on the restoration of this old bike (we'll be repainting this soon), cause if I can figure out how to get it to the "other side" I think there's a real good BMW mechanic there!