Karma

Karma, do good thing to others and good things will happen to you. It’s an old saying but it’s true, you never know how one interaction with someone can come back around to you. Not too long ago, I pulled Josh from the shop to go look at bike. A guy called me calming that I knew him and he had a bike for sale, it was just some old sportster and I said I’d take it. Now I hate to admit it but I am getting a little bit older and sometimes I can’t seem to remember everyone I meet, off the top of my head. So on the way to see this bike, Josh and I stop to grab some lunch. My phone rang again; this time is was someone new calling about bikes for sale. I wasn’t really interested until he said he had a 1967 FLH and a 1978 FLH for sale. I got really excited, I almost forgot I had to go pick up that Ironhead. I told the gentlemen that I would be by later that night. Josh had not seen the Ironhead that we were on our way to see, or how I had already told the guy that I would take it. We pulled into the house, there out front chained up a tree was this old rusty Ironhead that looked as if it had sat outside for 10 years! Everything was rusty, Brake rotors, cylinders, chain. The paint was faded and chipped. It was a ruff bike to say the least. Once the guy came out I realized how I knew them. One of the first shovelhead I bought many years ago was his dads. I still have the bike and his dad has sense passed. His dad was at every event I put on. Josh was digging though all the parts next to the bike when he looked up, I seen the look in his eyes it was a “what the f*ck are you doing??” I felt as if I needed to buy it for 2 reasons. Number 1 his dad was a good guy and I knew his son need some help right now, number 2 I told him I would take it and I am a man of my word. I paid him 1500.00 for the bike and we loaded the bike up, we had to hit the road again. The whole ride to the shovelheads all I heard about was how bad this Ironhead was, Josh’s famous line is “we should be able to get a good 1000 bucks out of the bike “ or “ the way you become a millionaire in the bike business is start with two million, you’ll be down to a million in no time.” All joking aside, he wasn’t wrong that Ironhead was ruff but I had to focus on the next bikes. We pulled in front of a house in the middle of a suburban subdivision. It differently didn’t look like a place where two old shovels would be hiding. An old man came to the door with a heavy Louisiana accent. I said “that I had talk to someone about some old shovelheads for sale.” The old man replied “that be me I’ll meet you boys in the garage.” He went back into the house and the garage door open. As we walked in I saw a sign, for a landscaping truck that said “FUBOB”. I laughed and said “does that say F U BOB?” He replied “yea I’m FU BOB!” FU Bob was 73 years old, he owned his own landscaping company. He worked it every day until about 3 weeks ago he was cutting a tree and fell right out of it, straight on his back and broke two ribs. He said “that got me to thinking I need to sell these old bikes, and one time I came to your shop you guys where closed but I was looking for someone to do some work to the 78”. Than he pointed at Josh and said “come to think of it you help me out and gave a number to John Maxwell” FU Bob went on to say “man John has been great to me and you said to call you if I ever wanted to sell my bikes, well I’m calling today.” I was happy to answer. The 1978 FLH was all black and Bob just had Maxwell build a brand new motor for him and put it in. It fired right up and idle perfect. The 67 FLH was very very ruff. It had the starter and oil tank removed from the bike. All the chrome was peeling off and rust over everything that wasn’t painted. It was ruff. But it was still a 67’ Shovel. I had to asked “Bob how did this bike get to looking this way?” Bob went on to tell me about how he took the bike down to Louisiana to his brother house. His brother didn’t have a garage so the bike sat out under a lean tube off his house. He was so close to the ocean that the salt in the air ate away at the bike. But it is a 67 shovel! I think my dreams get ahead of me, because I could Josh bolting that bike back together and me riding down the road, but after getting it home…. in the light….. let just say it looked better in a dark garage, but hey it’s still a 67 shovel. Man I’ll tell you sometimes a deal is to good to be true maybe this one of those times, so I don’t know what I going to do with it yet. I may take her apart and send her back out into the chopper world!!