My First Harley

I bought my first Harley from an old guy named Vince that I worked with back when I was an apprentice machinist down on Harbor Island.  He was the helper who ran the cutoff saw in the back corner of the shop, did a little cleanup, whatever was needing done.  He was pushing 65 hard from the wrong side at the time, but still working, had been around and done a lot, but didn't have much to say.  That’s one of the things we lost as a country when we dismantled the American manufacturing capability and shipped it overseas.  Back then, a guy like Vince could have a decent life without a high school diploma, own a home and make enough to get by.  Nowadays he’d be stuck in a Walmart somewhere, standing on aching feet and trying to smile through the minimum wage pain.

Vince had bought the Harley from a guy who bought it from King County at auction.  It was a 1971 model FLH with drum brakes and a Bendix carburetor, an old cop bike, pretty much stock except for a lovely purple rattle-can paint job that Vince applied himself one day.  He was particularly proud of the fact that he didn’t have to take off a part, he just lifted the seat up off the post, laid on the masking tape, and blasted away.  It was different, that’s for sure.

Vince liked his beer, and spent a fair amount of time at a tavern off Ambaum Boulevard in Burien that was only a few blocks from his house.  As I got the story, he would come out of the bar late at night, a bit tipsy, if not three sheets to the wind, climb on his Harley, start it up, and promptly fall over on the crash bars.  The guys from the bar would come out and pick him up, hold him steady a bit, then give him a little push to get started, after which he made it home all right.

His wife took a rather dim view of this habit, for some reason, so one day, as we were yacking by the saw, he says to me, “Ya know, I think I just might sell my bike one day.  Yep, first $1200 takes it”.  I decided he was kidding, since he always swore that’s the one thing he would never do, and let it ride.  About a week later he said to me, “Yup, I guess I’m gonna put her up for sale.  First $1400 takes ‘er”.  “Wow”, I said.  “I’d sure love to have her.  Let me see what I can do.”

That night over dinner I mentioned the bike to my sweetie, who shocked the hell out of me by suggesting we sell her car and buy this bike!  Of course I married her, but that came later.

By the time the car was sold, to a different co-worker, several weeks had elapsed during which I had said nothing to Vince about the bike.  So when he sidled up to me one day and said, “Looks like it’s time to sell my old Harley” again, “first $1800 takes it”, I figured I’d better move fast, and that’s what I paid for it in 1976, $1800.  Riding it home that first time was an adventure, because the right side fork tube had leaked out all its oil, so when you took a right it wanted to fall over and you had to muscle it through a left turn, but I made it.

That turned out to be a good old bike.  I rode it for more than 12 years, and knew every nut, bolt and washer on it.  There’s no Harley quite like your first Harley.

At the fall closer ’83 I put my daughter on the tank in front of me and rode around the campsite down by the river outside of Orting. My picture from that is priceless.

My son used to fall asleep on the back as we cruised through Maple Valley.  It’s been to Glacier Park, all over Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and never once failed to bring us home.  It’s been to every Spring Opener, Fall Closer and Olympia Toy run for every one of those years.  After I repainted it and changed a few more things, I rode it to work one day and showed it to Vince.  He walked around it some and allowed as how he guessed I hadn't fucked it up too bad, so that felt good.

When the time came to replace it, in 1989, I found it a new home in Joyce, outside of Port Angeles, and rode it there one last time to deliver it.  I sold it for $3500, 12 years after buying it for $1800.  Not bad for an old ’71.  Though the bike is gone, I have the pictures, and the memories of all the good times that will keep it with me forever.  That’s about all you can ask from a machine, I guess.  That, and hope it’s still out there somewhere, bringing somebody home again.  :-{)}