Saturday, February 7, 2009

Bikes and Connected Parts


So how does any of this connect? I worked off boredom, frustration and pressure from the office job by doodling at my desk. Someone saw the little drawings, and showed me George Bain's book. I got 'The Voice' at a stoplight across the street from a Harley shop, and was inspired to return to school. Years later I started doodling at the desk again when I got into the School of Education, (see a connection?) and again, people would ask me if they could have the pictures. I got the artistic burn, and turned those doodles into serious work. I bought the motorcycle at the same place where 'The Voice' first prompted me to go to college, and get a job that would give me enough money to buy the bike, and enough time to travel on it. And to stretch the web of coincidence even thinner, I would not have made that first long solo journey if the gal I also met at the Harley shop hadn't broken up with me just before the school year ended in '91. 'The Voice' again prompted me to stop in Elkins where I found the Celtic art book again. As I said yesterday, the connections are often tenuous, and separated by great lengths of time.

But time, and timing are also part of it. I didn't get inspired to go to college until I was ready to invest the effort required to finish. I didn't get George Bain's book in hand until I was ready to invest the effort into learning how it was done. It took months of study to get it down. And this blog sat empty for two years until I was ready to 'find it', and begin this project.

But here's a lighter, and more amusing example of synchronistic coincidence. The bicycle is a 1950 Schwinn B-6. When I bought it, it was missing the headlight, pedals, seat post and gooseneck. It had a set of chrome plated fenders that rightly belonged to the Schwinn Phantom, which is the same machine only with a fancier paint scheme, and more chrome. I was still working in field service when I bought it. Sometime before I bought it I had a service call at a run down, and very old house in a crappy part of town. I noticed a large pile of junk bikes in the back yard, and mentioned to the owner that I had been looking for old Schwinn stuff. I left my phone number, and moved on. Many months later, and shortly after I bought the B-6 I got a call from the old guy. He had a thrashed old Phantom sitting in the back of the garage, and wondered if I would be interested. The bike was junk, but the headlight, gooseneck, and seat post were just what I needed. Some years later during the college phase, I was on Main Street in Huntington beach, standing in front of a shop that had some old bikes for sale. In the window sat a dingy Phantom. I noticed a guy standing next to me, also checking out the old Phantom. "Cool bike, huh?" I said.

He said, "Yeah. I have one like it at home, but the problem is that the fenders on it belong on a red B-6.
Oh- a final note. Shortly after I bought it, I designed a custom paint scheme for the Hog, and had it painted in the same pattern and colors as the old Schwinn. I have some snapshots of the motorcycle somewhere, but no decent pictues. bummer.


JWM

4 comments:

  1. That is a cool bike. It looks like it would be much more fun to ride than mine :)

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  2. As I said yesterday, the connections are often tenuous, and separated by great lengths of time.

    That's something I've learned to be comfortable with. Time wraps itself around us like a cloak; it's not linear at all.

    wv: Can he connect the dots? Oh yes hecan!

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  3. Stranger even than all the dots that seem to connect is that we can do that, at all.

    Old saying from the back of the Whole Earth Catalog: "We can't get it together -- it IS together!"

    Hippie wisdom notwithstanding, we experience it in bytes and bits, and ourselves separate from the rest of it. But then the SynCoon starts showing up and we begin to notice the connections.

    Bob has said that synchronicity too is a "station" on the Way -- that the true seeker experiences more and more of it. So I guess we can hope we ain't seen nothin' yet!

    In a future post at FFW it says that the Sage experiences "continuous spontaneous accordance." So that was how a previous culture expressed it.

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  4. Cool bike!
    One thing I noticed about all those "connections" we experience...there would be no way I could've planned somethin' like that.

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