The Life Part II

After the New Years party, everything went back to “normal” which by now meant a wild chaos that never slept. Dozens of bouncers were constantly being paid to keep the place under control and they had their hands full. The third floor of the grand house was dedicated to people who got to drunk or out of hand, even though that line often varied by circumstance. Business still went down and work still got done, there was just a lot more distraction then there had been before. The place became everything I hoped it would and more. I couldn’t imagine a life without it.     

When we left the camp, it was sad but at the same time we felt like we were walking out of a hot tub, right after smoking a blunt, less then an hour after getting our dicks sucked by a sexy stranger. The camp was a place to slow down and remember what was important in life yet we all had roads we had to go down and rides to enjoy. Success and failure means different things to different people and to me failure meant being lonely, working a job I hated in a town I could no longer stand. I had learned a lot from failure in my life and it always played a part in molding my perception.

Everybody around me knew the importance of friendship, love and peace but it was the once that knew failure who appreciated them the most. Some lessons are hard to learn but you can’t learn anything cruising on easy street.

Harleys are great bikes. It’s hard competing with people who have been building bikes for a hundred years and the Japanese that are more efficient then we could every be. I had to use name brand engines; S & S, Suzuki, Honda, and Yamaha as while as a lot of parts that came from boxes but we made them our own. It was mostly the tools we had that build these bikes, we just knew how to use them then added paint and style. Bikes are all about how they ride and I wasn’t about to go down the same road as many chopper builders. The adjustable seat, pegs and bars were a product in themselves and made any bike they were on worthy of attention. Metal can be molded, bent or massaged. No sane, straight man would give up the change to learn how to make things out of aluminum or steel and mentors were everywhere. Any of the men at the camp who learned what they knew from having friends embrace them weren’t going to hesitate before teaching anyone else who was interested. When I wasn’t at the camp, I got a camp update that took me inside the shop and let me imagine what was going on up there.

With so much technical jargon going back and forth each day, code was undetectable. Who’s going to know what green enamel number 26 or 68 Impala inner fender well means? I wondered whether somebody would think it all fiction if they did hack our system.        

We were always on the look out for heavy equipment and my personal favorites were the Gradall M2460 and G600’s that were made from the late 50’s to early 70’s. These wheeled excavators were huge, didn’t have power steering and topped out between 50 and 80km on the road. They had gas engines in the front and a diesel running the excavator on the back. I had been known to get into the excavator and remove the whole front end if the engine didn’t run and then I’d just put rig parts on. I was picking these Gradall’s up for between two and ten grand and made them all nice looking machines.

            Gradall’s were good assignments to give out as they called for responsibility and dedication while not involving huge money and still being hands on. I owned six Gradall’s while the camp was being built and let dozens of men learn how to use and maintain them. Many people had already passed the Gradall test with flying colours. It was interesting to see how students who were learning much more then my fellow workers had time to learn would fair compared to the more experienced among us.