One Old Man's Quest.........for 250 Mph.

Mike: My wife Ellen and I knew Burt Munro
from Bonneville, where we had both raced.

Before we saw the movie about him and
Bonneville, I thought "The World's Fastest Indian"
was a Navajo in the 1932 Olympics......
 
Better recordings and better playback might allow
a listener to hear more of what the artists
were putting into the mikes when they were recording.

(Although my young friend Barry Oakley
remarked one evening:


“I went to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels concert.
Before seeing them, I thought they just had bad record
production values.

Now I know they just make lousy music.”)

 

Obviously, the best way to hear music
the way the artists made it, was to go to a concert.

(This was LONG before multi-track and stereo production
became widely and inexpensively available.)


In College, I had been Freshman swimming teammates
with Joe Pappalardo, of Tarpon Springs, FL., who eventually
left school to join a band named “Lanny and the impressions.”

They were eventually discovered by Tommy Roe,
and hired as hid back-up band, The Roemans.

http://www.m3cats.com/roemans_joe_pappalardo.htm

http://www.m3cats.com/roemans.htm

Joe eventually got drafted to Vietnam, and was replaced by Base player Barry Oakley, moving down to the area with his parents from Chicago, where he had played in the Playboy Club house band.
 
It was at about this time, while still in college,
that a fellow moved into my dorm that owned,
as his daily rider, a Vincent Black Shadow.



One evening, I found myself looking at the
bike with the intention to steal it.



But……..
 

Did not………


A few years later, the owner stopped by my house,
to offer me the bike for $200.00……….

A Vincent, running and driving !
For $200 !......

I turned him down...........
 
My friend needed the money to catch a plane
to his mother’s bedside in New York,

She was dying.

I told him: “I won’t buy your bike,
but I will lend you the money.

If you love your mother enough
to sell me the bike for $200, I trust
your head is in the right place.

The bike is yours when you pay me back.”
 
However, in the time my friend was away,
Vincent “Riding rights” were mine, and I
exercised them as often as I dared.

“Hooked” by powerful big twins, was I.

25 years later, I would hear Richard
Thompson’s Vincent 52 song

50 years later, I spoke with him when
he played a private concert.


Bikes are parts of our lives.
 
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