An old pic of my bike

I forgot I had this old image. The guy that took it emailed me a copy so it was taken with one of those old Sony Mavica cameras that stored the image on a CD. I think the camera was around 3Mp and I went out and bought the 5Mp version of the camera.

The story behind the image is that in 2003, my wife and I were still living in Louisiana and her kinfolks all ride Harleys and attend this motorcycle rally in Jefferson Texas every year. My wife had just got her 2003 HD V-rod and I had this old 82 Honda so we rode to the event. They had a motorcycle show with different classes so I spent ten dollars and entered my bike in the sportbike class. I wanted to enter it in the classic class but they would not let me since it was not a Harley and this is pretty much an event attended by 99% Harley riders. Most of the money raised for the event goes to a camp for burned children, of which I used to be a counselor years ago. I knew the guy the event is named after, Boo and he came up to me and said you won the sportbike category and I want you to lead the parade down main street.

I said are you sure, this is a Honda and there are thousands of Harleys here and it might not be a good idea and he said don't worry about it, it's cool.

So I lined up in front of all these other winners of different classes and off we went through town, a narrow lane created through thousands of people in the streets, rather like a gauntlet of rowdy Harley riders. A young lady ran up in front of my bike and started screaming and cursing at me to get the &^%$# out of the way, they were trying to have the bike parade. I said lady I'm leading the parade. Unconvinced, she was still yelling at me as her husband grabbed her and said he was sorry, she had been drinking. I made it alive to the parking area by the courthouse which was under major construction and this photo was taken.

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I read they raised about 75k that year. I met Boo at the burn camp a couple of months after he was burned over 95 percent of his body in a natural gas fire. He worked for the gas company and was welding on a gas pipe underground and something went wrong. When I first saw him, he was bandaged head to toe and only had a small slit for his eyes and mouth. I thought, that guy is never going to make it, but he did. The first year of the Boo Benefit, the money went to him for his treatment and bills. Every year after that, he gives the money away to good causes like the CampImStillMe or as it used to be known as, the Louisiana Burn Camp.

Welcome to Percy R. Johnson Burn Foundation Web Pages

I attended, was a counselor and designed their t-shirts every year from 1994 through 2002. I would bring my airbrush and airbrush whatever the kids wanted on their t-shirts and painted the yearly banner with my airbrush. Most of the kids don't look too bad, but about a third have really bad burns on their faces and hands, some have no ears or nose so it's not easy looking them in the face sometimes. One year I was painting shirts all day and it was getting late. I'm right handed and use my forefinger on the dual action trigger on the airbrush so after a while, my finger would just go numb with fatigue. Many of the more adventurous kids, I would say about ten percent, would want to paint their own shirt. I was leaned over painting and three girls came up wanting their shirts done and I said, sorry, this is the last one I'm doing today. You will have to paint your shirts yourself. So one took the brush and started painting and one just started crying and ran off. I said what's her problem and one of the girls said, she has no fingers. I painted her a shirt and took it to her and told her I was sorry but I've always felt bad about it.

Good story huh? I can't tell the story to someone in person without crying, but it's pretty easy to write it down. Don't know what ever happened to that girl, but many can't deal with it in the long term and take their own lives. Sorry for such a long drawn out story, but it's a really good cause.

 

Thanks Shooter. If we were to ride together, I would take my wife's bike.

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