Letter of the Month
Mark Tuttle?s column ?Two-Wheeled Empowerment? (September 2020) has gotten me thinking more than I would like to admit. I keep coming back to some past moments over the last 46 years on the road. If you?re willing to try, in some instances you can go back and find those moments in time, relive those snapshots, the feelings, and remember. Motorcycles, vintage ones, are not only modes of transportation but can transport you to the past.

Walking into the local auto parts store last fall, I passed by a tired, mistreated, fork-seal-leaking, oil-soaked Suzuki GS750E. It took me back to my first one. The guys at work called it the ?Purple Rain? motorcycle. Rescued from a cow pasture, my young son and I took that original bike up logging roads and on Labor Day commando camping trips, and its 1970s era top box delivered many $9 pizzas to the house on the way home. My erstwhile co-pilot and I shared precious time together adventuring both on and off the bike. Now, he?s a full-grown man and riding his machines. I had forgotten how he was an enthusiastic 12-year-old, still wanting to explore with the old man.
Dropping a business card with the then owner at the counter and just before Christmas time, I got a call to come get it! Working through the winter, I was able to clean up the ?patina? on my new-to-me GS750E, righting some mechanical ills, and it?s a passable survivor. Wrenching on the old nail is like muscle memory from so many years before?not just ...