It’s been said that two of the most stressful things we experience in our lives are moving to a new home and starting a new job. Normally, that would be true. I know because I have done both many times, but I have to tell you, I was feeling no stress at all. In fact, if I was feeling anything, it was joy and euphoria and I had just moved from Connecticut to Southern California, and that is just about as far from home as you can go and still be in the contiguous United States.
Of course there were major differences between where I had spent the first 26 years of my life, and here in California. Naturally one would expect that I would have to go through a period of adjustment. It was cold, snow was on the ground, the trees were bare, and you wouldn’t be seeing flowers, grass or leaves on the trees anytime soon. People were all bundled up with layers of clothes trying to keep warm, and there was nowhere to go and not a whole heck of a lot to do until spring, especially if you were a motorcycle enthusiast. It was pretty bleak.
When I arrived in good old Orange County, everything was green. There were flowers and trees everywhere, orange trees, avocado trees, eucalyptus trees, and the one tree that always came to mind when I visualized California, those beautiful palm trees. There were tall ones, short ones and different varieties of them, each beautiful in it’s own way. There were other trees too, plus rich green lawns and beautiful plants that I had never seen before like the aptly named bird of paradise plants.
Then there was Saddleback Mountain, the beautiful blue Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway with all kinds of motorcycles cruising down the long road filled with great views of the Pacific Ocean and places like Laguna Beach, which is one of my favorites. There were choppers, dressers, plus a large variety of imported motorcycles, and most riders were wearing only t-shirts… in February!!! I said to myself, “Wow, this really is paradise”!
At that point I could have kicked myself up and down the Coast Highway for not bringing my Triumph with me, especially since it did fit easily in the back of my van, and I had already installed mounts for securing it for long trips. Instead, I decided to use it as a mini-motor home during the long trip across the country to save money. Hotel/motel rooms would have put a major dent in my budget leaving very little for when I finally arrived in California. But it all worked out for the best. It just inspired me to get myself a Harley just as soon as was humanly possible. If I had brought my bike, I wouldn’t have needed to buy another one, so it may have been years before I could justify buying a Harley. Before long though, the day I was waiting for came and I got my Harley from the Highway Patrol at a great price too, thanks to Tom. That’s another one of the many things he did for me, but more about that in a later post.
Now that I had a job in California there were some things I had to do. I had to get a California Drivers License/ID, have my van inspected, registered, and get California license plates, and I didn’t have a whole lot of cash. Then too, I couldn’t keep living in a motel which costs a lot more than an apartment would , so I was going to have to get an apartment as soon as possible. That turned out to be a little bit more difficult than I thought it would.
As soon as I had saved enough for the deposits and first month’s rent, I started looking for my new home. One weekend as I was looking in the Orange County Register Classifieds and circling ads for apartments to check out, I found one that seemed perfect. It was just the right price and the location was good too, so I jumped in my van and drove down there. It looked pretty good so I walked over to the Managers Apartment and rang the doorbell. An elderly Hispanic lady opened the door, looked at me, leaving the screen door closed and locked. I explained to her that I saw her ad in the paper and wanted to rent the apartment. I even told her I had the money right in my pocket and had a great job too. She then looked me over one more time and then glanced over at my van, hesitated, and then said she was very sorry, but the apartment had already been rented. I climbed back in my van disappointed and more than a little bit suspicious and drove back to the motel.
When I got back to the motel something told me to call her just for the heck of it and ask if the apartment in the ad was still available. I called sounding as professional as I could. As you probably guessed, she said it sure was, and asked if I would like to come down and look at it. I almost lost control due to my East Coast Italian Temper, and was ready to drive back down there and express my displeasure about being discriminated against up close and personal, but I calmed myself down and decided it wouldn’t be a smart idea. Besides, she was an old lady, and she surely wasn’t going to rent it to me if I blew up in her face, so what was the point?
All of a sudden I got a feeling that finding an apartment might not be as easy as I had hoped. Probably because I was fresh in from about 3,000 miles away, about six foot tall weighing in at around 250 - 275, with a beard and dressed like a biker, (which was just about the only clothes I had since I originally had come here for only a four day visit). As luck would have it though, the people I had come out here to visit, my old friends Tom and Roe Taylor, had a friend who was Manager of an apartment complex located in the same area as the one that previously had turned me down. They told him about me, vouched for me and he agreed to rent it to me at an even better price than the other apartment. It was perfect and I had a lot of good times there.
I now had my first apartment and couldn’t have been happier. I checked out of the Aqua Motel on Seventeenth Street in Santa Ana and rushed back to my new apartment as fast as I could. Moving in was a piece of cake as I didn’t have anything to move. As I proudly stood there looking around, reality set in and it suddenly occurred to me that while I did have an apartment, I didn’t have much else. No pots, pans, dishes, cups, food, sheets, blankets, pillow cases, a shower curtain, toilet paper, etc., but I didn’t care, I would take care of all that in time, for now I was just happy to have my own place. I was now officially a California resident. So, all things considered, it was not stressful moving into my new home at all.
As for the stress of starting a new job, there wasn’t any. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I was like a kid in a candy store. I would walk through the warehouse looking at row after row of shiny chrome sissy bars, tall ones, short ones and a variety of designs. There were also rows of racks holding chrome handlebars, all kinds of shapes and sizes from the ever-popular ape hangers and pull back bars to short racing style bars. There were shelves full of seats, tall ones short ones as well as mid sized ones. My favorite was the King and Queen seats. Then there were the springer front ends that AEE was famous for and racks full of all kinds of chromed exhaust systems for just about any taste and motorcycle.
Back at the front customer counter, where I spent most of my day, was a large variety of parts and accessories displayed on the walls around me and in the glass case under the counter. In front of me was the beautiful Corvair powered Trike and my favorite, the Mindbender. Every once in a while they would change the pipes, seat and sissy bar on it and it always looked great.
One of my favorite memories was the night Tom Called me and asked if I would like to go with him on a ride up to see some friends of his in LA at the LA Rattlers Clubhouse. I rode back to the shop and he told me to roll out the Mindbender and then said I was going to ride it! At first I was in a state of shock, I couldn’t believe it, but that’s how good Tom treated me.
What a night, I loved everything about the Mindbender, the rumble of the exhaust pipes on the knucklehead engine was music to my ears and it ran great. The King and Queen seat was extremely comfortable and the paint and chrome glistened in the night-lights as we rode down the well-lit streets side by side. I couldn’t have been happier. It was like a dream come true. We went on other runs too, but more on that in later posts.
Tom, Rose and I on the way back from Coachella Valley.
I had previously held many parts counter positions. Some gave you a complete uniform, some a shirt and a hat, but I never worked at a place that gave me a shoulder holster, a snub nose .38 and a sawed off, chrome plated shotgun! Obviously, this wasn’t going to be just another ordinary parts counter position and that became more obvious almost on a weekly basis. Tom had all kinds of surprises for me down the road.
Me watching the bikes and handcuffed to it to make sure I don’t leave.
I remember one day when three of us were standing behind the parts counter talking. Brent Farlie, who still is a friend to this day, and I can’t for the life of me remember the third guys name. All of a sudden my .38 fell out of my holster and hit the floor. We all froze watching it fall. It was as if it was all happening in slow-motion, and we were all positive it was going to land on the hammer, go off and shoot one of us. Each one of us was in a state of panic wondering which one of us was going to get hit. Luckily it didn’t go off. Later I asked Tom for a different holster, one that fit the handgun a little better and it never happened again.
I will never forget the day a gun did go off. I was out back in the warehouse at the time checking out an order when I heard the gun shot loudly echoing throughout the building. The sound came from the office area. We all immediately stopped what we were doing, froze, and looked at each other, each one of us thinking the same thing, but... more on that in a later post.
I guess I rambled on more than I had originally planned, but I don’t get to post as often as I would like to due to circumstances beyond my control. Plus, it’s hard not to, because I have so many wonderful memories of my days with AEE, the happiest time of my life, and I owe it all to Tom.
