“Nah, don’t pay now. Fill her up and then
come in to settle.” I met many people along the way, some
more interesting than others. Whenever I stopped on a rural road somewhere to admire the view or answer a call of nature, sooner or later a farmer would stop to ask if I needed assistance. Of course we got talk- ing - mostly after “You are not from around here, are you?” Farmers along US 36 had one repetitive tale. “And last year?” I would ask. “Record prices and low-low yields.” The life of a farmer can be very hard, and
I felt sorry for the one who invited me home - until I noticed the very latest Lincoln AWD in the garage. Maybe life on the farm is not so tough after all. Only when I was back on the road did the
thought strike me that I should not think of the farmer as a wealthy agricultural entre- preneur, but rather as a survivor. He must have seen nine of his neighbours abandon hope, pack up and head for a more predict- able existence, yet he stayed and made a go of it. Rather than thinking of him as a rural Pacman gobbling up neighbouring farms, one should think of him as the one who
An abandoned motel along US 36.
made lemonade when life threw him lemons. More interesting were the walkers I met:
Anna, who was walking from Oregon to Boston (
Annaswalk.com) and Jesse who was walking the full length of Route 66, from Chicago to Los Angeles (Jesseswalk. com). Both of them had lightweight trailers that they could pull along. Jesse was walk- ing with his dog - still a puppy at that stage.
Tommy The most interesting character I met was Tommy - and I nearly missed him. All along US 36 I passed abandoned cars and trucks in backyards that would have been collect- able in some countries, but obviously not here – at least not yet. Somewhere in Kan- sas I spotted something from the corner of my eye. I was sure it could not be what I thought it was, but I nevertheless turned round to have a closer look. There, next to a shed among some scrappy Studebakers, was a 1956 Ford Thunderbird hardtop, the one with the round portholes. Where I come from this car is the most collectable postwar American car, but here it was standing next to a shed in a cornfield. What
is more, next to it was a 1957 Thunderbird stripped down to the bare body. I took out my camera and started taking photos. I noticed a CCTV camera and was not
totally surprised when a man on a tractor came barreling along to check on what I was doing. I introduced myself and soon we were discussing Thunderbirds and Hawks. “Come and have a look inside,” Tommy
said, and opened the shed which turned out to be a fully equipped workshop with cars in various stages of restoration. Parked among the cars was an R 60/2. Tommy had a fondness for /2s. “I bought
out a closing BMW dealership in the 1970s, and I still have many pre-70 spares.” For someone like me who owns an R 26, R 50, R 60 and an R 69 S, Tommy is a man worth knowing. In one of the many parks along the road
where I stopped, a couple on a big twin stopped next to me. Of course we stated talking bikes. “Ours is this year’s model,” the Missus.
announced proudly. “It is the first model with water-cooling and ABS.”” “Mine is water-cooled and has ABS.” “Is it this year’s model?”
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BMW OWNERS NEWS September 2015
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