Thirty years after this event, my brother still wants to remind everyone that I won a full scholarship during my first semester of college even though I was supposed to be the “brain of the family”. I think he enjoyed telling the story because at the time he believed it was a hole in my armor, a chip in the chromium plating. But even then, he must still think that I would do well for myself. Otherwise, he might not have made a deal that finally brought him to my doorstep with a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail in the spring of 2018.
Together for the trip, a few roads behind
In my office, I have a picture frame of my brother, 5, and a chubby 2 year old me. We’re wearing matching striped rail overalls with thick leg cuffs, holding hands, and I flash a big smile. I have always respected my brother. He’s the epitome of cool – as soon as I know what “cool” means – even if he wants nothing to do with his younger, handsome brother as we get older. If anything, that makes him colder.
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Even in our teenage years, when he was having a hard time and I got an A, I looked at him admiringly from the back of my textbook, wishing I wasn’t scared and willing to accept. risk.
A few years later, I followed him to the local university. With my grades, I could go somewhere more prestigious, but in my senior year of high school, I started hanging out with my brother and his friends. I was welcomed into his fold. We are friends again, like we haven’t since childhood.
I followed him up the ski slopes – down big hills and over cliffs that I probably shouldn’t have. When he rides a motorbike, starting with a Yamaha V-Max, I follow him there too. My first bike was a Honda V65 Magna. It’s a miracle I didn’t kill myself, but maybe I haven’t had it long enough. I only owned the bike for over a year before I had to sell it.
This is where the details become blurred. But it’s college anyway.
In my recollection, around this time my brother offered me a deal: Who could buy himself a Harley first, and then get the other when he could afford it. pay. The benefit of this deal is that each of us ends up having at least one bike, either bought by ourselves or given to us. But if we’re both successful, we’ll end up with two bikes.
When he bought a Sportster 1200 – and started doing pretty well in the business world – I was so excited, especially since I was still aimlessly fiddling around (this was after blowing my school up). that scholarship). Surely my bike won’t be far away.
Then he had a Fat Boy, and I thought, “Wait a minute.”
Turns out, my brother remembered the deal differently.
Resolved or no deal
By his own admission (when I called to tell him about this article), my brother went on to customize perhaps five other Harleys.
A few years later and motorbikes, after a few beers, I asked him about it.
“It’s not the deal,” he said. “It’s that we both get one for ourselves first and then one for the other brother.”
“What if one of the brothers could never afford one for himself to begin with?” I said, at that time still living to pay the salary.
We continue to debate the finer details of a deal made about 15 years earlier. At the end of the night, I don’t think I convinced him I was right – this kind of victory over a brother is rare. But in 2018, after selling his business with a lucrative deal, he called me and said, “So, do you want a Jeep or a Harley? But whatever you choose, I can choose the style. “
Who am I to argue?
I picked up the Harley, and a month later he showed up to tow a 2004 Heritage Softail Classic with just over 8,000 miles. Talk about feeling like a kid again. Or at least that carefree 20s. It’s a dream – and a deal – come true.
I sometimes wonder if my brother would have made that original deal because he felt bad that I had to sell my motorcycle. He said he just thought I was going to hit big before him and things would go the other way. Funny how life functions.
Whatever his reasons, he made it through. He hasn’t been driving for a few days. After selling his business, he moved to Hawaii and traded jeans and riding jackets for a wetsuit and fins. But after all these years, he is still the epitome of cold.
This article first appeared as an Exhaust Note feature in the October 2022 issue of Rider.
