Uncle Wally

Today was the first really nice day in forever in Seattle, so I seized the opportunity to get a longer shakedown cruise in and rode "Hollister" out to west Seattle to visit Uncle Wally and get his approval on the "U".

Uncle Wally has always been one of my favorites of Harley Widow's many relatives. Seems he has done just about everything... Worked on the B-29 line at Boeing in '44-'45, served in the Merchant Marine just after the war, drove an ice cream truck for a local dairy (which made him Harley-widow's favorite Uncle too)...

A definitive product of the depression, Wally provides a superb antithesis to today's throwaway culture. Wally still has (and rides) the 1939 Schwinn he got as a kid. He also still has the 1958 Harley 165 he bought new from Drager's Harley Davidson in Seattle. It's currently disassembled, but if I have any sway at all, it will ride again. The trademark of Wally's stuff is many coats of paint, typically applied with a brush. Perhaps the Merchant Marine influence. His son Ed stripped 9 coats of paint off of Wally's old 1946 Ford schoolbus/camper!

A 1958 motorcycle will last a very long time if it's well cared for, and it turns out a few coats of surplus Kenworth paint, applied with a brush, keeps everything amazingly corrosion-free.

Anyway, Wally's first motorcycle was a 1938 Harley 45" flathead, and he rode across country just after WWII on a 1936 VLH 80" flathead, between Florida and Seattle, with a stop in Juarez, so I figured he would be a good judge of Hollister. He still rides a 1984 Goldwing.

If you look closely, you will see, in Wally's shirt pocket, a supply of the famed "Hooey" sticks (another trademark).

On the way home, I ran by the old Rainier Brewery buildings in Georgetown to try to get some pictures. I got a couple I like, and also emptied out a saloon down there because everyone came out to see the "Cossack bike" across the street.





Hollister ran flawlessly. All in all, pretty nice day.