A Motorcycle Thread About Absolutely Nothing!

[Reba]

Originally Posted by Jiro

ah... whew! it surely looks like you had a bad accident. That boots look like my Timberland. I noticed one thing -



see where I circled it? Is that area melted??? it happens when footwear is near the exhaust pipes.

No, there were no marks on the exhaust but my heel did rub against the coil/spring on one side.

[Reba]

Next to the place where we had lunch yesterday was a small memorial park near the water. It was to memorialize local people who had been lost at sea. This monument was part of the memorial.

Notice something special on the monument?

[Reba]

Here's the story:

Charleston SC -- It was an ugly, gray morning on the Gulf Stream, and an angry sea of 12-foot waves stood between Johnny Wayne Brown and home.

For eight days, he'd fished the Stream with Tony Bessent, his brother-in-law, and Gary McCombs aboard the 48-foot Hatteras Tracie Lynn. It had been a good trip: The hold was filled with iced-down grouper and snapper. A nice payday awaited them on shore.

On this morning, April 2, 2005, it was too rough for fishing, so the three men sat in the Tracie Lynn's wheelhouse drinking coffee. They already had caught what they needed and were ready to call it quits. Now all they could do was wait for a break in the weather to make for Murrells Inlet.

Bessent and McCombs listened to music over the satellite radio, but Johnny could hear nothing. Deaf since he was a baby, he navigated the world in silence. He had long ago refused to succumb to his disability, instead turning it into an asset. His deafness gave him what seemed to be an extraordinary concentration for fishing, for hunting, for any number of other hobbies and vocations. He'd been commercial fishing for 20 years and was one of the best in his home town of Murrells Inlet.

With nothing to do but wait, Johnny was bored. While Bessent and McCombs talked, Johnny leaned against the rocking bulkhead and drifted off to sleep.

The Tracie Lynn was 50 miles off Cape Fear, and the weather showed no signs of abating. The wind blew at 40 to 60 knots, tropical storm force, and the boat disappeared in troughs of blue-gray water, only to pop up atop a swell moments later. It was an unnerving roller coaster ride, but nothing that a bunch of veteran fishermen hadn't seen before.

Bessent stood up to stretch about 9 a.m. and walked to the wheelhouse door. It had been tied open with a bungee cord so the three men could get a fresh breeze without the door slamming against the bulkhead.

As he looked outside, Bessent saw the wave out of the corner of his eye. It was a rogue Bessent guessed to be 30 or 40 feet high. He yelled to McCombs to look out, to hold on.

Just before the wave hit, Bessent caught a glimpse of Johnny, peacefully sleeping with his head against the hull.

'The hearing world'

Johnny was born on Feb. 21, 1967, the sixth of Brenda and Jack Brown's seven children. They lived in Socastee, a rural community a few miles inland from Myrtle Beach.

Just after his first birthday, as Johnny was beginning to walk and talk, he came down with spinal meningitis. Before he recovered, the accompanying fevers burned out his hearing.

Barely more than a year old, Johnny was deaf.

He refused to let an inability to hear stop him. When his brothers and sisters ran off to play in the woods, he followed along. He acted as if he weren't deaf.

'He did everything the others did and some things he shouldn't have,' his mother remembered.

'He learned to live within the hearing world.'

Johnny took to sign language quickly and taught his family as well. They developed their own symbols, a language only they spoke.

He spent his first year of school in special education classes in Myrtle Beach public schools, but his parents thought he needed more. They wanted to enroll him in the South Carolina School For the Deaf and the Blind in Spartanburg but refused to send him away. So the entire family moved.

'We did not want him to feel like he wasn't good enough and we were shipping him off,' Brown said.

Johnny became one of the most gifted and popular students at the school. He helped other students learn sign language. His sisters, Laura Abernathy and Lisa Bessent, joke that he was so nice to one particular female student most likely because 'he wanted to kiss her.'

After nine years, Johnny told his parents he wanted to return to the coast. They suspected he was thinking of them, but by then he was a teenager and the lure of the beach, of the water, had to appeal to him. The family moved to Murrells Inlet and Johnny commuted to the School for the Deaf and Blind, spending his weeks in Spartanburg and his weekends on the coast.

By the time he graduated in 1986, he had been homecoming king and quarterback of the football team.

At home on the water

Johnny spent a lot of time hanging out on the docks and eventually started working on fishing boats with sister Lisa's husband, Tony Bessent.

Bessent got Johnny a job on the Beth-Anne, and Johnny quickly proved adept at the job.

'He was one of the best, if not the best,' Lisa Bessent said. 'Most guys on the boat would be talking or listening to music, but Johnny couldn't hear any of that. He just concentrated on the fish.'

He fished, got married, had two sons and eventually divorced. When his ex-wife moved with his children to Tennessee, he stayed behind. He often hung out at his mother's house, watching the Weather Channel, a habit for fishermen. When kids ran through the house, leaving the adults screaming for them to be quiet, Johnny just laughed. He said he couldn't hear a thing.

'One day he was watching 'Storm Stories,' and he told me he wanted to be buried at sea,' Brown said. 'I told him I wouldn't allow it.'

He grew restless if he spent too much time on land. He only wanted to fish, and only with his brother-in-law. His brothers tried to get him into the floor covering business, but Johnny wouldn't stick with it for long. Even after he met Samantha Feazell and made plans to marry in June 2005, he wouldn't stop fishing.

One day, he and his fiancee walked along the Murrells Inlet waterfront. He stopped at a bench engraved with the names of some people lost at sea, and he told her that one day his name would be there, too.

Despite this, he didn't hesitate when Bessent told him they'd been hired to run the Tracie Lynn. Johnny was excited. He was going back to sea.

Rescue

The wave hit the Tracie Lynn like a bomb. One minute the boat was there, the next it was just gone.

Bessent found himself in an air pocket beneath the boat and somehow spotted McCombs beneath him. Using his feet, Bessent pulled McCombs up next to him. He said, 'If you want to get out of here, follow me.'

Somehow the two men navigated the sinking wreckage of the Hatteras, eventually popping up on the confused seas. Before they had time to consider the hopelessness of the situation, three of the Tracie Lynn's four survival suits broke the surface nearby.

Bessent dove beneath the water, looking for Johnny, but he couldn't find him. There was nothing but debris in sight, and the largest piece of the boat he found was the wheelhouse door, still tied to its frame with the bungee cord.

When he realized McCombs had drifted away from him and that he couldn't catch up, Bessent tied himself to the door with the bungee cord. At least, he thought, this way they'll find my body.

For two hours, Bessent struggled in the unforgiving sea, trying to get his survival suit on. In the distance, he saw that McCombs had found the Tracie Lynn's survival raft. He couldn't climb in, but eventually the waves pitched him into it.

After five hours in the water, Bessent saw a freighter, the Greek-flagged Sophia Britannia. He yelled and waved but was certain the ship's crew members hadn't seen him. Then they appeared to shoot at him.

Bessent thought they were just trying to put him out of his misery. Then he remembered his Navy training. They were shooting a line to him.

It took the freighter a while to stop, but the crew eventually got a ladder down to the surface and pulled Bessent up.

They nearly lost him because the survival suit had filled with water. Finally, one of the sailors produced a knife and Bessent could only say, 'Be careful.' He didn't want to be pulled from the sea only to have someone cut off his foot.

In the distance, a Coast Guard helicopter picked up McCombs. The wave had destroyed the Tracie Lynn five hours earlier, and Bessent and McCombs told the Coast Guard patrol another man was still out there.

For the next day, three Coast Guard helicopters, a C-130 plane and a 110-foot patrol boat scoured the heavy seas off Cape Fear.

The searchers never found more than debris. There was no sign of Johnny. Despite his family's pleas, the Coast Guard called off the search.

Two weeks later, another rogue wave, this one 70 feet high, hit the Norwegian Dawn in the same waters, forcing the cruise ship to divert to Charleston for repairs.

A memorial for all

The idea for a monument came just weeks after Johnny was lost. A cousin from New England had Johnny's name added to a list of lost sailors read during ceremonies at the Seaman's Bethel in New Bedford, Mass., a building immortalized in 'Moby Dick.'

The family wanted to do something special for Johnny closer to home, something like the monument to lost fishermen in Gloucester, Mass. They contacted Murrells Inlet 2007, a group finishing a 10-year community redevelopment plan. An idea was born.

The family has designed an 8-foot rectangular granite monument with Johnny's image engraved on it and raised the $23,000 for the memorial through fundraising efforts, benefit concerts and donations from the bikers who vacation on the Grand Strand every year.

Their efforts paid off quickly, and the family plans to dedicate the monument April 2, the anniversary of Johnny's death.

The family wants the monument to pay homage to every South Carolinian lost at sea and is taking applications from anyone who wants their lost family members' or friends' names added to the monument. The plan is to add names every year, and the family has set up a committee to verify any claims that come in to the office. So far, there have been about 14.

Still grieving, the family has declined to read the applications that come in every week. Tony Bessent can't even speak of the tragedy; and Johnny's sister, Laura Abernathy, said she can't bring herself to read the applications.

'I couldn't do it,' she said. 'It touches too close to home.'

Monument to Pay Homage to Those Lost at Sea [blogbudsman.blog-city.com]

[Jiro]

Originally Posted by Reba

Next to the place where we had lunch yesterday was a small memorial park near the water. It was to memorialize local people who had been lost at sea. This monument was part of the memorial.

Notice something special on the monument?

I see !

Originally Posted by Reba

Here's the story:


Monument to Pay Homage to Those Lost at Sea [blogbudsman.blog-city.com]

for sharing. what a true seaman he is. this is a very touching story especially the part where the entire family moved with him when they wanted to send him to this deaf school.

[souggy]

Originally Posted by Reba

We met a Deaf peddler at the rally. I know we shouldn't encourage them but I got a chance to chat with him and give him my cards (no cost, of course ).

That's a new one on me.

Never seen a peddler that actually sell something. Most of the "Deaf" ones I have encountered just have the alphabet chart on the back of the card, nothing more. I say "Deaf" because out of 20 or 30... only like one of them could sign.

[Reba]

Originally Posted by souggy

That's a new one on me.

Never seen a peddler that actually sell something. Most of the "Deaf" ones I have encountered just have the alphabet chart on the back of the card, nothing more. I say "Deaf" because out of 20 or 30... only like one of them could sign.

This guy could sign, and we had a nice chat about his family, his viewpoint on CIs, etc. Yeah, at least the pins on the card fit the theme of the rally, and the cards had a calendar on the back.

It was a different experience signing with my helmet on (we were getting ready to leave). Signs like DEAF, WRONG, and others that touch the head seemed funny to sign without feeling them on my face.

[Reba]

Originally Posted by Jiro

I see !

for sharing. what a true seaman he is. this is a very touching story especially the part where the entire family moved with him when they wanted to send him to this deaf school.

Yes, it was a touching story.

[Jiro]

Originally Posted by Reba

This guy could sign, and we had a nice chat about his family, his viewpoint on CIs, etc. Yeah, at least the pins on the card fit the theme of the rally, and the cards had a calendar on the back.

It was a different experience signing with my helmet on (we were getting ready to leave). Signs like DEAF, WRONG, and others that touch the head seemed funny to sign without feeling them on my face.

ah since he is the REAL deaf panhandler.... I guess it is ok to buy a card from him

btw - how did he end up as a peddler?

[Jiro]

this is my other pair of boots I wear for motorcycling. I like it cuz it has sealed tongue (no water goes thru) and it has nice grip. comfortable too.

see the red circle - it's the "scuff mark" from shifter

[souggy]

Wirelessly posted

Originally Posted by Jiro

ah since he is the REAL deaf panhandler.... I guess it is ok to buy a card from him

btw - how did he end up as a peddler?

I rather buy pins than an ASL card.

[Jiro]

Originally Posted by souggy

I rather buy pins than an ASL card.

it is a pin

[whatdidyousay!]

My girlfriend and use to go and pick up guys on bikes ! We loved the ride ! One guy had side car on his bike and that was really cool to ride in. But I like being on the bike the best! My son in law had a bike but I never got to ride on it ! Crap!

[souggy]

Wirelessly posted

Originally Posted by Jiro

it is a pin

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

[TinCanSailor]

Since Reba got to tell her side of the story, I will now tell you how it really was!

Heading out of the Charleston area up the coast we encountered a very strong headwind. About 15 mph gusting winds. Without a fairing my helmet kept trying to choke me. Had to keep head down some. Speed around 60.

Reba kept mentioning (discomfort). I can't understand why. WE WERE ON A MOTORCYCLE.

The MB rally really was disappointing. Small and limited. Did find a great place for lunch.

On the way back, the wind had died down and I kicked it up to 70 in the rural stretches. Loved it. The bike purred. Arrived home just before dusk last night. Reba still mentioning discomfort.....guess she will have to get her own

Here are a few custom bikes:

[TinCanSailor]

Some general rally pix:

[TinCanSailor]

I saw no other Hyosung bikes at the rally. My Cruise parked with others. Can you find it?

[TinCanSailor]

We ate at the Hot Fish restaurant. We sat on the porch of the restaurant, and had a nice sea breeze, and we could smell the salt air and look out at the marsh and water.

[Jiro]

Originally Posted by TinCanSailor

I saw no other Hyosung bikes at the rally. My Cruise parked with others. Can you find it?

3rd bike from left

[Jiro]

Originally Posted by TinCanSailor

Since Reba got to tell her side of the story, I will now tell you how it really was!

Heading out of the Charleston area up the coast we encountered a very strong headwind. About 15 mph gusting winds. Without a fairing my helmet kept trying to choke me. Had to keep head down some. Speed around 60.

Reba kept mentioning (discomfort). I can't understand why. WE WERE ON A MOTORCYCLE.

The MB rally really was disappointing. Small and limited. Did find a great place for lunch.

On the way back, the wind had died down and I kicked it up to 70 in the rural stretches. Loved it. The bike purred. Arrived home just before dusk last night. Reba still mentioning discomfort.....guess she will have to get her own

Here are a few custom bikes:

be nice

I know the feeling about strong wind hitting you. very unpleasant. The taller windshield for my bike is $$$ so I'll wait till I find a nice price for used one.

[Reba]

Originally Posted by Jiro

you chatted with him in ASL, right?

Oops! I missed this post.

Yes, ASL.

[Jiro]

my friend just txted me earlier about this sunday. There's a Freedom Run rally to pay respect for 9/11. I did run last year and it was quite an experience cuz there was over 2,000 bikers... or was it 5,000? It started from NJ to George Washington Bridge to FDR to Holland Tunnel to Liberty State Park - police escorted.

However - this year, we will not go thru NYC and I don't know why. I think NYC didn't like it that we were holding up the traffic for a long time. Last year - it was unexpected to have so many bikers so I suppose the NYPD was unprepared for that massive turnout.

[Jiro]

this is the Freedom Run I was in last year -

YouTube - Bergen Harley Davidson - Freedom Run May 31st, 2009

YouTube - Bergen Harley Davidson - Freedom Run May 31st, 2009

You Tube

You Tube

so it was 3,500 bikers.

[Steinhauer]

YouTube - Orkin Hot Tub Commercial

YouTube - Orkin Hot Tub Commercial

what kind of bike?

[authentic]

Originally Posted by Steinhauer

YouTube - Orkin Hot Tub Commercial

what kind of bike?

Seems like Suzuki ?

[Endemic]

2000 gsxr 750

[Steinhauer]

This just in:

Ottawa Hills officer's trial begins, dash cam vid shown | 13abc.com

I guess it was his fault for riding a Harley (being sarcastic).

[Jiro]

Originally Posted by Steinhauer

This just in:

Ottawa Hills officer's trial begins, dash cam vid shown | 13abc.com

I guess it was his fault for riding a Harley (being sarcastic).

Officers - May this lesson be with you. If you're trigger-happy... if your thoughts are always filled with paranoia... if your answer to every problem is gun... then this job ain't for you.

[Steinhauer]

Originally Posted by Jiro

Officers - May this lesson be with you. If you're trigger-happy... if your thoughts are always filled with paranoia... if your answer to every problem is gun... then this job ain't for you.

Absolutely agree (reason I said police are becoming Judge Dredd Commando types these days).

Not all of them of course .....

[Jiro]

Originally Posted by Steinhauer

Absolutely agree (reason I said police are becoming Judge Dredd Commando types these days).

Not all of them of course .....

problem is - this man was a part-time officer. part-time dispatcher. He did not follow the proper police procedure. There are lot of full-time professional cops who can handle the stressful situations in a calm professional manner. They know the use of lethal force is last resort. They use the lethal force AFTER they positively identify the lethal situation, not before. He should be charged with attempted murder. I think it's time we should raise the job qualification/standard for local police officer.

It's becoming a costly litigious issue for town/city/state - a money we do not have to pay for this.

[Steinhauer]

Originally Posted by Jiro

problem is - this man was a part-time officer. part-time dispatcher. He did not follow the proper police procedure. There are lot of full-time professional cops who can handle the stressful situations in a calm professional manner. They know the use of lethal force is last resort. They use the lethal force AFTER they positively identify the lethal situation, not before. He should be charged with attempted murder. I think it's time we should raise the job qualification/standard for local police officer.

It's becoming a costly litigious issue for town/city/state - a money we do not have to pay for this.

In my state two officers shot and killed a Pastor at a gas station. They did not identify themselves (undercover) and pulled up next to his car as he was getting in. They jumped out of their truck waving firearms, he tried to get away thinking he was getting robbed (later confirmed by EMT). They fired all rounds at his car. he died on the way to the hospital.

They are still working. One of the officers has been in and out of drug rehab his entire career

Shooting was .... justified.

Lets see if this officer gets off the hook by his cronie buddies.