So you want to play rough?

Well, Chris has upped the human observation ante with his latest post on soapy. And Jason has called me out on not mentioning Footis Head in my last post, so I'm gonna bring my A game for the next few posts. I'm not quite ready to talk about Footis (or Jafreakin' or I-washed-windows-in-'Nam), but I do want to share some more tales from the shop, so to speak.

The shop that Brian, Jeff and I all worked at in Fayetteville (and I raced for as a junior) still serves as my bicyce shop archetype. It was located on Bragg Blvd. in a worse for wear, long, narrow, two-story building. The mechanics area was in the back, with most of the mechanics (thankfully) hidden from view. When it rained really hard, the mechanics area would flood and some poor schmuck would get stuck vacuuming water up with a wet vac all day, while everyone else worked on bikes in ankle deep water. We would listen to the most obnoxious music we could find at volumes just below what would piss off the owner. And while we worked on bikes, we would harass each other without mercy, play practical jokes on each other that usually inflicted pain or embarassment, and invented ways to turn shop tools into long range weapons. In short, it was great.

One of the most infamous mechanics was Al Boegli, the head mechanic. Al would cruise in at 10 am sharp (opening time), punch in on the time clock, and announce,"I'm going to Burger King for breakfast. Anybody want anything?" BK was directly across the street and still it would take 45 minutes for Al to go and come back. Al would come back with his food, eat at his work station and then head to the bathroom. 20 to 30 minutes later, Al would emerge and go back to his station. Al would then look through the repair tickets, find a bike he wanted to work on and go upstairs to retrieve it. He would put the bike up in the stand and then...it was break time.

Al would head to the alley in back of the shop, and usually he would smoke and it wasn't tobacco he preferred. Now, well buzzed, Al would be ready to work. Unfortunately it was lunch time, so Al would have to head back to BK. I believe you're starting to get the picture here.

Al was just one such character at the shop. There was the mechanic who lived in a cardboard box in the alley. There was Mike, the owner's brother (and one of the best bike mechanics I've ever worked with), who had a talent for being able to mock any song played by either changing the words on the fly or singing it in some incongruous character's voice, like Elmer Fudd singing David Bowie's "China Girl". He also was downright evil when it came to practical jokes. You had to always be on your guard when he was around. Inevitably, he inspired us to do many things just for the sake of a laugh.

The shop was always open on Christmas Eve so that parents could come pick up bikes for Santa. We would all work, but really it was an all day party and by the early afternoon we were usually fairly intoxicated. Mike started a Christmas tradition at the shop where we would prank call people we knew and pretend to be someone else. Our greatest hope was to not get the person, but to get their answering machine. One such call actually ended up on Jeff's answering machine and it was something like this:
"Booboo, this is Squashfoot. You done sold me some bad s**t. I'm comin' to get you and you better have my money" Click. We also started a competition to see who could find the adult book store in town that sold an inflatable sex doll with the highest weight capacity. I won that one with an inflatable sheep that had a max weight capacity of 350 lbs. Ah, the joys of growing up in Fayetteville...

Like I said, you always had to keep your guard up, even on Christmas eve.

Our man Kevin Wilson is on a plane to Australia right now, probably going squirrelly from being cooped up. He promises to email with pics and a travelogue as soon as he gets an internet connection. We wish you luck, Kevin!