According to the stories you will find finds in distant lands under warm suns in forgotten barns. We have talked about this before, that there is also plenty to find in our own country. And we came across proof of that again last week.
Finds in the neighborhood: Not via the Internet
Internet is heavily overrated. It is of course the medium that has radically changed our world. But it is still so young that not everyone's world has changed. And then we also have the much-discussed aging. In short: a lot of seniors don't do anything or almost nothing with the Internet. They just have their own social life very old-fashioned. With real people. Family, neighbors, fellow villagers.
In the Dorpshuus
That social life does not stop with a chat about the hedge. All kinds of community centers run by social workers and the kind of things that are set up for young people in the Randstad, you will not find much outside the Randstad. The community centers in the part of the Netherlands where the Grachtengordeldieren of which the inhabitants of 010 and 030 usually exist only suspect other community centers. Everything is organized there and the audience that comes to it is usually gray-haired and pleasantly involved and entrepreneurial.
Card and shamrock evenings are organized and all kinds of lessons in languages and skills. The atmosphere is always great. And during the break there is a nice chat. If, as a teacher, you notice during a break that you like old motorcycles ... then two of those present appear to have 'another thing' in the shed. The one speaker is 83. The other a spring chicken of barely seventy. One engine is simply put away because the owner did not dare to drive anymore. The other engine is apart. For years. But he is going to be restored.
Enter the garage
Because everything goes very openly on such a course evening, you make a few appointments just like that. And a few days later you stand in the wooden garage at a stately 1930s house next to a beautiful Jawa 350, a machine with which you demonstrated in your time that you were modern in spirit and not without means. The conversation with the keen 82-year-old owner is going so well that the Jawa is being adopted. After 15 years of dreaming, he can go outside again this spring.
The second contact, just like the first, says something about the state of motorcycling in the days when a lot was already dreamed about large, fast motorcycles. At the time, T500's and Honda CB750 OHC's were machines that impressed you. But more obvious was a 350 cc CZ. The owner was also in his seventies, but he was busy restoring his steed. From the same evening, a phone call came later from another senior who had not been there, but who did report that he wanted to distance himself from his 1959 Jawa 250 cc because of age and health.
One thing is clear
Forget about the Internet and go to a course or club in your local community center, community center or community center. Learn sensible things such as French or pottery. And score classics. Finds in the neighborhood, it is still possible!
