Old Hat
Editorial
I doubt that there is anything more stressful than moving home, particularly later in life. What to keep, what to discard and vitally, where to put everything, because such late-life decamps generally involve what is known in modern parlance as down-sizing. Yes, OBA and the Scaysbrooks are on the road again, and down-sizing ain’t the half of it. During a ten-year tenure at the helm of OBA, I have managed to accumulate a massive collection of books, magazines, race programs, photographs and unclassified memorabilia, all of which is an invaluable resource when it comes to producing each issue of OBA. Not much scope for down-sizing in that department.
A ruthless cull of shed items reduced the inventory somewhat; most of this donated to people who think they have some use for it, rather than simply turfing it out. However I am convinced that when left unchecked, shed-occupying items such as tools manage to procreate. How else could I have accumulated 36 hammers? I swear that the drawer that contains 70 flat mill and semi-elliptical files of varying sizes originally only contained six. Boxes containing only slightly punctured inner tubes (easily fixed, one day), semi perished handlebar rubbers (I am waiting for a miracle product to rejuvenate these to come on the market), marginally bent handlebars and the like; out they go. I admit to having a weakness for collecting, or perhaps retaining, nuts, bolts and washers. After all, why go to Bunnings to buy new ones when with a few hours ferreting around, very suitable used components can be unearthed? Trouble is, the jars of nuts and bolts now number in the hundreds and occupy several sets of shelves. Heave-ho.
Even a few bikes had to go, but I soon reached the point where I felt I could not do without any of those that remain. So instead of the virtually unlimited space that I have enjoyed for the past 13 years, it will be a case of learning to cope with much more confined conditions in the workshop. Oh well, such is the modern way of life. In our generation, it was a given that each family had a quarter acre block, with at the very least a shed in the backyard. Our new place may be radically reduced in size, but it still has the necessities of an existence dominated by matters motorcycling.
You’ll find our new contacts at the head of the column on the left of this page.