I often wonder how things have gone so far off track for us as a society. It would seem that in today’s world, we are often so busy that we are left with few precious moments to spend on our communities. Now I don’t mean community charity work, I mean the kind of personal time that you spend with friends and neighbors that go towards reenforcing the bonds of community, brotherhood and the moral fiber that makes us who we are.Recently I was reminded that we as biker people, have a firmer sense of this process than most, well many of us at least. I spent a week in St. Louis just before the holidays with other brothers from other states, most of us nearly a thousand miles away respectively. We worked on several projects, lived in another brothers house and shared his time and his family for a week. We shared his food and his work and got to know him on more of a personal level than any of us had previous to this time. It was the same across the board and the time flew by, before you knew it we were all saying good bye and heading off in different directions again. But now it was different. This time as we said good bye our embraces were a little more firm, our deep pauses of reflection a little more sincere. We had forged a bond, like men have in generations before us, that would go on to last a lifetime. We had given each other the most precious gift that you can give another human being: time. Time is the only thing in this life that can’t be replaced with money.
Another instance came when I got back from my trip. The old boy next door was having trouble with his gas powered generator. I had stopped in to check on things at the house and was on my way to a thousand other things i had to do when he turned the corner. He told me that he needed help and of course I told him to roll his generator into the garage and we’d have a look. An hour later we had taken the carb apart, cleaned up the float bowl valve and he was on his way. I lost an hour or so from the schedule I had that day but I saved him a week of screwing around with a local shop.
Now it might seem impossible that these little things we can do together or for each other could possible have enough of an effect to actually change our society, but I put it to you: wasn’t it the fact that we stopped doing the little things responsible fore how we got here today? So maybe the small things are those we should pay more attention to, give time when you can and take help from your brothers who offer it.
