Bought a windshield for the 1200 today.

[John Schmidt]

Guy runs a sales shop out of his garage, nice setup he has going. Gray haired gent and when I first called him he was hesitant he had anything that would fit. While chatting he suddenly asked my age, when I shared that with him the conversation took a different turn. He actually went and measure the w/s I was asking about, my forks are 9 1/2" wide measured from the outside of the forks. After a bit more discussion, I decided to take a run up to his place a few miles away. We hit it off in fine fashion, and it looks like I'll be able to adapt the w/s to the old Wing. It measures 9 3/4" between the mounting points. He gave me four Memphis Shades fork clamps, of the four there are two I can use, the other two are a tad to big. I might be able to slip a piece of aluminum under those to take up some slack. He also let me have it for less than his advertised price. It took about ten minutes of messing with the w/s and the next hour we sat and visited. He asked what I ride, told him and he had all kinds of great things to say about them. He's a HD guy but said the HD motor is a piece of junk compared to the Valkyrie motor, I told him about DDT....couldn't believe he's closing in on 600k miles. I shared with him how I adapted HD controls to the Valk, blew his mind. Here's a link to the CL ad I picked up on, it's 18" from the headlight cutout which is 7 1/2"....just right for my needs. It's not going to be a straight bolt in but so far nothing has been on this bike so not surprised. I'll mull it over in my mind the next few days and come up with a method to mount it nice and solid. Then all I have left is the seat and I already have a plan for that. I'm passing on installing a 1500 Wing final, too much cost involved even though it's major upgrade from the 1200 rear end.

https://orlando.craigslist.org/mpd/d/harley-davidson-sportster/6255665182.html

[Thunderbolt]

Gray haired gent.  I like how you described us John.  Did I tell you about a ham radio friend that many years ago was trying to describe himself to someone else that he was to meet the next day.  He told the other guy "just look for the premature gray haired guy".  I thought that right there was funny I don't care who you are to paraphrase Larry the Cable Guy.  Speaking of Larry I watched an old Only in America with Larry last night.  The vet at the rodeo had Larry use his finger to check a bulls temperature rectally.

[John Schmidt]

Terry, that reminds me of an old joke about a cross eyed bull. Seems this farmer had a prize bull and one morning went to feed him and noticed he was suddenly cross eyed. Since he had been getting some handsome fees providing the bull for stud service, he had to get the bull's eyes corrected ASAP. He called the local vet who came out to check out the bull. He told the farmer it's an easy procedure and commenced to pull out a long piece of pipe, greased it up good and slipped into the bulls butt. At the right depth, the vet takes a deep breath and blows real hard into the pipe, whereupon the bull's eyes immediately were corrected. The farmer was overjoyed, the vet said that will be $200 which the farmer was happy to pay. A week later, the farmer notice the same problem with the bull so called the vet back, who proceeded to pull out his long piece of pipe again and insert it in the bull's butt, giving it a good blast of air. The farmer figured if that's all that's involved he could avoid the $200 charge by asking the vet how to do it, so the vet shared the simple procedure with the farmer. He pointed to the pipe which was still in place and said to just blow on it. So, the farmer approached the bull, pulled out the pipe, turned it around and reinserted it.....followed by a hefty blow. The vet asked why he removed the pipe and turned it around, the farmer told him "you didn't expect me to put my mouth on the same place you had yours, did you?"    

I wonder if that's also where the old saying "tighter than a bull's butt in fly time" came from! Yeah, I spent a lot of my youth on the farm. I recall many times at the end of the day working in the fields we'd be so tired but still had to milk the cows. This was back before milking machines were available and yanking on those things when you're tired was a real chore. My cousins and I came up with an easy solution....we taught the cows to jump up/down, all we had to do was hang on. 

[Thunderbolt]

One more barnyard story John, this one came from my Dad.  When he was a kid they only had enough money for one pair of shoes a year and that was at the beginning of the school year.  By the time winter arrived the shoes were either worn out or they didn't want to wear them to do the feeding of the cows.  Dad told me that he would go out in the morning to feed up barefoot and his feet would be freezing and the only way he could get them warm was to stand in a fresh cow pile.    I thought he might be stretching the truth somewhat until we were at some gathering where one of his childhood friends was in attendance.  They were discussing old times and it was confirmed that they both had done the same. 

[John Schmidt]

Yes, heard that myself over the years. One thing you didn't want to do was start out with cold hands, old Bessie can definitely tell the difference. With cold hands you often would get a rather high pitched reaction, but if you took the time to warm your hands you'd get a nice mellow tone out of her. She'd turn and look at you with those big brown eyes, sometimes she'd even wink at you. They really appreciate it, especially when you would rub their belly and pat them on the rump. After that you can go out and milk the cows.