Tribute to "BUZZ" You guys need to see this!!!!!!!

I like your stories Bob.

I think I've met my Buzz...except he doesn't have parts, he has knowledge.

Gary is an old Harley tech. w/ two daughters w/ boyfriends who could care less about scoots. He thinks I'm the neatest thing since sliced bread because I live for old scoots and vehicles.

He has offered to build a bike w/ me from the ground up for nothing, just so some of his knowledge lives on. I'm taking him up on the offer.

 

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And I bet BUZZ knew where every thing was too..

RIP..

Now your shop is going to start to look like BUZZes basement

evel

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He knew where everything was..., he just couldn't get to it without some help moving the Big stuff around...!!!

We located his boxes of titles and I was looking through all the motorcycle titles and noticed a title from 1967 that had my brother inlaws name on it...!

So I called him up and asked if he remembered that bike and he told me it was a 1953 Harley Police Trike and that he gave it to a Cop who must've sold it to Buzz...!

Small world..., everybody is 6 people away from knowing everyone in the world...!

But the Car and motorcycle worlds are much smaller... !

 

That is a great story. I do not know any older guys who are into cars or bikes, but i am a WWII reenactor and i have a few veterans i go talk to quite frequently. Their stories amaze me, and also they will show me some of their stuff that will just knock your socks off. One guy still has his boots and another has his dog tags that the Germans gave him when he was captured. I have spent many hours with these men and they are truely great guys. They are always amazed that a 18 y/o kid cares about what they did in the war. RIP Buzz.
Lil Joe

 

don't know a "Buzz" but i'm happy they are still around.
good score..

Thanks Buzz!

Neal0o
btlltw

 

Wingnutz
sounds just like my great uncle. he was a farmer not a car guy though. he had these two garages for a shop, but you couldn't take more than two steps inside without tripping over something. there was everything from john deere parts to motorcycle frames and fifty year old outboard motors in there. i can remember being a kid and helping my grandpa work on an old tractor or four wheeler and having to walk over to his garage (they only lived two houses away) to get a part or tool. i would find my great uncle and describe to him what i needed and he would say i think i know what you need. he knew exactly where everything was and he was the only person who could get to it without tripping or knocking something over.
your friend Buzz sounds alot like my great uncle, and i'm you got to know him.
God bless you Buzz.

 

too bad you did not get anything good. I heard scrap metal is up if you can't get it to the dumps i can truck it for you guys!!!

 

I recently bought a '27 T roadster cowl from a guy in Va. When I got there we loaded the cowl and he said "back your truck up to the shed, you may want some of this other stuff". So we go in this shed and he just started loading stuff T roadster doors, windshields, headlight bars, etc.

We start talkin cars, and he takes me into another shed and there is an <font color="red">NOS Model t roadster body. </font>He had just taken it out of the crate that Henry Ford put it in. Never been on a frame. He had just bought about a dozen of these bodies from a widow whose husband had removed them from an old Ford dealer that was about to toss 'em in the seventies.

The widow wouldn't sell just the one body, and he being a very young guy didn't have the money to buy all of 'em. So he found a local business-man to back him. His comission for turnin' them was the one roadster body.

He had just sold the last one. It was a '27 tub. I guess I was a day late and a dollar short again. But I did leave there with a truck load of parts.

 

We can all only wish to be as lucky as to find our own BUZZ...great story Bleed and good pics and grats to you and Wingnutz on the super score.

 

bobbleed, Thank you for the story about BUZZ, you were lucky to have known him. I've meet a few guys like him with great "stuff", too bad there so few of these guys around. Sad when you think of all the lifetimes that wind up in a rolloff dumpster. I'm looking around the office/computer/junk room and see that there is a bit of BUZZ in me. I'd try to get back there to be sure no bits get tossed that should be saved. This may be a wakeup call to us all to start organizing our stuff, and making known who we want to help out disposing of the stuff. RIP BUZZ.

 

I think the undertone here is take time to spend with old timers. You will probably find what they have to offer up is worth much more than the junk they have collected.
And sometimes the more cantankerous and eccentric they are, the more great stories they will have. When I was about 22 I was working nights as a mechanic on the TransAlaska Pipeline. There was a goofy old cuss working a couple shops down from me and everyone just steered clear of him as he was meaner than shit. He wore bib overalls and tennis shoes with no strings or socks. I gave him the same respect I was taught to give all elders and got to know him. One night he invited me to come by his room after breakfast. When I got over there he was setting at the little desk we had in those 10x12 two man rooms, with a unimat lathe. He was working on a Fairbanks magneto off a Lincoln welder. Since he couldn't find parts he was making them. I sat there and watched him make a set of points using parts from some 6 cylinder Chevy points and he carved the insulater out of moose horn. The next evening the welder went back on line. We got to be good friends and I spent every minute I could with him. I could write a book about the stuff this man had done and nobody else had the time of day for him.

 

I like the way you spell Einstein

 

I can't take it anymore Bob, I just can't! I have to say it. If he has a knuckle tucked away somewhere tell that kid I'll buy it and pay good coin for it.

 

We'll be contacted when the auction would happen.

Of course the family needs to sort things out first..., so it'll be interesting what transpires from all of this.

 

I would think a harley parts auction in Milwaukee would be the last place I'd waste my time.......

 

I have a freind kind of like Buzz. The most important thing I get from him is an education on old car stuff. He is a great source of parts but the time I spend at his place is what is valuable. We're talking about building a A sedan with a dual Quad Licoln 430 he has. I don't know if it will ever get done but we have a good time talking about it. The real way to not end up like Buzz is to have a son and raise him to be a real hotrodder! find someone who cares about the cars and teach them what you know.

 

Buzz's cousin called me today and asked if I knew about the 2 Semi Trailers in the woods... ?

I told them that I was completely unaware of the trailers...! The woods are so thick that nobody could see them until they ventured through all the thickets, schrubs, and pricker bushes...!

So he invited me out and showed me the trailers and one was open so we could look around!

Apparently the house and Garages weren't enough room for him to collect..., so he had these trailers delivered out to the house and promptly filled them to the top with old furniture and Bicycle frames...!

Behind the trailer were a couple of more cars and motorcycles...!

The Appraisors are coming out to the house this Monday (11/1/04) and are planning to spend a week there to assess the possible values of all the contents on the property...!

Apparently they found a large box of titles for cars and motorcycles and want me to help them place the title with the car... !!!!

All I got to say is that there is 7 acres of woods and Buzz has a surprise around each tree...! Thank God the leaves have fallen from the trees and it's easier to find the tin...!

 

WOW, I haven't seen this post for awhile and some one posted a link to it on another thread. Did I miss the outcome of the story?
Drew

 

The Heirs threw away three 30 yard dumpsters of stuff from the house and they called a salvage guy for all the cars (24 of them(?)) to be shredded and surrendered all of the titles to the scrappers...!

They sold the machines in the basement for a reasonable price as well as a couple of complete motorcycles and scrapped the cycles that were disassembled and very incomplete.

All in all..., the heirs were just selling enough to pay for the clean-up and are planning on either subdividing the lot or restoring the house and aim for a "HIGH" resale...!!!

The Realstate values are rising quickly in that particular area and they should do good in with it's resale...!

 

Did you guys ever make it back there to get more stuff? It looked as though he had a mess load of "treasures".

Chris Nelson
Kansas

 

I asked them for a few items that they had already thrown away in the dumpster...!

Lots of cool stuff and magazines were tossed in the dumpster while it was Raining and most of it was destroyed or it was already in terrible shape because of the condition of the house...!

The house was full of mold and critter feasees because of the roof leaks and the amount of clutter. It was necesary to use masks and gloves when touching anything in that house...!

 

I've always been fascinated by old and used objects. When I was a kid, my grandma babysat us while she cleaned apartments. We found all kinds of left behind stuff (like the huge stacks of Rolling Stone magazine in which I discovered Hunter S. Thompson RIP). I feel sorry for the younger generation that'll miss these hands on guys.
A neighbor came over awhile back, just stood there watching my son build a club house out of heavytrash scrap from the 'hood. I thought the guy was pissed but he just smiled and told me it made his day to see a kid actually build something...