Howdy Mark!   
      
   I can't believe how close we are to each other!   
      
      
    MH> I can't count how many times I got drenched, frozen from snow, or other    
    MH> weather elements while delivering papers when I was    
    MH> younger.  Even through blizzards, storms, you name it.    
    MH>  I rode my bike through them all to deliver the papers.   
      
   Not frozen from snow or the cold as bad as you most likely.  But I too was   
   whopped this way on my bike in College Station as a kid delivering papers for   
   a Houston newspaper in our neighborhood at about 11 years old!   
      
   Here's the real closey!   
      
    MH> Even as an adult, I have been caught a few times in    
    MH> some massive thunderstorms on my Harley.  Not fun.  I    
    MH> had to dump water out of my shoes from one of them,    
    MH> but consider myself lucky just to be drenched only.     
    MH> Tree branches were blowing all over the place in the    
    MH> road, visibility was about zero, and there was no    
    MH> shoulder to pull onto.   
      
   I had access to a Cushman scooter to replace the bike and bigger the paper   
   route.  Then later after I got my first car at 12 which was a Model "A" Ford   
   Victoria with the old back end outside trunk, for $60 which I rebuilt the   
   defective drive shaft and painted it then got my original driver's license   
   here in Texas which you could do then at 14 years old in 1953.   
      
   Then lots later in 1961, I bought a BMW R61 from one of my freinds who had   
   moved from College Station, Texas to Phoenix, Arizona.  Was riding it back to   
   Texas and spent the night in Lordsburg, New Mexico, but was so tired I wasn't   
   listening to the weather that next morning.  Should have done that as by then   
   I was even an instrument rated airplane pilot here in Texas and really   
   understood the thunderstorm game real well by then,   
      
   OK, going through Texas back home out in West Texas I was HORRIFIED at a huge   
   front line whooshing toward me in the R61!  Which I would have clearly known   
   about had I thought about the weather on the radio earlier that day,With this   
   front were a HUGE line of thunderstorms with lots of hail and lightning bolts   
   coming right at me!  Out in the desert with no place to hide whatsoever!  What   
   do I do?  What do I do?   
      
   AHA!  It ticked!  Stop the bike!  Get over off the road on the side!  Lay the   
   bike carefully over in a slump so it had sme space under it!  Then crawl under   
   the bike and curl up under it and your baggie so that the hail wouldn't hit   
   you!  AHA!  Made it through the storm!  Shaking and say Thank You Lord after   
   it passed I put the R61 back up and roared off back home again!   
      
   Actually nade it from Lordsburg, New Mexico, back home to College   
   Station,Texas in just under 12 hours total time.  I'm probably the only guy   
   you'll know that ever road a BMW so hard for 85,000 miles back then that I   
   wore the engine out completely!  It froze up and jammed the crank even with   
   oil still in it then,   
      
   Mike Luther as N117C at 1:117/100 in College Station, Texas   
      
      
      
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    * Origin: BV HUB CLL(979)696-3600 (1:117/100)