By Muriel Farrington #89517

Ok… ‘twas the 26th of January, 2011 and 28 degrees with snow laying deep on the ground . . . . .  and in the spirit of carrying on the late Paul Bachorz’ inspiring ideas, Chuck Otto #57121 rose to the challenge and rolled his R50/5 out into the snow to start ‘er up. 

To back up a little, last winter Paul had decided that he was tired of a furry ground rat in Pennsylvania getting all the attention come February 2nd.  He proposed that we roll out an airhead, point it north, note whether the side stand cast a shadow, and start ‘er up.  Should the battery run down before the airhead started, we would have a longer winter.  Enter Chuck (not as in woodchuck).

Chuck played with the controls, tried the kick starter, tickled the carbs, and turned her over with the electric starter – two times, three times, gave her another kick, more tweaking.  Seems she had bad gas (must have been the Boston Baked Beans).  Back to the electric starter and tried a couple more times, rurr, rurr, rurr.  Cough, cough, cough.  Tried again.  Sputter, sputter.  Tried again.  Bingo!  Winter won’t be so long!  She was purring almost like a baby.  Chuck declared that the bad gas affected her purr rate – when he put her away a couple months ago she really knew how to purr.  Dratted ethanol . . . .

Thanks go to Chuck for the beginning of a new tradition – the Bachorz Airhead Spring Prediction or BASP.  Paul, we miss you – a lot.  May your ideas and enthusiasm live on.