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I was sitting outside work last Friday on a smoke break, admiring the bright flashes of colors throughout the trees around our building. While I was gaping at the leaves (something I get furious at out-of-state drivers for, there’s a time and a place!) I heard the low whizzz of a motor. I looked up and saw someone pull into our visitors parking lot on a bright yellow Honda Goldwing. For a moment, my heart pounded fast when I heard the electric sounding goldwing motor into the entrance, but as quick as it came, it ended. Paul Rossi wouldn’t ride a yellow Goldwing. That wasn’t his style. He would pick something black, or silver. Something that blends in.

I met Paul Rossi a year after I started my current job. I was nineteen years old, in the middle of the corporate environment, and still pretty dazed with it all. Paul Rossi is a rather relaxed, laid back 56 year old italian from New York. He had curly salt and pepper hair with a moustache that flaired up slightly at the ends, and big round straight-bar glasses that sat at various stages on his nose throughout the day. I would see him outside smoking throughout the day, but being a rather introverted young lad, I’d simply sit somewhere else and study mountians of paperwork.

It was the start of summer in 2003 when I bought my 1999 Honda Nighthawk 750. I was just coming to terms with the differences between riding a 30 year old rust-bucket dirt bike, and a modern 750cc motorcycle. My knowledge of gear and protection didn’t go much beyond a helmet, some workout gloves and a dress leather jacket. One day I pulled into a parking spot at work on my CB750, shut off the ignition and started clawing for the release on my helmet strap. When I looked back down, I saw a rather large man swoop in on a volkswagon-bus of a motorcycle, complete with 5′ antennas, American flag hanging off a pole on the back. The helmet flipped up, and I saw Paul grinning. I shot him a grin back and fired lit a cigarette. I pointed to his Goldwing and said “Man, your driving the cadilliac of motorcycles!”. He flipped his lighter closed and took a drag, thought for a second and said “Yea, but your driving the Ferrari” as he exhaled.

From that day on, every time I’d go out for a smoke, I’d sit with Paul and talk about bikes. He’d tell me stories about riding in the late 60’s and 70’s. Road stories. Dis-assembling carbs on the side of the road in Arizona with a swiss army knife, making his own tools for a collection of old motorcycles out of turkey basters, gear oil and pepper shakers. The stories went on and on. Often times we’d talk for damn near an hour about everything from motorcycle maintenance, to good roads, good eats, or even our outlooks on life. When I started working on my own bike, Paul always had the answers to my bike problems, and he had the background theory for his answers.

But Paulie also has the italian temper. His job wore him ragged, as he wasn’t the type of person who dealt well in backstabbing corporate environments. Paulie lives on the practice that any man or woman is only as good as their word, and he found it increasingly more frustrating to work in a place where your word doesn’t count for much. When he was in foul moods, I’d give him distance. Once (while I was in a particularly low point in my personal and professional life) I mentioned to him that I was thinking about joining the army. Oh boy did I hear it from Paul. He never told me he was drafted, and I learned quickly it wasn’t a good subject.

But in the end, it all just brought us closer. One day I got a call at home, and heard Paulie on the other end. “Whatcha-doin buster?” a low voice grumbled. Nothing at the time, and he asked me if I’d like to come up and hang out in his garage for a bit. I rode my new 2003 SV1000S up to his house in Simsbury, and entered the holy-grail of raised-ranch garages. A CB400T, CBX (six-cylinder), Triumph 650 Bonnie, BSA’s, parts time forgot and a few more projects he was working on. We sat in his garage, smoke cigarettes end after end listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin while gazing at the bikes. It was dark and cold by the time he and his wife wished me well and I wheeled my bike out of his museum and thundered off down the road.

Over the next year we got together once or twice more at his place. He gave me a air compressor from the 30’s he had in his garage. I still have it, and use it on a daily basis. Despite all of our kicking tires at work, and our occasional get togethers at his garage, we never went for a ride together. We’d both come in Monday’s and tell eachother about our rides to Granville Mass. for their famous “room-temperature-cheese”, or to Adams Diner in Dutchess County for the best blueberry pancakes. Thinking back, I wonder if we just both enjoyed talking about our passions for the open road, but preferred to be alone while actually doing it.

That winter, Paulie quit his job, and decided to move out to PA. He and his wife had found the perfect house, and he had found the perfect job, right smack in the middle of motorcycling nirvana. A day before he was set to leave for PA and start his new job, I found myself sitting in his garage, now half-packed for the move, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee with Paulie. We talked for half the day, about friends, life, jobs, changes… As I left, Paulie and I hugged and shook hands and he said “I don’t like saying goodbye, so I’ll just say, see you later..” I grinned and said “Hopefully sooner, rather than later.”

A few weeks after Paulie moved to PA, I got an email from him. Paulie never liked computers much so the email was only a few lines. The most important ones we’re on the bottom. “Beautiful women, curvy roads, many greasy diners. Life is good, this is heaven“.

I hadn’t heard much from Paul in a good five months when I got the news. Paul had a extremely serious stroke which had Paralyzed the side of his face, and taken almost all of his memory with him. He would recover, and be able to walk, eat and dress himself again after years of therapy, but it was immediately clear that he’d never ride a motorcycle again. I talked with his wife, who sadly informed me that I was welcome to visit, but Paulie wouldn’t know who I was, or have any recollection of our weekends in his garage, or our hour talks outside the smoking bench at work.

Yesterday I found myself sitting outside in my driveway on my 900SS after a quick run up and down the street, gunning the throttle to keep the poorly adjusted carb running. I thought to myself “Paulie would know how to fix this”. For a moment a wave of sadness knowing the world has lost the mind of such a unique individual came over me. But as quickly as it came, it past. Paulie would have definitly given me an earful if he knew I was kicking cans feeling sorry for myself right after I got my twice rebuilt bike running. Yea, the best thing I can do for Paulie and me, is to get it running right, and get out there. Who knows, maybe I’ll run into an italian with curly hair on a Silver Goldwing.