Missed the Covid, glad you're doing better, terrible stuff, the rest of you reading this, mask, wash and keep your distancing. It's worked for me so far...touch wood !

 

Ditto , glad your both doing much better . I just lost my uncle a few days ago due to covid , he did have other issues though , guess it just got the better of him . Stay safe my friend !

 

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Dr.Hess aka Hess whose real first name is Hessel, is married to a wonderful gal, Linda, and has a 50 year old stepson.
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Hess is presently working at MegaCorp which is an informational database company. Hess’s primary responsibility there is the manipulation of databases. (Huh, it feels like I am writing up Chandler Bing’s job description on the TV sitcom “Friends.”) Basically, Dr.Hess works with the “statistical analysis and data reconfiguration”. Oy! [emoticon]
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He has been riding since he was 17 years old, or for 43 years now. (Ok, I will do the math for you. 17 years & 43 years = 60 years old. Ok, now back to the article.)
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The bikes he has owned, you ask? Here they are…...
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’79 FLH
’75 XLH
Triumph Bonneville (Boo hess hiss)
’86 FLHT
’87 XLH
’99 Evo Crate Motor Chopper
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And the following bikes were not running when bought and later sold …
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Norton Commando
‘45 Knucklehead
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But Dr.Hess’s favorite? His 1986 FLHT is the winner.
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Prior to riding his ’86 FLHT, he saddled up on his ’79 FLH POS (ß LOL those are his words not mine. LOL!) to Sturgis and back, all the while fantasizing that when he got back to Texas he would grab his AR15 and let loose mag after mag, making swiss cheese outta that bike.
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That was it! Enough was enough. Dr.Hess pocketed 10 large, popped his PPK in the small of his back and took off to every dealer he would do business with between him and Houston.
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As luck would have it, Stubbs had his next bike all boxed up. And it was Dr.Hess himself that uncrated his own bike. Now, THAT bike does EVERYTHING he wanted a bike to do and have.
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It had to be fast………..check. (Actually, it was very fast for the day.)
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Loud…………..check.
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Reliable…….check.
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In short order he racked up 90,000 miles, doing everything he wanted a bike to do.
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Ok, now let’s veer off from bikes and talk about some other really cool stuff about the Hess.
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Hess put in 7 years as a Radio Electronics Officer in the US Merchant Marines.
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He has been around the world 3 times riding on supertankers, small tankers, container ships, and bulk carriers.
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He says that if the vessel stem to stern is less than 600’ long, he is not interested in riding on or in it.
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Yes, Dr.Hess is a real doctor. In fact, he was a career Neurosurgeon. One day he got so “…pissed off…”, when he went home he said……that is it. He quit and never went back. (I hope he closed up his patient before leaving work.)
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After having a private practice as a General Practitioner, see the doctor for $20, not the nurse that thinks she’s a doctor, not the PA that thinks he’s a doctor, see the doctor for $20 AND NOBODY CAME, that is when he went back to work on databases. BIG databases. BIG ‘nuff to pay well so he can feed his need for bikes and Lotuses.
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In the “Epic Ride Division” we have all sorts of stuff to talk about.
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In 1987, he and his wife Linda left Central Texas on his ’86 FLHT and went off to Carlsbad Caverns, the Four Corners, Golden, CO., Sturgis (BTW, Sturgis 14 [fourteen] times.) then over to Yellowstone, up into Alberta to visit his grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins..

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Then off to a dealership in Lethbridge where they had just the bike they were looking for. A black ’87 XLH Hugger. Oh yeah. That’s it. They were selling for $3,995 and the dealers couldn't keep them in stock.
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This bike was sitting there with Hutterite made saddle bags in the show room. He and Linda went into the dealership to get some spare spark plugs for his bike. He did not actually need them. He felt naked riding without them. Maybe from “…too many miles on a shovelhead…” he said.
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The Sporty was there, Linda liked it, and being the "rich American Sailor" he was at the time, the next day they rode off for the rest of their very memorable ride.
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From there, they rode back to what was then known as "Free America" to continue their trip.
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Up next, they were off to the AWESOME Glacier National Park, Wyoming, and Idaho.
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There was a squiggly line (new territory) on the HOG supplied road atlas connecting where they were to Washington and it could save them a couple hundred miles. They stopped at a gas station and asked the clerk about the squiggly. The clerk said the road was mostly dirt, but it was well kept.
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They thought, “WTF”, “…mostly dirt…”, “…well kept….” Those are “come hither” words for bikers so they took it, Dr.Hess on the Dresser and Linda on the Sporty.
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They went appropriately slow since Linda had a lot of dirt bike experience, but very little street bike time. She did better on the dirt road with the narrow XLH tire than the Doc did with his big 16"er.
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That road lead them through some of the most beautiful country they ever saw. Untouched. A virgin forest. Truly amazing and in every way breathtaking.
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They popped out of Washington and continued on down to Oregon, where we visited with the wife and family of the captain of the last ship they were on. Linda rode on the ships with Hess a couple times. The captain was out at sea of course. Sadly, the captain later died driving an SUV on black ice in Valdez, AK, where he had been working as a Prince William Sound pilot.
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They headed down the coast to the People's Republic of California, as it is known today. While on the famous PCH (Pacific Coast Highway,) they were freezing their asses off.
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They camped in the surreal Redwoods. At about Mt. Shasta, they headed inland and continued down I-5 south bound to L.A., where they visited Hess’s parents in Glendale.
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At Glendale HD, he purchased a small windshield for the XLH. It was good for an extra hundred miles a day from easier riding, although it did cost 10 MPG. They had gotten over 100 MPG on the XLH several times up in the mountains. Of course, the stock carb was so lean, it was dangerous pulling out in traffic. 70-80 MPG was quite common. With the windshield on the bike, they would still get 60 MPG or usually better.
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They then headed back easterly on I-10, where they burned up around Blyth in August. In Phoenix, it was 110F at 9AM. Dr.Hess looked at his map and said: "There's mountains there. It's gotta be cooler." They headed off northeastward. It cooled off right away.
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They camped (quite illegally) somewhere, and the next morning headed out again; went around a curve and there was the famous and scary as hell to see “Very Large Array” in Socorro County, New Mexico. It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.
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By the time he got back to Bryan, TX, 6 weeks after leaving, he logged 8,400 miles on his bike and put 6K miles on the Sportster, which now needed a new chain. But instead, just put the belt drive kit on it. *** 6K? ***
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Outside of motorcycles, The Hess is into Boom Sticks (the explosive kind), shooting, building and reloading them.
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Cars. The Lotus cars especially. The Doc has 4 of them presently. Two Europas, a 7 Clone he is building from scratch, and his latest which is a 2017 Evora 400. (ß If you are not familiar with those, YIKES! REALLY NICE CARS. But I digress……)
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Only the Evora runs at the moment. The 2 Europas are "Free Range Europas," that is, they last ran 30 years ago, head in the boot, etc. He has been building the 7 for 20 years now, literally starting with a pile of tubes. He only has the rear fenders and some wiring to finish up.
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Hess is a Toyota “FanBoi.” On his 2000 RAV4 he swapped out the motor to a 4th Gen 3SGTE with about 300 HP. He had an AE92 Corolla with a 4AGE 20 valve motor, about 160 HP. He also had a 4AGE 20 valve also in a MR2 before wrapping the car around a F150 at a rather high rate of combined speed. Oy! ß #2
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In times of war, the US Merchant Marines are considered a military service. So “sort of.” “As a historical footnote, only the USMC had a higher casualty rate than the USMM in WWII.” He put a USMM patch on my vest. At Sturgis in ‘18, a woman asked "Do you say 'Thank you for your service' to a Merchant Marine?" Hess replied, "Nobody ever thanks a merchant sailor. We were wards of the Federal Government."
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Dr.Hess is a COVID-19 survivor. He said, “In September 2019, which is like 6 months before it was supposed to even be here. RIGHT. That stuff blew through NW Arkansas like wildfire. About killed me, but through the experience I found out I am a Type 2 Diabetic when I had enough and decided to outsource my healthcare to the wife of a friend of mine.”
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He also has Cassandra Syndrome. (I had to look this one up.) He sees the future, but nobody believes him.
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He was (and still is) an “Amateur Radio Extra.” But, he “blew a great hobby doing it professionally.”
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Dr.Hess was a professional Radio Telegrapher for a year and a half right out of high school.
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He makes ugly welds, but they do hold together.
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His favorite tool is his 6" Atlas-Clausing engine lathe. He uses it for everything from fabbing Mercedes parts to repairing a toilet.
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He has been a vegetarian for over 30 years. Linda had been a vegetarian (not "vegan," lacto-vegetarian... we eat milk products) for 20 years when they met.
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“Linda would cook me meat and then whatever she was eating. I started eating more and more of what she was eating and less and less meat until I just quit it altogether. Before that, I think I was closer to a ‘meat-atarian.’"
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He has had Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs for almost 40 years. For over 25 years, each Ridgeback had the same bloodline until the last male passed without the Hess getting a puppy from him.
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Now they have Meisje, which is Dutch for “Girl.’ She is a full blood, 18 months old, and 95 lbs. Her favorite hobbies are eating and woofing at the package delivery people. She works in security in the Global War on Squirrels (GWoS) where she is in charge of body location and recovery.
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Dr.Hess is teaching himself Dutch (Nederlands language.) There isn’t anyone to practice with other than his mother who lives 1,500 miles away in the PRC, although Meisje is now bilingual.
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And last but not least, sometimes the Doc does things backwards. For example, typically someone becomes a medical doctor then picks up motorcycle riding. But Dr.Hess did it backwards. As stated above, he started riding when he was 17 years old and then became a medical doctor. To date, he has yet to find another person who did this combo in reverse order. A rare and fun claim to fame.
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This (picture above) is from a two-day party in 1984. To the right of the Hess is his friend Doc, a civil engineer.
.He had this picture blown up to a poster and framed.
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One year when Dr.Hess went to sea and came back, he was an instant celebrity. He did not know why until he saw that Doc had given the poster to the local biker pub, who mounted it up above the bar. Last he heard, this pic was moved to a newer biker bar further out of town in the woods in Texas. They had a reunion of all the people in it except Hess a few years ago. Hess was supposed to be there but couldn't make it.
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Coming back across I-90, Dr.Hess & Linda stopped for gas. When he went to start his bike, it was running on only the front cylinder. Huh. He limped to Pierre where there was a dealer. They got a room and behind the motel (right then and there) he tore the bike down.
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He calls this picture above "Is this important?"
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The exhaust valve guide was dropped out of the head. As luck would have it, there was a machine shop two doors down in one direction and the dealer two blocks in the other direction. He got all the parts he needed. He had the machine shop work the head, then brought it back to the bike and put it all together.
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Then the Doc realized the crossover tube was shattered under the chrome cover which is actually a common problem. That in return caused the valve guide to drop out.
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He went to the dealer and asked the owner if they had one. But this time luck was not with him. That part was “NLA”. No Longer Available. He asked if the dealer had a MIG welder. He answered yes, but that Hess couldn’t use it. The owner walked off, leaving Hess standing there.
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The parts guy said, "Don't worry about it." A couple minutes later a guy came over and said, "Follow me." They went outside and there was a MIG welder on an extension cord, hood and some gloves. (Now, if they only had a beer and a Rueben sandwich. But I digress.)
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Hess proceeded to do the world’s ugliest weld job in the history of the planet. But in his defense, the extension cord was way too long and the strong winds caused the Hobart Handler gas to not cooperate with the weld. This welding unit had nothing on his Italian Harbor Freight MIG. But the Hess got it air tight, which is crucial, put it all back together, then hopped onto his bike with Linda tagging along and was able to make it all the way back home safely.
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The above photo Hess call his "Fee Fi Fo Fum," or "Hess Vander Boer" which would mean literally "Hess of the Farmers." His English car club had their annual Halloween party, so Hess went as the most terrifying thing there was for an Englishman……. a Dutch farmer from South Africa. The rifle is a small ring Mauser in 7x57, a Bowie knife, shoes in the style worn back then, a bandoleer, and the dog is a Rhodesian Ridgeback.
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Hess showed the above photo to a woman vendor from South Africa at Sturgis a couple years ago, and she said she thought the picture was taken in Africa. No, Hess said….Arkansas. He talked to this lady in Dutch/Afrikaans.
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Okay, okay, we can’t end this GREAT Dr.Hess story without at least one “funny” story lobbed in here….so here it is….
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While Dr.Hess was working as a neurosurgeon at a prison hospital on one of the prison’s meanest S.O.B. cut-your-throat rather than look at you inmates, he had the patient lying face down. The Hess took out his scalpel, sliced into the prisoner’s back, and went to work deep within.
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After the operation, they were talking and found they had mutual acquaintances. (Notice, I said acquaintances and not friends. LOL)
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During the discussion, The Hess said, huh. It is not often when you get to cut into the back of the meanest S.O.B. Bandito while he is sleeping and you get to live to talk about it. HAH! Then Hess proceeded to (and swiftly) leave the premises.
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Now...........
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Congrats, Dr. Hess!

 

Cool story and write up. Congratulations to our newest MOM!

Nice ride stories and cool cars!

 

Congrats Doc , what an awesome story , welcome to the MoM club ..

Great job Buzz on the excellent write up !

 

Congrats Doc. If your life story was a movie, I wouldn’t believe it. Very interesting.

 

Congrats Dr. Hess and great write up by @BuzzCap7 again.

 

Thanks, Guys and Gals. I'm honored.

 

You da man!! Congrats! Interesting life there, sir!