I don't, and never will, know his name. But some morning in 1972, he woke up, had breakfast, commuted to the Hamamatsu factory and built the engine that carried me along on my morning commute.
Whether he is still alive is irrelevant; curiously, though, the inevitable stories to his grandchildren of days spent at the motorcycle factory are alive in the motorcycle I ride. Unknown, but not untold, those stories transcend four and a half decades, 6,500 miles, and far more lives lived than just my own.
We are finite beings, with a finite time that we are allowed to be alive, a finite extent of influence and accomplishment, and a finite ability to create and leave a legacy which may or may not endure. Vintage serves to connect one finite realm to another--and another, and another--building a community of limited moments which stretch out larger and longer than any one could reach alone.
Vintage is the resistance against the finite.
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