svtfmook
New Member
just wanted to share something that happened to me a couple weeks ago. this is a pretty long story, so i'm going to copy/paste it from another forum that i shared this with where i'm a little more known, so for reference, zack = my 12 y/o son. the kid in reference i will just refer to as "the kid" to keep his anonymity. but if you're interested in reading it, read it, if you skim around or just look at the pics, it won't make sense.
DAY 1
Sunday I was working in the garage while Zack was at the skate park with the kid down the street. The kid down the street is the troubled kid of the neighborhood. Drunk mom, no dad, whole 9 yards. Anyhow, I'm finishing up some work on one of my motors and I hear them coming up the driveway. Zack asks me if I had any tubes for the kids bike. Unfortunately I didn't have any in his size. So I jokingly ask them if they wanted to finish putting the motor together. So the kid says something along the lines of always wanting to build something like a car or motorcycle. So I point to a frame, point out some forks, pull out some wheels and open a crate of parts and told them to go to town.
So they worked on it for about an hour and zacks step dad showed up to pick him up. While loading up the car I can hear the kid still working in the garage. Zack leaves and I walk back into the garage and go back to work on my motor. The kid asks me if I minded if he stayed to work more and I tell him that's fine.
He worked for another hour and got to a point where he couldn't do anything else until I had a motor for it. So I tell him he can finish it up when we get a motor together.
So he sits down next to me and starts talking. He talked for about an hour. But what stuck was when he started talking about how he missed so much school because his mom wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Then he tells me this which kicks me right in the feelz:
"I don't know why these kids around here complain about their parents so much. They don't know what it's like to not even have real parents. I've always wanted to work on something cool, but never had a dad to do something like that. I really appreciate you letting me work on this and helping me out. I just wish I could have finished it."
I didn't know what to say. So I told him any time I'm out here he can come over and work on the bike. And that once he gets a roller together we will paint it and clean it up. His face lit up.
It's amazing that a pile of spare parts I had laying around could mean so much to him.
Here's what he ended up with
Doesn't look like much, but this kid has some cool ideas on paint. It's actually not bad for a 14 year old kid on his own with no experience and very little guidance on my part. It started off as a bare frame and box full of misc parts.
DAY 2 (few days later)
i sent him a message and told him to come up a with a name for the bike. he came up with "phantom". i was a little hesistant, so i told him to translate it to another language, he picked french, "le fantume", ok, lol
He came right over after school today, I was working in the garage with my 7 y/o wrenching on his dirt bike. He came up with a pretty cool color scheme to go with the phantom theme. I'm going to have him start over on my 72 frame since it already has a base and hoop to fit the cowl. But he wants to do the frame in a white, to make it look like a skeleton, tins will be smoke gray, tank will be smoke gray on the sides, a semi flat black on the top center and a metallic green center accent. Block will be black, cylinder will be smoke gray and the covers will be a brushed raw. Wheels and spokes will be black with a white pin stripe. Pipes will be white. Sounds pretty cool.
So I told him when we get the jest of it down, we can trailer it to some meets. He was pretty pumped, smiling from ear to ear. And he said i don't normally show stuff off, but I'd love to have something cool parked with you guys.
for reference, here's my 7 y/o wrenching on his tracker
DAY 3 (few more days later)
i'm sitting here working on a report for work, and my windows are open. i hear all the neighbor kids out riding their bikes up and down the street. then i start hearing all the other kids making fun of this kid because his bike is all mis-matched colors and parts (he built it trading up things at the skate park, so it's a cool bike, just nothing matches on it). so i go out side and i yell to him and say, hey, come here for a minute and help me move your bike. so he's like, ok and starts heading up my drive way. so naturally the other kids are in tow behind him, what's he mean your bike? what's he talking about. so i have him kick it off the center stand and move it to the other side of the garage, and put it back on the center stand. so the other kids were like, is it really his? he's really quiet, but i see a huge shit eating grin on his face. so i just said, he built it, he's working on it, as far as i'm concerned, it's as much his as it is mine. so i tell them i have to go back in and work on my report, and i can hear them walking up the drive way and this kid is telling all the other kids about the colors he picked out and how we're going to trailer it to meets and what not. he was really proud and for once the kids in the neighborhood looked up to him.
DAY 4 (today)
up to this point, he messages me a few times a day with his ideas and stops over when he sees me out. yesterday i was working in the yard and he just came right over, started helping me out, no questions asked. he's been working on his bicycle, so i told him if he needed tools, to just go into my garage and get them, even if i'm not there. and my neighbor mentioned last night that he's seen the kid going into my garage and wanted to let me know. i told my neighbor that i let him use my tools to work on his bike. the neighbor was shocked and said he wouldn't even let the kid in his yard, as if this kid was going to steel his garden gnomes and sell them for crack or something.
anyhow, he spent a few hours stripping paint off of the frame tonight, he was really diligent, not losing interest at all.
over the past couple weeks, i've seen this kid change a lot. he seems generally happier. the other kids in the neighborhood have been hanging out with him. i didn't want to him to lose interest since he put a lot of time in on boring tedious work, so i had him paint up the bezel, bucket and do a euro style light for it. which he thought was pretty bad ass.
i've known this kid for the past 7 years and he's always hung out with my oldest son. he's had a pretty shitty home-life, but he's always been one of the more tolerable kids in the neighborhood. i was fortunate enough to have a set of decent, hard working parents. i spent my childhood working on things with my father and my brothers. this kid is at the age where these kids are getting into drugs and forming bad habits. when he's here, he just talks, talks about school, talks about his home life, he really opens up and i realized it's because he's never had anyone in his life that he's been able to bond with or possibly even trusted. to him, this has become more than just a little project, i've seen him change a lot in the past couple weeks, he's become a little more confident and generally happier.
anyhow, i wanted to share this because i'm pretty sure that a good portion of people here work on their own stuff and it's amazing to see that something so simple to us, could mean so much and have such and large impact on someone else. and the way i look at it, i've gotten a few boxes of junk off the floor of my garage and it's really helped me get some parts separated.
cliff notes:
read it, or don't
DAY 1
Sunday I was working in the garage while Zack was at the skate park with the kid down the street. The kid down the street is the troubled kid of the neighborhood. Drunk mom, no dad, whole 9 yards. Anyhow, I'm finishing up some work on one of my motors and I hear them coming up the driveway. Zack asks me if I had any tubes for the kids bike. Unfortunately I didn't have any in his size. So I jokingly ask them if they wanted to finish putting the motor together. So the kid says something along the lines of always wanting to build something like a car or motorcycle. So I point to a frame, point out some forks, pull out some wheels and open a crate of parts and told them to go to town.
So they worked on it for about an hour and zacks step dad showed up to pick him up. While loading up the car I can hear the kid still working in the garage. Zack leaves and I walk back into the garage and go back to work on my motor. The kid asks me if I minded if he stayed to work more and I tell him that's fine.
He worked for another hour and got to a point where he couldn't do anything else until I had a motor for it. So I tell him he can finish it up when we get a motor together.
So he sits down next to me and starts talking. He talked for about an hour. But what stuck was when he started talking about how he missed so much school because his mom wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Then he tells me this which kicks me right in the feelz:
"I don't know why these kids around here complain about their parents so much. They don't know what it's like to not even have real parents. I've always wanted to work on something cool, but never had a dad to do something like that. I really appreciate you letting me work on this and helping me out. I just wish I could have finished it."
I didn't know what to say. So I told him any time I'm out here he can come over and work on the bike. And that once he gets a roller together we will paint it and clean it up. His face lit up.
It's amazing that a pile of spare parts I had laying around could mean so much to him.
Here's what he ended up with
Doesn't look like much, but this kid has some cool ideas on paint. It's actually not bad for a 14 year old kid on his own with no experience and very little guidance on my part. It started off as a bare frame and box full of misc parts.
DAY 2 (few days later)
i sent him a message and told him to come up a with a name for the bike. he came up with "phantom". i was a little hesistant, so i told him to translate it to another language, he picked french, "le fantume", ok, lol
He came right over after school today, I was working in the garage with my 7 y/o wrenching on his dirt bike. He came up with a pretty cool color scheme to go with the phantom theme. I'm going to have him start over on my 72 frame since it already has a base and hoop to fit the cowl. But he wants to do the frame in a white, to make it look like a skeleton, tins will be smoke gray, tank will be smoke gray on the sides, a semi flat black on the top center and a metallic green center accent. Block will be black, cylinder will be smoke gray and the covers will be a brushed raw. Wheels and spokes will be black with a white pin stripe. Pipes will be white. Sounds pretty cool.
So I told him when we get the jest of it down, we can trailer it to some meets. He was pretty pumped, smiling from ear to ear. And he said i don't normally show stuff off, but I'd love to have something cool parked with you guys.
for reference, here's my 7 y/o wrenching on his tracker
DAY 3 (few more days later)
i'm sitting here working on a report for work, and my windows are open. i hear all the neighbor kids out riding their bikes up and down the street. then i start hearing all the other kids making fun of this kid because his bike is all mis-matched colors and parts (he built it trading up things at the skate park, so it's a cool bike, just nothing matches on it). so i go out side and i yell to him and say, hey, come here for a minute and help me move your bike. so he's like, ok and starts heading up my drive way. so naturally the other kids are in tow behind him, what's he mean your bike? what's he talking about. so i have him kick it off the center stand and move it to the other side of the garage, and put it back on the center stand. so the other kids were like, is it really his? he's really quiet, but i see a huge shit eating grin on his face. so i just said, he built it, he's working on it, as far as i'm concerned, it's as much his as it is mine. so i tell them i have to go back in and work on my report, and i can hear them walking up the drive way and this kid is telling all the other kids about the colors he picked out and how we're going to trailer it to meets and what not. he was really proud and for once the kids in the neighborhood looked up to him.
DAY 4 (today)
up to this point, he messages me a few times a day with his ideas and stops over when he sees me out. yesterday i was working in the yard and he just came right over, started helping me out, no questions asked. he's been working on his bicycle, so i told him if he needed tools, to just go into my garage and get them, even if i'm not there. and my neighbor mentioned last night that he's seen the kid going into my garage and wanted to let me know. i told my neighbor that i let him use my tools to work on his bike. the neighbor was shocked and said he wouldn't even let the kid in his yard, as if this kid was going to steel his garden gnomes and sell them for crack or something.
anyhow, he spent a few hours stripping paint off of the frame tonight, he was really diligent, not losing interest at all.
over the past couple weeks, i've seen this kid change a lot. he seems generally happier. the other kids in the neighborhood have been hanging out with him. i didn't want to him to lose interest since he put a lot of time in on boring tedious work, so i had him paint up the bezel, bucket and do a euro style light for it. which he thought was pretty bad ass.
i've known this kid for the past 7 years and he's always hung out with my oldest son. he's had a pretty shitty home-life, but he's always been one of the more tolerable kids in the neighborhood. i was fortunate enough to have a set of decent, hard working parents. i spent my childhood working on things with my father and my brothers. this kid is at the age where these kids are getting into drugs and forming bad habits. when he's here, he just talks, talks about school, talks about his home life, he really opens up and i realized it's because he's never had anyone in his life that he's been able to bond with or possibly even trusted. to him, this has become more than just a little project, i've seen him change a lot in the past couple weeks, he's become a little more confident and generally happier.
anyhow, i wanted to share this because i'm pretty sure that a good portion of people here work on their own stuff and it's amazing to see that something so simple to us, could mean so much and have such and large impact on someone else. and the way i look at it, i've gotten a few boxes of junk off the floor of my garage and it's really helped me get some parts separated.
cliff notes:
read it, or don't
