Don Cole's 100th birthday
Don Cole of Port Gibson can tell you
everything you need to know about restoring Harleys and Indians. That's because this
100-year-old mechanic has been around as long they have.
Cole celebrated his birthday Friday, February 19, but the real celebration came Sunday at the Port Gibson Fire Hall. More than 400 well-wishers, friends and family members gathered to be with Don.
Pictured here in 1989 on his 1953 Indian, and in the pictures at left, on a new Indian. A highlight of the day was when the Indian Motorcycle Co. of Toronto, Canada, arrived with a 1999 Indian Limited Edition. (1989 photo by Craig D. Paulick; Custom Design Photography © 1989)
A Charter Life Member of the American Motorcycle Association, Cole has been wrenching bikes since before the Great Depression. And, as owner of Don's Cycle Shop, he is still hard at it today.
Enter the shop - an old barn behind his house - and what you won't find is a neat, technologically advanced garage of the '90's. Instead, you'll wander among tires, inner tubes and batteries. Sections of the barn are lined with cabinets filled with hard-to-find motorcycle parts. And lying about are numerous worn and faded parts books and maintenance manuals. It's rare that Don is stumped enough to need these manuals, though. He's been riding and repairing bikes for 85 years.
Don's first bike was an Indian that he bought in 1915 when he was 16 years old. He eventually got married, and he and his wife, Bernice, raised a family of seven children - all of whom rode motorcycles at one time or another. In 1969, he retired from his work as a maintenance man in local factories and took up motorcycle repair full time.
(Sunday's photos were taken by John Zornow.)
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