My buddy Mel – Collector of friends
Many people collect things. I collected pigs for many years. My sister-in-law collects giraffes. Some people collect stamps or coins or trading cards. People collect all kinds of things.
My friend Mel who passed away one week ago today, collected friends. I never knew anyone who talked to strangers as much as Mel did. Of course Mel never thought of them as strangers, just friends he hadn’t met yet.
We would be on our rides and we’d stop every hour or so to rest our butts, but mainly so Mel could have a smoke. I can’t tell you how many times we’d stop and while on a bathroom break I’d be in a stall in the men’s room and I could hear Mel striking up a conversation with some guy at the urinals. They’d carry on the conversation back outside and we’d have to drag Mel away because it was time to go. Early on we called our small group of riders Mel’s Angels. We even had shirts made up with Mel’s Angels on them.
When we were at our stops and there’d be a little kid around Mel would always ask him or her if they’d like to sit on his motorcycle. He’d get the parent’s permission before he’d put them up there. He got the biggest kick doing that. He loved kids. Heck, he loved everybody.
It seems that no matter where we went Mel would run into somebody he knew or somebody who knew somebody he knew. We took a trip to Las Vegas quite a few years ago. I think there were eight of us. The whole time we were there we were astounded that Mel hadn’t seen any one he knew. Then when we got to the airport for our return flight… BINGO… he saw someone he knew.
There are so many stories about Mel that my friends have been remembering these last few days. I wrote about one of my favorites on B&P. There were a lot involving three or four of us mentioned in that story. Another one was when Mel and another friend Ed were working together delivering cars and they would always stop to eat during the day. They had stopped at a Pizza Hut that had an all you can eat buffet. Well, these two guys could put it away. They kept going back “for a little more” when finally the manager came over to their table and told them that if they would leave now that they wouldn’t have to pay. I guess they were eating too much.
I’ve ridden about 12,000 miles with Mel in the last 7 or 8 years. I chronicled the largest trip to Yellowstone here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. That was in 2007. We’ve also ridden to West Virginia, Milwaukee, Memphis, Kansas City, Little Rock, Kentucky, Branson, and Key West. Mel occasionally strikes out on his own and rode to Nova Scotia a few years back. There’s a funny story about that too. Mel is a little notorious for going the wrong way. Several times on our rides, after a rest stop he would be leading and get back on the highway going in the wrong direction. We’d have to speed up and pass him and tell him to turn around. Well, Mel rode up to Washington D.C. by himself for the big Rolling Thunder event one Memorial Day weekend. After D.C. he rode up into Canada and over to Nova Scotia. I always teased him about making a wrong turn out of D.C. on the way home and ending up in Nova Scotia. He had 
asked me to go along with him but I couldn’t at the time. We also talked about making a ride to California in the next year or two now that I’m sort of retired and I could do that. But now that won’t happen.
Mel truly loved his family too. He and his wife Janet have a grown son and daughter that he was very close to and a 13 year-old granddaughter that always put a real sparkle in his eye. He crammed a lot of life into his 67 years.
Mel will be missed.
