Caution: It's Dusty Today...

I got a little something in my eye when I read this story that Mopar posted on Facebook yesterday:

Slain officer's daughter gets his '69 Honda, 41 years later

SCRIPPS RANCH — The daughter of a San Diego police officer murdered 41 years ago got a little piece of his life back Wednesday.

A handful of officers and family members showed up at the Scripps Ranch home of Tina Lewis and surprised her with the refurbished motorcycle that her father, James Patrick Lewis, had cherished.

Her father was killed when she was two years old. Over forty years passed, but the Honda stayed in the family in various stages of completion. Last month a local Honda specialist started the restoration process and completed it in a month's time - that's some pretty amazing work right there. My father in law has the first motorcycle he ever bought in a shed out back of his property, a 1960s vintage CB360. It'd sure be something to get that little bike up and running...

This is one of the really neat things about being a motorhead - or a gun nut. Being able to use a piece of history, be it a classic car, vintage motorcycle, or antique firearm helps make the past more than something you read about in a history book. My folks recently had their old 8mm films converted to DVD, and it's simply amazing to see how technology has advanced in the 40 something years since the original 8mm was shot. We've gone from a clunky, lunchbox-sized camera that could take ~ 3 minutes of grainy video to a smartphone that can shoot over an hour of high definition color video in just two generations.

And now, because of the dedication of her family and the law enforcement community, a woman who lost her father as a toddler now has a small part of his life back - that's pretty darn neat.

That is all.