I was about to pour myself a cup of coffee in my pit in 2007 and up walks this nice dude in Khaki pants and a golf shirt, he says "Nice Triumph" (my race bike), so I offered him a cup of coffee and we chatted a while. He liked what I had done with my bike, having started from scratch; said he liked classic Bonnevilles. So he gets up to go and I introduce myself and shake his hand, he says "Nice to meet you, I'm George". Me being clueless, I go back to prepping my bike as he walks away. My buddy was just walking back across the pit lane from the showers, and says "Hey, wasn't that Mr. Barber?" I replied "he said his name was George".
Anyway, the following year, similar situation! He walks right up and asks "Is the coffee is hot, Paul?" We had a real nice long chat, since I also had the borrowed H1R and my Rickman Montesa.
Dude remembered my name again in 2010. Super nice guy. To say "he'll be missed" is about as understated as it gets; one of the nicest bike-heads I've ever met.
A guy I bought a bike from, along with his late buddy's bike, told me the story that they were parked in their van way back in a corner of the parking lot, over an hour before the museum opening time, middle of the week. They see this dude pull up and get out of his truck, and he walks up to them to ask if they're OK. They tell him this was their first time at the museum and they wanted to be early. He tells them, "come on over", they follow him up to the door. He pulls out his keys and unlocks the place, then gives them a 2-hour tour.
THAT was George Barber.
www.barbermuseum.org
