Yes, having my cousin Charlie has been a big part of my life.
In my early childhood, my parents divorced and he was a father figure to me. I can remember him standing in as my dad in a 'Father and Son cake bake' competition when I was a young kid in Cub Scouts. We won the prize for Most Unusual!
I'm trying to remember a bicycle-related story to tell here but the only one that comes to mind has more to do with a motorcycle. One day he surprised me with a Yamaha 80 motorcycle when I was around 10 or 12 years old. I couldn't have been happier! We would load up and go trail riding in the next county along a pipeline and logging roads every chance we could. As I'm writing this the memories are flooding in!
Anyway, years later he told me the back story of why he bought that motorcycle. At the time he was living just down the street from where we lived. I had several friends in the neighborhood around my age and a few of them started riding motorcycles. Two twins even got brand-new matching Honda XR75's for Christmas and they would let me ride them sometimes. One day Charlie was outside and saw all of the kids ride past on their motorcycles along with me trailing behind pedaling my cobbled-together bicycle as fast as I could. It didn't take long for him to find and buy the Yamaha for me because it bothered him (probably more than it bothered me) seeing me racing after them that way.
He has played a part in most of the builds that I have done here at RRB through the years. Whenever I have needed any welding done, he has always been happy to help!
This is a picture of Charlie on the right chatting with someone at Unique Motorcars this past year. He worked there for many years welding together the chassis' for their Cobra kit cars.
Unique Motorcars' fiberglass shop is also where I have all of my fiberglass bicycle parts made.