Boxing with JP, well, sort of !

[Paul Danik]

Boxing with JP, well, sort of !
It would sometimes take a day or so to load the Cycleliner for a trip out west to run the ISDT Qualifiers. The Pentons and the Leimbachs always made sure that when I was in town helping to get ready for a trip, that I had a nice place to stay, and some good home cooked meals. One evening over dinner at John's home, John stated that after dinner he was going to go to the Penton Honda retail dealership to collect boxes that were needed the next morning at Penton Imports, to pack and ship Penton parts orders in. I offered to go along and help, and John quickly accepted my offer, possibly this had been his plan !
Soon enough, John was backing his pickup to the rear door of the Penton Honda shop, and as he opened up the door there sat a nice pile of boxes. We started to pack the boxes together and carry them out to his truck. Pretty soon, there was just one lone box remaining, and as I started to pick it up John said to let it sit. "That is bait", he said, "if we take that one, the next time I come for boxes they will be thrown all over the back of this place, if we leave that one, they will aim for it and a nice pile will develop!"
Pretty soon, we had the boxes delivered to Penton Imports where Elmer Townie and his crew of parts pickers would find them in the morning. In due time, those boxes would be delivering Penton parts to Penton and Hi-Point dealers all over the country. As for me, in a couple of hours I would be at Tommy's pool hall in downtown Amherst with Jack and the boys having a cool one and shooting pool.
So, here we are about 50 years later, and pretty much every time I see a pile of cardboard boxes, I think back to the lesson that John Penton taught me that evening. As for learning lessons from JP, pretty much all through the years when John and I would get together, he would soon enough be leaning over and telling me of some sort of adventure he got into and how it all worked out. Thank you, John Penton, for all of the life's lessons well learned !

[ALB]

Paul thank you for sharing that story with everyone. I have heard you share it at POG meetings many times and I always enjoy the way that you tell it.

Thanks also for sharing the photo of the inside of the Cycleliner. That photos shows how you guys were able to get "all the clowns inside". I have seen many photos of the outside of the Cycleliner - never any of the inside.

[Daniel P. McEntee]

   I'm glad to know that I'm not the only "box saver" on the planet!! I can always appreciate a "nice box" that can be reused to ship something or to store something in. In this day and age of Amazon, there are more boxes to chose from, but the quality certainly isn't there any more!! Boxes are made to certain specs to hold a specific amount of weight that is called it's "burst strength" I believe, and is usually stamped on the bottom of the box. A box with a 200 pound burst strength is pretty stout and good for many re-uses. The boxes that Amazon uses are about half of that and are much thinner. Some boxes come from China or other over seas sources and are made from rice paper, and most recyclers won't accept them of they will throw then in the trash. You can't mix those with typical brown paper boxes.
   Great story Paul!!
    Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee