I remember the
old store in south Chicago. Had a great big neon scrolled sign that said Warshawski & Co., and then underneath that hanging on two eyelets was a little sign swinging in the breeze that was a painted black piece of wood with white lettering that said J.C. Whitney. It was about 5% of the size of the sign above.
The store inside was even more bizarre. I was full of impulse buy displays (gas pedal shaped like a foot, blue dots for tail lights etc.) and cashier stations. You ordered what you really were there for and they took your money and then you waited for the part to come out from the huge warehouse behind the store front. Each cashier station had an overhead cable that ran up to a mezzanine cash cage with various holes cut in the cage with cables going through them. The cashier on the floor would put your money or form of payment in a little metal basket that had rollers above it on the cable and he would sling it up to the head cashier above and she would put the change and receipt in the basket and let gravity return it.
I just looked that up and turns out it's called a
cash railway (circa 1880) and was in widespread usage at one time. I doubt many other places still used it in the 1970s though.

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Edit: Sorry for thread diversion, nostalgia exerts a powerful pull to the darkside of forum posting as we age.
As to the bike lowering, any chance that this is just a
Big ol' Boy on that C14? Sure I'm a little guy, and in the right lighting even
Scary Harry looks big to me
, but isn't this guy pushing 250 or 275 lbs x 6' ft tall making the bike lower or am I just seeing things?
Did your friends notice the plate state?