Bob,
Welcome to the forum. Glad you decided to join us. I suspect some previous owner, before "vintage" set in, wanted a gentler ride than he was getting from a rigid frame. Looking forward to seeing photos along the way. If you don't want to edit, crop or resize your photos you can just set you camera for 640x480 resolution. Also, it's going to be interesting for us (and challenging for you) to see how longstoke parts come along.
Richard L.