Bio |
I have wanted to own a motorcycle and travel long distances since I was 12 or 13 years old. I was in awe of the few small scooters I could observe in the small towns in which I grew up. The ultimate desire of a young boy at that time was a “Fully Loaded” Cushman Eagle. But alas, I usually had at least one and sometimes two part time jobs to help with school expenses, so owning anything like that was completely out of the question. I watched with envy and strong interest anytime I caught the sound and then the sight of a two wheeler anywhere in my small world! I got busy saving what I could from my paper route, delivering flowers, cleaning dog pens at the Veterinarian Hospital, working in hay fields, helping harvest wheat, and later working in a filling station, which included washing and servicing hopelessly mud-caked big oil field trucks. During those years, I put a lot of miles on my trusty Schwinn bike, which got a long rest when Rheumatic Fever interrupted my plans and progress for a couple of years. My older brother and I decided we needed a car to get us to school and to our jobs in a more efficient and stylish manner. We found a 1940 Dodge sedan in a back yard that was for sale. It needed work, but we were optimistic, and blinded by the prospect of owning “our own car”! I was 15 and Jim was 16. We had lots of good times in that car, but that’s another story. About a year later, I “fell in love at first sight”! I saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen - a pristine Harley Davidson rolling down Main Street with a For Sale sign in the windshield. I ran after it, but alas, it was faster than I was. I couldn’t sleep that night, and scoured the town for 2 days looking for that fine machine to no avail. The next Saturday my heart skipped a beat as I again spotted that Harley on Main Street! The Gods were with me this time and the stop light turned red as the rider approached! I again ran up the street after him, hoping to beat the green light. It was a tie, and I was out of breath, but gasped “How much are you asking?” as the light turned green. He pulled around the corner and showed me all the details of the fine machine. It was a 1947 Harley 74 FL, ex police bike with only 13, 459 miles. He owned a little paint shop in town and had painted it a beautiful Sun Gold and Campus Cream! He was willing to let it go for $350 cash. I wanted it in the worst way, but there were two big obstacles to hurdle: 1. where could I come up with the “fortune” it took to buy it, and 2. how could I get my folks approval? I told him I really wanted it but didn’t have the money, memorized his phone number and set out to solve my dilemma. I had been “working on” my folks for over a year about wanting a motorcycle, so much to my surprise, they said OK, but I had to come up with all the money including operating costs and insurance! AND be extremely careful and safe - NO HOTRODDING! Wow a great day, but still a huge hurdle to conquer. I was way short of cash and no easy or quick solutions. I went by the Harley owners place every day but couldn’t spot it. Finally a bright idea struck, my brother could buy out my half of the Dodge. So he agreed and would pay exactly what we had in it ($212.50 for my half)! But, he didn’t have any cash either and we were paying off the car repairs on time. We went to the car repair shop and pleaded with them to let us pay off the repairs with monthly payments of $25 instead of the much larger payments we had originally promised. Some how they were sympathetic with our plan, tightened their belts, and agreed. One of the two owner/ mechanics had ridden an Indian 74 in his younger days. Could that have helped our case? I couldn’t sleep until I talked to the Harley owner to see if he could take a down payment and hold it for me! He still had it, but said he needed the money and would have to sell it to the first person with the whole $350.00. I was sad and downtrodden, because I just knew that the “love of my life” would sell long before I could come up with that huge sum! Since it was summer, I got busy with more odd jobs including delivering telegrams on my trusty high mileage Schwinn to get the money I desperately needed as fast as possible! My luck held and no one else came along to buy it before I got the money scraped up into a pile big enough to go buy it. I rushed over to his house and found that he was gone for a few days! How could I possibly wait until he returned, and did he indeed, still have that big beautiful ‘47 Harley 74? I finally caught up with him and low and behold, he still had the Harley carefully covered in his garage. I was “prouder than a Peacock” as I counted out the hard earned $350.00 cash! It was a real WAD of small bills. I had him show me all the details of the bike and tell me how to ride it, and then asked him to ride it to my folk’s house for me. He was so happy to have his cash that he gladly rode it home for me. I didn’t want to take any chances on a mishap with my new “Pride and Joy”! Part of the next day was spent at the Court House getting the title recorded in my name and a new license plate and proper registration. I didn’t have money for the insurance for a few weeks, so I just polished it and practiced “riding it” parked at the curb. My biggest challenge was getting it started. I weighed 125 pounds soaking wet, and had to jump up in the air and land on the kick starter with all my might to have enough force to overcome the compression of that awesome 74 cubic inch (1200 cc) engine. At first when I sometimes forgot to retard the spark with the left hand grip, I would crash down on the kick start pedal, the engine would almost “backfire”, kick back and “shoot me” right back up in the air! Wow, what a ride without even turning a wheel! It was a good thing that I had a “death grip” on the handlebars, or I would have been sent into orbit for sure! The big day arrived when I finally got the insurance paid. I started up my beautiful ride, and put it in first gear and slowly engaged the foot clutch. I almost killed the engine, but managed to get it rolling and wobbled down the street and back. That machine was pretty intimidating for a little 125 pound weakling who had never even ridden a scooter or a Whizzer! I quickly became quite adept at handling my “dream ride”, but I usually didn’t have enough money to fill the gas tank. So, I would buy a gallon or two of gas at 27.9 cents a gallon and head out of town. Well, it was a trick figuring out the reserve valve which was located in the left hand tank. Between never having enough gas for the distance I tried to ride, and not fully mastering the intricacies of the gas reserve valve, I think I pushed that heavy machine back to a filling station almost as far as I rode it that summer! Boy was I hot, thirsty and tired, a lot of days before I changed my ways and quit trying to ride so far on so little gas!
That was the summer of 1954 in a farming community in Northeastern Colorado, where a frail 16 year old boy enjoyed the freedom, independence, and inner strength that owning a beautiful 1947 Harley 74 gave him!
I sold “my first love” a couple of years later to buy a car (a 1950 Ford) and go to college. When summer came a year later, I couldn’t stand it so I sold the car to my younger brother, Harry, and bought another Harley from a farmer North of Denver. After a cold snowy winter with no car I sold that Harley and bought a 1946 Mercury Club Coupe. And so it went for several years. I would buy a rundown Harley and refurbish it then sell it later as a way to help get through college. I continued this after we were married and had two daughters as a way to be able to afford a two wheeler with a low or no budget. I owned at least 6 Harleys over the years, the most unique of which was a 1954 KH Sportster which I later traded for a 1941 Ford Pickup with a Cadillac engine. I have since lost track of some of them, but I remember a Honda 305, a Triumph Thunderbird, a Triumph Bonneville, a Zundap 250 single, a Yamaha 125 enduro, a Yamaha XS 750 triple, a Yamaha XS 650 twin, a Yamaha 80 enduro, a Honda trail 90 and now my 1986 Kawasaki 1200, and my 1991 Kawasaki 1200. I have been selling most of my old car projects and have acquired some antique motorcycles which are much easier to work on, store, and haul around. They include: three NSUs, a 1905, a 1953, and a 1960; a 1969 Ducati racer; and a 1973 BMW R75/5.
Our girls learned to ride when they were 4 and 5 and are safe excellent riders that love to travel on 2 wheels. We have traveled on many great, long, and scenic trips through the Western United States and Canada with our Toy Poodle on Gale’s lap behind me. I realized my life long dream of long distance travel on a motorcycle through these trips after our family was raised and before we retired. I always wanted to go as far as the short vacations would allow and enjoyed the ride so much that we traveled through a lot of 115 degree weather, driving rains, 50 to 80 mile an hour wind storms, and several snow storms to get back home in time to go to work on Monday morning. These memories seem to push out most thoughts of the good parts of the trips. On typical days we covered 500 to 600 miles and ended well after dark! These trips covered tens of thousands of miles over the period of 15 or 20 years. Now I wonder why Gale doesn’t ride with me anymore. She did get pretty good at sleeping as we road however!
Thanks to Blue’s Angles and Jack Hansen for getting me involved, I thoroughly enjoy the beautiful, frequent rides through Arizona, with the great group of riders that you all are. I look forward to riding 3,000 to 5,000 miles with Blue and his Angles each winter, especially knowing that it is too cold and snowy to ride in Colorado where my Bike used to sit in the garage all winter. There are many more stories of our individual escapades, but those will have to wait until another time.
I can no longer do long distance rides, thanks to a whiplash injury, I received, when an 18 wheeler rear ended me a few years back, but I travel with our Iron Butt riders, and Long Riders, in heart and spirit. I am really proud of all our long distance riders and each and every one of you for riding with the Angles and being such a great group! You all inspire me to keep riding, and I do so enjoy it!
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