T: Hi, Jane.
J: Are you guys finished with dinner?
T: Let me put my ice cream away.
J: What Flavor?
T: Vanilla. With some Kahlua.
J: I thought you liked it with cassis?
T: Yes, but I just used the last of the cassis. So, I'm on second string. I just sat down to look at the pictures mom sent you.
J: I've got them pulled up here on my computer.
T: Ohhhh. That one.
J: Ha. Which one is that one
T: I am pushing the Suzuki up the driveway here at the house.
J: Why are you pushing it?
T: I was probably trying to get it going and it didn't start. So, I'm pushing it back up the hill. If a motorcycle isn't too big, you can usually push start it. It's a much faster way of turning the engine over. If you are trying to kickstart it and it doesn't work, then you say, ok let's push start. Eventually I got the bike going. It's the one Delos had when he was in the Navy. I think Bob had it for awhile, or, maybe Ed senior rode it to work, and then Bob took it, and then I brought it home and was riding it. Very nice smooth bike. Compared to my dirt bikes. Then your brother took it to Ames, and he was going to take it apart and soup it up.
J: Wait. Ed had a motorcycle?
T: Yeah. The blue one. I don't know how much he rode it. I know he took it apart, and it got rained on, and the engine got all seized up. So, it's back here at the nursing home.
J: That's not a bad lead in. I've got to take it. Your son took a motorcycle back with him to Iowa State University, which is also where you first began riding motorcycles.
T: Yes. Well, I think I first rode one when I was in high school. My friend had a Honda Super 90.
J: That's a street bike?
T: Yeah. Small street bike, 90cc.
J: Did you always like motorcycles? Or did some guy just happen to have one?
T: Oh, I liked 'em. Yeah. Though, I never got one till I was a sophomore in college. I got a Honda 160. I thought it was just the coolest. It was a street bike, two cylinders, had classic styling. Later, I put on knobby tires, higher pipes, and moved the fenders up to try and make it more “off road.” I loved looking at that bike. It sounded good too.
J: Sounded good. Like, it was loud?
T: It would really rev up. I remember riding it to my job at the steel warehouse, and then I'd hop on it and drive into the blinding sunset to go to my biology class at the community college, and then I'd come home. I didn't get a car until I was in the army. I remember going to the grocery store with the bags of groceries kind of clasped between my legs on top of the gas tank.
J: Gotta keep the ice cream on top, right?
T: Right.
J: In an email you wrote you were in an off road motorcycle club at Iowa State University?
T: Yeah. The neat thing about the club was that there was such a mix of people there. Young undergrads like me, townies from Ames who we would hang out with at the Suzuki shop, graduate students, and married students. My best friend was ten years older, married with kids, and he was club president when I first joined. We would go out to this wooded land near the farm he was living at and just ride around out there. You think of Iowa as being flat, but there was a lot of land that was too hilly for farms, or had too many creeks in it or something, so they would just pasture animals there. We would rent about twenty acres, make a path, and then you could just ride around and around and around. There would be a work day where you would pull out stumps and stuff and then you'd say “Its time to ride!” and then you start racing each other around. It's physically very hard because you have to stand up on the pegs because the bike is bouncing around. The bike is trying to throw you off. Or, you are trying to turn a corner and the bike doesn't want to go, so you have to wrench it up. Or, you fall down and then you have to pick the thing up, start it, go again, get stuck, drag it out of the mud. If you are riding on the bumpy ground, bouncing and crashing around, even for us super tough twenty year olds, you'd say, "If I ride around one more time I'm gonna crash. I won't be able to hold on. If the handle bars twitch I'm just gonna have to let go and who knows what'll happen."
J: About twenty years ago, I think I got a brief glimpse of this part of you. You and Ed and I took our bicycles to go riding along the dirt trails along the river bank. I can remember feeling very proud that I was keeping up, white knuckling it over tree roots, constantly pushing away the thought of cartwheeling on a ten speed into the Milwaukee River. At one point we reached this huge dirt ravine. It was a long straight drop down into a pit, and then almost immediately vertical back up the other side. I remember being horrified that there seemed to be tire tracks. And then, with no hesitation, you began walking back to your bicycle, got on it, and started riding top speed right for the edge. I thought, my god, my Dad is gonna die. He is actually going to die right here. Even Ed looked completely stricken. I thought, there is a lot about this guy that I know absolutely nothing about. I think you did it a bunch of times and kept crashing off to the side. I can't remember if you made it up? You may have been limping?
T: No, I didn't make it up.
J: Did you ever do anything like that on a motorcycle?
T: Oh Yeah.
J: Really?
T: One of the events the club sponsored every year was a hill climb. We would have a really steep hill that would have some jumps in the middle of it. Maybe twice as long as the ravine you mentioned, but maybe not as steep, but rougher. You'd start down at the bottom and roar at it as fast as you could. A few guys made it to the top. The absolute steepest hill I ever went up was at Ft. Campbell in Kentucky where I was in the Army. The Army was your day job, and on late afternoons or on weekends, you could go motorcycle riding. There was this one place where, if you can imagine a spot where maybe somebody had been digging, made a twenty-five foot cliff, and then they left and dirt fell down, so it made a ramp. At the very top it was almost vertical where the dirt had fallen away. I remember I just kept throwing myself at this. Finally, I got to where I was all the way at the top, the bike was above the lip, and I just pushed off. Pushed off the handlebars and kicked with my feet and the bike stayed up on top and I tumbled all the way back down.
J: Does that mean you did it? What's the qualifier?
T: I don't know. The hill climb events were a lot of fun. We would get just huge crowds. It's very dramatic. We also had motocross, an off road race on a dirt track. You'd do twenty laps or something. It's got humps and bumps and mud and stream crossings and probably a hill. There is a picture of me here doing a little jump. That was during a motocross.
J: Looks like you have a little air beneath you. I love the picture where there is another guy behind you, kind of putting up a spray.
T: Oh yeah, that was probably the same event during a creek crossing. You'd cross this creek and have to make a turn, and it was all kinda muddy and slimy...
J: What bike are you riding there?
T: That was my first Bultaco. It was probably the best dirt bike you could buy at the time. It was called a Matador and it was made for exactly that kind of stuff. Not necessarily for racing. It was street legal. You can't ride a racing bike on the street. It's like when people buy “off-road” style cars. The Japanese made some trail bikes that were more compromised, more in-between.
J: This pic of you splattered in mud? Same bike?
T: No, I think that might have been my newer Bultaco.
J: How many bikes did you have?
T: You mean in all?
J: We've got some time.
T: My first bike was a Honda CB160, a two cylinder street bike. 160 is the size of the engine. 160 cc's. That's about the same size as our lawnmower right now. Then the Bultaco Matador, I sold my guitars and everything to get that.
J: You played guitar?
T: Sure.
J: What?
T: Just a little.
J: I will try to stay on topic.
T: Ok, then while in basic training in Fort Benning GA I started a little motorcycle club down there. I sold the '69 Matador to my roommate and I bought a new one. A 250 cc. Which is the one that is down in the basement now. I think it's a '71. And just before you kids were born, I got the Yamaha XT 500. Twice as big an engine, a much bigger and heavier bike, a single cylinder four-cycle thumper. It goes, THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.
J: That's the one you would take me around on?
T: Yeah. And then a couple years ago I got the big black street bike at the neighbor’s rummage sale. So, that's all I've had. No. Wait. When your Mom and I were living in Chicago, I had a Honda 450. I was riding that from our apartment by Wrigley Field to Prospect Heights where I worked at the hardware store. I would take Kennedy expressway reverse commuting, so I'd see all that traffic coming into town and I'd just be cruising along. The engine on that blew up on my way home once.
J: Blew up?
T: Well, not an explosion. I might have had too much beer. I might have down shifted too soon, and it over revved the engine. The piston rod broke loose from the piston and poked a hole in the front of the engine. It made a lot of noise and then locked up, which makes your back tire start skidding. So, you pull on your clutch and coast over to the shoulder and call a friend. I think I sold it as a parts bike in broken condition, for only fifty dollars less than I paid for it. So that worked out. Oh, that was a great bike.
J: I'd like to continue with “getting in trouble” and ask about the incident on Red River. That sounds like the title to a great western novel.
T: Ohhh. The picture reference for that is the one where I am sitting in front of the Volvo.
J: I love that you can see so much of the bike in this picture. It looks really simple and light, nothing wasted, really see all the parts.
T: Yes. No passenger seats, no doodads, and knobby tires for muddy places. You'll notice that the fenders are way up, that front wheel could compress six inches if you hit a bump. Everything is paired down. When I first got my Matador, I had been riding on this same hill for a while on my Honda. And then I had the Matador, and I was riding on the same place, and I'd come to a big tree root or something and grimace and look away like, "Ahhh, get ready to crash!" But the bike just went over it. Then, there would be a huge log, or a big bush in the way and, "Oh my god! can't stop!" and you'd turn away, but the motorcycle would just continue up the hill all by itself when it should have crashed four times already. It was such a difference. It had more power at low speeds, it could kind of...Bahhhhruuum, pull itself out of a bind. If you didn't shift down soon enough it would keep on slugging away. It was just a marvel. If you look at that picture you can see that the seat is bent up. And the back shock absorber is....
J: Oh. Yeah. It's dented in.
T: That's because I had just been hit by a train.
J: Start wherever you like.
T: Well, it was a beautiful spring day. My friend had to take his bike into the shop, so the two of us rode into town. He stayed there, and I decided I was going to go ride around. I came across a big railroad embankment where the bridge crossed the river. There was a long steep ramp, like on an interstate. It was a big hill. So I decided to see if I could get up it. I rode up and down a few times, and then that was kind of boring, so I decided to go across the bridge and see what's on the other side. This was a big timber trestle bridge; it looked like it was made of fifty foot long telephone poles.
J: This is the kind of thing I see only in movies.
T: So, I started across that, the motorcycle can ride on railroad ties. I got to the middle of the bridge, and it was just such a beautiful day. Picturesque. There was an old man fishing in a little boat. I was just taking it all in. So nice. Then, I felt the bridge shaking. I thought, why's that? And I looked behind me and coming around the curve was this big diesel engine and I knew I didn't have time to start the bike, I just had to get out of there. So, I laid the bike down and ran down the bridge and there was a little landing on the side. I climbed down that, and the train came up and he was blowing his horn and I was envisioning my new bike being run over. The wheels cutting my frame in half. Crunching the aluminum parts. Just terrible. But, they stopped the train. I began moving along the sides of the cars, just holding onto the rivets, and got up to the engine, this HOUSE, with the motorcycle just sort of tucked under the cowcatcher. And it's still in one piece. I can't believe it. The engineer stuck his head out the window and said, “Ah, how you doin, buddy?” I pulled it out and stood it up and was standing there looking at it in disbelief. And then he blows his horn, like, I got a train to deliver here. I dragged it out of there and he went on by. It was still rideable. So, I got on and made my way back to the Suzuki shop, picked up Roger, and he somehow perched himself on the back of that thing and we rode home.
J: In one piece.
T: But, maybe that is an example of when you get on your motorcycle and do stupid things, like play around on railroad tracks.
J: Do you think that riding off road motorcycles inspires people to do things they shouldn't?
T: When I was in high school, these Hondas came out. The slogan was “You meet the nicest people on a Honda”, that was the image they were trying to project, because before, only hoodlums rode motorcycles. These were red, and step through. They would show a guy and a gal riding together.
Before that, motorcycles were Harleys or the British Triumphs or BSAs, bigger bikes, and the image was Marlon Brando, outlaws, and Hell's Angels. I think if you grew up in the city like I did, where everything was right on the street, I mean, I never even rode a regular bicycle “off road” till I got to college. Maybe if you grew up on a farm or something, you would be less likely to want to ride around places where you usually wouldn't.
J: Like, in a dorm room?
T: Ha. That's me on the Bultaco and my roommate Al at Iowa State. I think they were taking pictures for the dorm house directory? So, Al and I said, “Let's show 'em we're bikers.”
J: First floor?
T: Second floor.
J: Are you even wearing pants?
T: I'm the one wearing sunglasses.
J: Oh, I guess you do have pants.
T: And sandals.
J: Sandals with black socks. Wait, how did you get the bikes in there?
T: There was an elevator, but you had to kind of stand them up…and, well, Al's bike was a street bike, so it was really heavy...
J: Ok. One more. For some reason I have written in caps on the side of my notes: FROZEN SKUNK RIVER. There are some little stars next to it.
T: Ohhh. Well, in between the university and Ames flowed the Skunk River. In the wintertime it would freeze over and you could ride out there. If you had smooth ice with four or five inches of snow it made enough traction and you could do big slides, like professional motocross people. You could do a lot of controlled slides in the snow that you could never do in real life. And, you could get on the river in one place and ride all the way downtown in a way you never could have before. Well, you could have done it in a boat, but we didn't have boats. It was a whole new perspective. You could just “take the river”.
J: I love this. Because that sounds amazing, but also because the magazine this interview is for is based in southern California. The dirt bikes are being ridden around by rock and roll desert dwellers. So I hear. Your stories about riding through muddy farm creeks and up and down snowy river highways may prove to be a nice contrast.
T: You asked earlier if dirt biking would make you do something you wouldn't normally do, and I think yes. I think motorcycling in general. For me it's always been a solo thing. I don't ride in groups. Anymore. With the club, you would ride around with other guys and do stuff, but now, if I am going to church, and I don't have something pressing...
J: Because these days, when you ride a motorcycle, it's to go to choir practice?
T: Yeah. That's about the only time I ride. It's the only time I don't have to bring a toolbox, or bring my wife. On your way home you say, Oh, I've never been in that subdivision before, or, I wonder if I can get from here to there and not take highway 83. You explore more. It's a lot easier to make a u-turn and go look at something. I don't have to go on the road. Or, I can ride along the railroad tracks, well, sometimes this is bad. Once I was riding along the power lines right-of-way, which ran parallel to the tracks. I ignored the no trespassing signs.
J: Really.
T: I just thought because I was riding conservatively, and not making a lot of noise, I was just putzing along, instead of roaring up and down like I had done in my much younger days, I thought there'd be no problem. But then, I kept seeing cop cars at all the crossings, I just thought it must be shift change or something. So, I parked the bike in weeds, went over to a McDonald's and got a Coke. When I came back my bike was gone. When I called in my bike being stolen, they sent some officers right over and said, “Put your hands on the car.” After they took my belt and shoelaces and fingerprinted me, and I had one phone call. Your mom had to go all the way to West Allis, where, at the time, there was a Jewel food store open late, so she could cash a check to get $75.00 to bail me out.
J: That was nice of her.
T: Yup. But, overall, I think dirt biking is very challenging, it can be as scary as you want it to be, because you set your limits. Or, well, you think you can. Back at Iowa State, when they were building the auditorium, there was a huge construction area I use to ride around in. You could make a course, and you'd say, "Can I do this without touching the ground, or killing the engine?" Or, "Can I do it faster?" I remember once riding up these big long hills that earth movers make. I roared up the side of one of those and was out of control when I got to the top. I couldn't put the brakes on, so I immediately began going back down the other side. My hands were on the handlebars, but my feet were off the pegs, so I was lying on this motorcycle, careening down the hill doing what you call “a tank slapper.”
J: Oh, god.
T: There is all this waggling around...then, you just finally crash.
J: That sounds horrible.
T: Well, yeah, it is. So, you say, I should check out the top of every hill before I go roaring up it. Make sure there is a place to land and stop.
J: Well, maybe that's good. But, it seems like you like not always knowing what's on top. I could hardly believe it about the Kahlua.
