Back In The Days With Pappy

from Carolina Chrome March Issue 162

Lake Murray 2022 Polar Bear Plunge With ABATE CWC & TuTu's

Well, I should have started this story like now… I’m a 75 years old that’s been riding for 64 years now, I have owned a bunch of bikes!

First Knuk was a 47 EL 3 speed with a sidecar… 35 bucks, sold the side car for $50 that fall and sold the bike to the guy that bought the sidecar years later; he gave it to his son Mighty Mike and he still has it. Mighty Mike still lives in the house he grew up in, and has never been anywhere.

1947 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead EL with Sidecar. National Motorcycle Museum

Back to the start… Schools are out, so the fun begins! I’m now making $0.75 an hour and gas was $0.24.9, that’s right 24.9 CENTS per gallon! My scooter got about 40 mpg and it needed to be painted, big time!! So, I striped it at Ed Orrs Body Shop, where he let us guys hang around and we would make paint & parts runs for him. Cliff Blogett was the best painter around and I got him a Badger Air Brush to do the flame job I wanted, and it looked so goooood!

Harley-Davidson K Model Sporster Brody Chase got a BSA 500,

BSA 1948 A7 500 cc 2cyl ohv

Bobby Michel got a 55 Triumph!

We made some weekend camping trips to lake Michigan full of lots of girls and little bathing suits (some stories will never be told). There was a teen age night club not too far from Farmville called the Teen Beat a way cool place to ride to and the girls love bikes; good bands and more fun than the law would allow. Also, the crazy horse barn same thing good bands, lots of girls. Girls love two wheels!