Introduction To Motorcycles

While I was working nights I met a fellow sailor named Don Hillhouse.  Don was from Clearwater, Florida, near Tampa, and was the very proud owner of a 1956 Triumph 650 twin cylinder motorcycle.  He had been riding since a young lad, and as I recall had a road license since he was 14.  He was 19 by the time I met him so had five years road experience by then.  He invited me to go for a ride on the back of his bike one day, and often after that.  This photo is a 1956 Triumph, but not Don's.  His looked almost exactly like this. 

We thought nothing of riding the 60 miles or so to Mobile, Alabama just for a cup of coffee and enjoying the ride. At least twice that summer we rode together to his home, a distance of about 525 miles each way.  One time on the way back to Pensacola it was a really hot Sunday afternoon and two or three times the bike engine got so hot it would set up and stop.  After it cooled it would start right back up and run another 50 or 75 miles.  I have owned and ridden some sort of a two-wheeled vehicle almost ever since.  This photo is myself at age 18 at the time I rode with Don a lot.

I bought my first car also about that time.  It was a 1947 Chevy sedan.  I had owned it less than a month when I was sitting in it at a drive-in restaurant one Sunday afternoon.  As I sat there talking to a young waitress (they roller-skated to our vehicles) I spotted my old friend Smitty passing by in his ‘47 Mercury convertible.  In my haste to follow him I backed from my parking spot, and right into a 1955 pink and white Ford convertible owned by a fellow sailor named Steve Vigh.  I creamed the left front corner of his almost new car, and he was not happy about it at all.  I promised to pay for the damage which I faithfully did after he had it repaired by the local Ford dealer.  I had to sell my car to get the money to pay for the damage to his, so my Chevy didn’t last too long with me.  This is a '47 Chevy, but not mine.  Mine was black.