A Lifetime of Motorcycles

I was 14 years old living in Pampa, Texas when I got my first motorcycle, an Allstate Moped.  My brother, Gary, and I flogged that thing as only youngsters can until it wouldn't go another mile!  Dad was continually working on it to keep it running.

Over the years since then, I've had countless bikes including several Harleys, Hondas, and even a Moto Guzzi.  Today, I have four bikes: a '66 Harley Sportster, an '03 BMW, a Yamaha TW200, and the '74 Moto Guzzi Eldorado.  My favorite ride was a '63 Sportster which I rode when I was at Oklahoma State back in the late '60s.  It was, at the time, the fastest motorcycle in Stillwater!  The picture above is me with it in about 1969.

Louise and I had our first date on this motorcycle and I can still remember that night vividly.  Over the years, she rode behind me a lot of miles on a lot of trips.  Several years ago, we were in Houston, Texas, on a Harley Ultra Classic and it was extremely hot that day.  Also, the traffic was horrible, a standard condition in Houston. When we got back to the travel trailer that evening, Louise told me that she was through riding.  She has never ridden with me again.

I purchased the '66 Sportster about five years ago in an attempt to re-create the old days.  It cannot be done, as most people know, so now I need to sell the Sportster.  I've also decided that, like Louise, I'm about through riding.  I won't completely quit motorcycles but there won't be any more cross-country rides.

It has been a lot of fun but it is time to move on to something else.  Besides, I can use the money from the sale of the motorcycles to buy a new antenna tower!

A New Dog

Our friend, Amy, spotted a small brown dog about a week ago out on the highway.  Well, Amy is a real softie for animals so she spent four days trying to catch that dog and keep him from getting hit by a car.

She finally cornered him last Wednesday; in the process of capturing him, he chewed her hands up pretty good!  The first thing she did with him was to carry him down to Dr. Lasarsky, the local vet, to see what kind of shape the dog was in.  The vet allowed that he was about two years old, with no heartworms, but also had not eaten well recently.  Also, his coat was so bad that they needed to clip it all off to get rid of everything.

Amy left the dog there and they called back in a few hours to tell her that the dog was white, not brown, after they got him cleaned up.  Amy posted a picture of him on Facebook so Louise and I decided to go look at him.  Big mistake!  One look and we told Amy we wanted him.  Since we were leaving town for the weekend, we asked her if she would mind taking care of him til we got home and she said she would be happy to.

We cut our trip short a day and got home yesterday instead of today.  When we got home, we called Amy and she asked if she could keep him one more day - she has already fallen in love with that little dog!

We don't know what breed he is but we do know he will always be a somewhat small dog, probably around 10 pounds.  He appears to be part poodle and looks a lot like J.J., our other dog.  We are excited about having another dog around the house; he will be great company for J.J. and for us.

We are wrestling with a name.  Our first inclination was to call him "Jake" but that name is really too close to J.J.'s name and it might be confusing.  Right now, we are leaning toward "Boo".  I'll let you know.  The picture is of him on the porch with Terry, Amy's husband.

Changing My Address

Because Louise and I travel quite a bit, sometimes for extended periods, we have had problems with getting our mail forwarded.  We either had to get the Post Office to do it (which they don't like to do) or we had to beg someone to go get our mail, put it in an envelope, and send it to us.

Just before our last major outing to South Texas in December, our box rent became due at the Post Office and we decided to use that as a reason to make a change.  Our son, Dan, had owned a UPS Store in Sapulpa several years ago and we knew that they rented out private mailboxes.  We went down to the local UPS Store in Sand Springs, paid them a little money, and had a new address!

Part of our logic was that they would forward our mail to us on demand and, in fact, they did this very well.  While we were in South Texas, all I had to do was send them an email and they would gather up all our mail, put it in an envelope, and forward it to us, all for a very nominal charge.  Another part of our decision was that Louise would be in Prattville (Sand Springs) frequently to see the grand kids so it wouldn't be an inconvenience to pick up the mail when we were in town.  This part of the deal is also working quite well.

What I didn't consider was the work required to notify all the people who exchange mail with us that we have a new address!  I have spent a considerable amount of time in this effort since December and I believe that I'm about through with it.  And its not just the initial change; several of the companies we have dealings with (insurance companies, doctors, etc) haven't been able to get the address right on the first try so we have to do it over.

The other day, I sat down to get caught up on QSL cards and realized that I had about 500 cards with the wrong address on them.  For you non-hams, a QSL card is used to confirm a radio contact between two amateur radio operators.  Recently, there have become many ways to confirm a radio contact electronically but a lot of people still prefer the cards.

At any rate, I used a few of my old cards by printing stickers with our new address information, but this was a pain in the rear!  So, yesterday I decided to have some new cards printed.  The first task was to find a picture for the front of the card.  Because of copyright laws, I decided that I wanted a picture which I had taken so I wouldn't have to worry about someone challenging my right to use it.

When Louise and I were in Louisiana in March, I had taken a picture of an owl which turned out pretty fair so I decided to use it.  In case you are wondering where I'm going with this,  its all an excuse to show you my new QSL card!