James Burleigh
Well-known member
One morning a while back my boss came into my office carrying something. She smiled and said, “I’ve been meaning to bring this in for you to look at ever since I heard you ride a motorcycle.” She dropped onto my desk a brown-and-black photo album. I pulled it closer. By its style and threadbare appearance I could tell it was very old.
“What’s this?”
“Have a look,” she said, her expression that of a person who knows I am about to be amazed.
I opened the album. Immediately my eyes widened. “Oh wow!” I exclaimed. “Look at these people!” I turned page after page of the album, and with each new page I uttered a fresh “Wow!” or “Incredible!”
The album was packed with black-and-white photographs of men and women posing on or riding old Harley-Davidsons and Indians. They were dressed in leather jackets, jeans, boots, and motorcycle caps in the classic Marlon Brando style from The Wild Bunch. Except while the Brando image was from the 1950s, these were clearly much older.
“Who are these people?” I asked.
“That’s my grandfather and his friends,” she said. The album belonged to her mother, and the man whose picture appeared the most was her mother’s father (my boss's grandfather), an early motorcycle enthusiast from Shelton, Washington, who worked first as a mechanic and later as a moto-cop.
The photographs were all from the early 1930s, many taken in front of her grandparents' house or garage (still standing) where her grandfather ran his shop. She told me she remembered as a girl her grandfather taking her for a ride on his motorcycle.
I continued to turn pages. In some photos the riders were doing hill climbs; other photos showed bikes with side cars. There must have been over 100 pictures. Looking at the photos of those men and women posing on or next to their bikes, even though separated by more than 70 years, I knew just how they felt. Because I have plenty of photographs of myself in similar poses on my FJR, wearing on my face the exact same "how cool am I" expression.
These remarkable photos were a glimpse into the past of perhaps one of the earliest, if not first, motorcycle communities, a community much like the one built around the FJR Forum. Wanting to share some of these wonderful, rare images of early motorcycle enthusiasts with my fellow riders, I got permission to scan some of the photos.
What a stroke of fortune it turned out to be that my boss had brought that album in to share with me, and that I had scanned some of the photos, delicately bending back the fragile album to lay flat on the scanner. In retrospect I wish I had scanned the whole album rather than only about five pages. Because what we did not know at the time was that soon that unique treasure chest of motorcycling history would be gone forever.
A Monday morning a couple of weeks after bringing in the photo album, my boss again came into my office. The first words out of her mouth were, “I am furious at my mother!”
“What happened?” I asked.
“She threw away the album.”
Yep, her 88-year-old mom had been going through some old stuff, found the albums, and threw them away. Who knows why. It's a crying shame.
They should have wound up at the county historical society.
Below are the pages I had scanned. The first picture is of my boss's mother, who would throw the pictures all away in the next century.
Yep, that's all that's left--some digital images. Lately, apparently, the mother has been talking about going for a motorcycle ride. It's in her blood as you can see. Seems my boss has been suggesting she knows a guy at work who could maybe take her for a ride. But I said, just this morning, that I thought a Harley would be more appropriate, given her roots. "Well," said my boss, "I guess we'll just have to rent you a Harley."
“What’s this?”
“Have a look,” she said, her expression that of a person who knows I am about to be amazed.
I opened the album. Immediately my eyes widened. “Oh wow!” I exclaimed. “Look at these people!” I turned page after page of the album, and with each new page I uttered a fresh “Wow!” or “Incredible!”
The album was packed with black-and-white photographs of men and women posing on or riding old Harley-Davidsons and Indians. They were dressed in leather jackets, jeans, boots, and motorcycle caps in the classic Marlon Brando style from The Wild Bunch. Except while the Brando image was from the 1950s, these were clearly much older.
“Who are these people?” I asked.
“That’s my grandfather and his friends,” she said. The album belonged to her mother, and the man whose picture appeared the most was her mother’s father (my boss's grandfather), an early motorcycle enthusiast from Shelton, Washington, who worked first as a mechanic and later as a moto-cop.
The photographs were all from the early 1930s, many taken in front of her grandparents' house or garage (still standing) where her grandfather ran his shop. She told me she remembered as a girl her grandfather taking her for a ride on his motorcycle.
I continued to turn pages. In some photos the riders were doing hill climbs; other photos showed bikes with side cars. There must have been over 100 pictures. Looking at the photos of those men and women posing on or next to their bikes, even though separated by more than 70 years, I knew just how they felt. Because I have plenty of photographs of myself in similar poses on my FJR, wearing on my face the exact same "how cool am I" expression.
These remarkable photos were a glimpse into the past of perhaps one of the earliest, if not first, motorcycle communities, a community much like the one built around the FJR Forum. Wanting to share some of these wonderful, rare images of early motorcycle enthusiasts with my fellow riders, I got permission to scan some of the photos.
What a stroke of fortune it turned out to be that my boss had brought that album in to share with me, and that I had scanned some of the photos, delicately bending back the fragile album to lay flat on the scanner. In retrospect I wish I had scanned the whole album rather than only about five pages. Because what we did not know at the time was that soon that unique treasure chest of motorcycling history would be gone forever.
A Monday morning a couple of weeks after bringing in the photo album, my boss again came into my office. The first words out of her mouth were, “I am furious at my mother!”
“What happened?” I asked.
“She threw away the album.”
Yep, her 88-year-old mom had been going through some old stuff, found the albums, and threw them away. Who knows why. It's a crying shame.
They should have wound up at the county historical society.Below are the pages I had scanned. The first picture is of my boss's mother, who would throw the pictures all away in the next century.
Yep, that's all that's left--some digital images. Lately, apparently, the mother has been talking about going for a motorcycle ride. It's in her blood as you can see. Seems my boss has been suggesting she knows a guy at work who could maybe take her for a ride. But I said, just this morning, that I thought a Harley would be more appropriate, given her roots. "Well," said my boss, "I guess we'll just have to rent you a Harley."
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