The Mysteries of Grandpa
The Mysteries of Grandpa
UP FRONT
Mark Hoyer
THERE HAD BEEN ECHOES OF MY grandfather’s life, reflected mostly by my dad.
“He was an orphan who came to America from Hamburg before the first World War.”
“He accidentally broke ‘Skinny Jimmy’s’ ribs at the bar around the corner.”
“He was a milkman in a horse-drawn wagon.”
“He was a cowboy, loved horses and worked in the rodeo.”
“He took grandma for a ride across frozen Lake Ronkonkoma on his motorcycle one winter.”
The last one got my attention more than the others, for obvious reasons.
I mean, I thought it was cool that Grandpa could swing one of his giant, catcher’s-mitt hands at Jimmy’s ribs and put him on the floor without ever getting off the barstool, but I was far more interested in the motorcycling part. I wondered what kind of bike he rode and what year he was born, but my dad told me he didn’t know on either count:
“He didn’t talk much about where he’d come from.”
Grandpa was 5-foot-10 and 250 pounds—fit. His name was William, but because his hair turned pure white relatively early in life, his nickname was “Whitey.” I did get to spend time with him when I was young. But, even then, I could tell he wasn’t much of a people person, at least not in the conventional respect.
I also get the sense that he saw a lot in New York as an immigrant (pretty sure he was an, uh, “activist,” with a big union, which may have explained his knee troubles...), and that life as an orphan probably influenced the degree to which he might find common ground or things to talk about with me—an 8or 10-year-old living a relatively charmed life. Not only did I have parents, I also had grandparents, and I wasn’t a man with a German accent in America during World War I.
My brother Mike and I got lots of visits when we were young, even though we lived in California and Grandpa and Grandma (Margaret) still lived in New York. But Grandpa died when I was 14. And so this quiet, strong man took his life’s memories—all the victories, the regrets, the adventures and the lessons—with him.
One thing we lost was the story about his motorcycle, sold or otherwise moved on before my dad was born.
There was no one other than Whitey in my family who was directly active in motorcycling, yet for most of my conscious life, I have been irretrievably compelled to ride. And now I know, like with my love of playing music (my maternal great grandmother played piano in movie houses), that the sport is a component part of my genes. Grandpa was never particularly specific about what he rode and where or why, aside from mentioning the jaunt across the frozen lake to impress Grandma, and the very occasional off-handed comment to my dad about spiking the tires and ice racing around pylons on that same lake.
Until this photo (taken in the late 1930s, we think) surfaced, none of the family had any idea what kind of bike Grandpa rode.
Twin headlights and the fender shape give it away as a ’29 Harley-Davidson (it was the one year those lights were offered). I thought it might be a VL but learned those were first made in 1930. A JDH, maybe? To get a better idea, I enlisted the help of an expert on old stuff, Don Whalen, collector and owner of many rare American bikes (Crockers among them; see “Building the Perfect Crocker,” June, 2010).
“Great photo!” replied Whalen to my inquiry. “But it doesn’t give us a whole lot to work with. I blew it up and forwarded it to Dave Hanson at The Shop in Ventura [California], and to Lonnie Isam Jr. Waiting for a consensus, but we are pretty sure it isn’t a JDH because it does not appear that the fork springs on the bike in the photo stick up as high as those of a JDH. But it does appear to have the lower bars used. I am waiting to hear back from Lonnie, but we crosschecked the parts book, etc., and I don’t see the flat leading fork of a VL.”
Both Hanson and Isam are noted restorers, and the latter was the man behind the Motorcycle Cannonball crosscountry run for pre-1916 machines (“Cannonball!,” March). In other words, the best resources! After much debate and consideration, they think it’s a JD, far more common than the higher-performance and much more rare two-cam 74-inch JDH. Essentially, I could probably afford a JD but not a JDH, which is about four times more expensive.
It is easy to lament the fact that I never rode a horse or motorcycle with my grandpa, that I never saw his bike or had the opportunity to sit down and discuss over a beer the merits of different-length tire studs for ice racing a ’29 JD Harley on a frozen lake. But what I discovered in this hazy black-and-white photograph and the questions it raised is that I am my grandfather in so many ways. Here’s to the cowboy, the milkman, the rider, the adventurer, the man I hope to know better and better. From the saddle of a ’29 Harley. Maybe even on a frozen lake one day.
