Motorcycles and Stockings: Part 1

When my grandmother transitioned into a nursing home, we had to go through her house.  Among her possessions we found this postcard.  Age had literally eaten away at it, but it looked interesting, and I recognized the woman in it, so we packed it away among the things to go through later.  The picture intrigued my wife, so she did a simple Internet search, and found a paragraph on the woman in the June 1963 issue of “American Motorcyclist” magazine.

According to the article, she traversed the contiguous forty-eight states twice on a motorcycle, once in 1925, and again in 1962.  She never suffered significant mechanical difficulty during these trips, and averaged 350 miles per day.  This would suggest that she knew how to repair and maintain her bikes, and kept them in good condition.  It also suggests that she kept herself in good constitution, as riding a motorcycle can be more wearing that driving a car.  Imagine riding across our nation, in glaring sun, blustery winds, or driving rain!  Imagine how many hours each day she rode, to average so many miles!

On her first motorcycle ride, when she rode the motorcycle she called "The Snapper," work had not yet begun on the Empire State Building in New York.  The faces of American presidents had yet to be carved into Mount Rushmore.  Hoover Dam had not been built.  Nor had the famous Route 66 been established.  On her second trip, aboard "Cinderella," she would have noticed large-scale changes to our nation, such as the interstate highway system in its infancy, an utterly transformed Las Vegas, and the other examples mentioned.  Had she visited Cape Canaveral, as I did on my recent trip, she would have witnessed how the government began using it as a missile test range, and the birth of our nation's space program.  

When she set out for her first journey, Hawaii and Alaska had not been made states, so she visited every state in the union.  On her second ride, our nation had grown not just by two states, but from a population increase of fifty percent.  She would have noticed dramatic changes as towns and cities grew to accommodate such population growth.

Imagine what those trips must have been like for her.  They sound like incredible journeys. 

This post will conclude tomorrow. 

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Lucy Warren in American Motorcyclist