Glancing back

[motogrady]

The one that got me………..12, maybe 13 years old.
I had a friend who lived next door.
He had an older sister, she was maybe early 20s.

This was ‘66, maybe ‘67.

She had a boyfriend.
He was the spitting image of Elvis.
Greased hair in a duck whatever style,
sun glasses with that ‘50s era bad boy attitude.

He’d pick her up on a late Saturday afternoon.

On a gleaming all white Harley dresser.
All white and chrome.
Besides the chrome fishtails it was a pretty much stock full dresser.
Huge white leather seat, with the little tassels around the edges, he’d pull up and the whole neighborhood heard it.

That bike, well, it just demanded everyone’s attention.

While Pat, his girlfriend, my friends older sister, would emerge from the house that Harley would just sit there, idling, loud as f;:k, vibrating so much the front forks would shake. He’d glance at her, she’d throw a leg over and squeeze that thing right in.

With a slight sneer, or was it a smile?, he’d glance at us thru those sunglasses, clunk it into gear, and off theyd go.

To where, and to do what, you could only imagine.

[oldironnow]

 Brilliant!

[Fatfatboy]

That’s a good memory from the youth.

[hacksaw]

In the old days to me, later 1960’s , I never thought much about bikes. There was a kid that rode a mini bike several miles from another part of town the impressed me. Then a friend “borrowed” his older brothers bsa Victor to go trail riding but we couldn’t get it restarted and pushing it up hill for a couple miles sucked.

What got me for sure was , well people just tossed their left overs in the drive in parking lot. Crap everywhere seagulls feasting . There was 3 drive ins close and everyone just keep driving the route thru the 3.
So here comes a kid riding Thru on a blue HD FLH. I couldn’t tell you the year. Stock bike. No bags or fairings or any of that shit. But it was so damn cool. The gulls freaking and  taking flight . The exhaust kicking up whirlwinds of napkins and hot dog wrappers.
The bike was big , strong and powerful sounding.
Maybe I was 16. But I was hooked. Still am. Those were simple times. Nowadays plenty of late model Harley barges barely rate a second look.