The year was 1971, and I was a seven-year old kid with a Rupp mini-bike that my parents had given their engine-obsessed son to putt around my Grandparents’ dairy farm in upstate New York. Why their oldest child was so enthralled with engines was beyond my mom and dad’s comprehension, but from the first time I saw my cousin Jack on his new dark green Honda 750, I was in awe of him. Jack was a very special guy; a young, outgoing, successful engineer at IBM with an overabundance of talent.
You would probably think that he was the one responsible for the motorcycle obsession that burns in me to this day, but you’d be wrong.
My dad was a school teacher at the local high school. He was universally well liked and in the small village we lived in, it wasn’t uncommon for teachers and students to stop by my parents’ home just to say hello. One of those students was Debbie McPherson, a petite brunette with a bubbly personality, a brilliant smile and a spirit that kept her from ever seeing the roadblocks that trip up 99.9% of the population.
She stopped by one day on the way to her lifeguarding job to show off the scooter she had just purchased, and to be honest, I hardly remember the visit. It was only a few weeks later that the new scooter failed, and a major issue erupted because the dealer was unable to obtain the replacement parts necessary to repair the scooter. The problem was resolved when the dealer, who also sold motorcycles, took her defective scooter in on trade for a new Honda motorcycle.
While the scooter debut was forgettable, the day Debbie rode up to my parents’ home on a blue and white 1970 Honda CL175 with chrome fenders was the exact opposite, it was life-changing. Here was a girl, a high school girl, the same girl who sat on the floor in my parents’ living room laughing and joking with us, and she was riding a motorcycle. She was riding on the street, and she was shifting gears! Since my Rupp didn’t have a gear shifter to me it wasn’t a real motorcycle. I shyly asked if she thought I could ever learn to ride a motorcycle that had a shifter. She surprised me by saying that the shifting part was easy; it was the riding that was hard. Since I already had that part down, she thought I’d be able to ride and shift without any trouble!
It was a short time later that my Rupp mini-bike got sold and I too got my very own Honda with a shifter. Granted, my 1970 Z50 A had no clutch, but it was blue and white with chrome fenders too. Like Debbie said, I easily figured out the shifting part, and from there I moved up to many more motorcycles from that point. But not one of those would ever have happened were it not for that intrepid young woman. It’s not often we get the chance to thank someone who changed our lives, but in this case I do.
Thanks for 38 years of inspiration Debbie!