Southern Shorts - My Entire History with Bikes
Troyce Walls | Published on 4/1/2020
Southern Shorts, are a series of stories written by longtime member, Troyce Walls. Written decades ago about his life with motorcycles beginning with mopeds. These are familiar tales most members can relate to and thankfully Troyce took time many years ago to write these unpublished shorts.
After decades of being sequestered on a dusty floppy disk, scroll through any title from the Author Troyce Walls and read any or all of this ongoing 15-part series of stories from the past.
Born on a Mountain Top in Tennessee (well, north Alabama) – anybody old enough here to remember the D. Crockett song?
Wanted a horse or pony so bad I actually prayed about it until one day, about age 11. That fateful day, my buddy across the fields got a brand spankin’ new used Allstate moped. He let me ride it. Everything changed. What one might label a paradigm shift.
I spent the next month’s devising ways to attach any of the various old B&S and whatever other motors I could find to my bicycle, with what could generously be called only modest results. As part of the multi-pronged attack, I also began to casually leave Honda model brochures and Sears Catalogs around in places like Dad’s chair, opened to the beginner bikes.
Earnest determination has its rewards, and finally I scored my first real motorized two-wheeler, a completely worn-out and decrepit Cushman Eagle. Then came the new Allstate moped for Christmas that year, and now, literally several hundreds of motorcycles owned, and thousands ridden, here I find myself still lovin’ ‘em.
I always told my bikeless office mates when I’d arrive mornings at work, “You just do not know what you are missing.”
~T