August 23, 2021 - In 1970, I moved from Amarillo, Texas to Lumberton, Texas to become Pastor of the Fletcher Emanuel Baptist Church of Lumberton. Lumberton was the fastest growing town in Texas back then and appeared to have the largest number of motorcycles in the State. The bikes were just everywhere. One afternoon I heard a loud bike roar up to the Parsonage. It was Plumber/Church member Archie Hood on his Harley Sportster… the leader of the local bike pack. When I told him I couldn’t ride a motorcycle, he replied: “If you can ride a bicycle, you can ride a motorcycle.”
Within a few weeks, I was riding a little 250 Suzuki with our biker church members. Archie was on his a Harley, Gordon Reynolds on his Triumph, and Bobbie Templeton on his Honda dirt bike. When I later bought a 900 Kawasaki, I felt more comfortable riding with guys with the big bikes.
I asked Archie one day if he’d ever been hurt on a bike and when he said he hadn’t, his wife Janet shouted out, “Preacher, Archie has broken every bone in his body riding those bikes.”
My last bike was a 1979 XS Yamaha 1100 and when the biking fad faded away, I traded it off for photography equipment. It was a real fun thing riding the bikes during those years… especially with our group of Christian brothers. Archie Hood… Gordon Reynolds… Bobby Templeton… Fred Seaman… they were friends I’ll never forget. If you want to really learn what your friends are like, either go fishing with them…
… or ride motorcycles with them.
