Motorcycle Views Newsletter for 10/02/2016 By Walter F. Kern Motorcycle Views Newsletter Vol. 10, No. 16, October 2, 2016 Articles of Interest on Motorcycle Views: 1. Recent Additions to the Motorcycle Views Website:
2. My Trip to Normal—a Reunion and a Memoir: I just returned from a nine-day car trip to my hometown, Normal, Illinois. The official reason for going was to attend the 60th reunion of the Normal Community High School Class of 1956, my graduating class. Since I now live in New Jersey, it isn't often that I can make the 900-mile trek to Normal. I used to go once a year and took my wife and kids there for Thanksgiving or Christmas since all the grandparents still lived either in Normal or Bloomington (twin cities). My wife and I rode our motorcycles there and back twice when we were a lot younger. The rest of the trips were by car. Other reasons I wanted to go this time were to take pictures of the town and its attractions, visit my brother, Ron, who is ten years younger than me and my sister-in-law, Carol (Jane's sister). Ron is doing well after a series of medical problems. Carol had just been through a heart-related procedure and was now at home living by herself. She was recovering remarkably well. I had already emailed the first draft of my new memoir to Carol. She was not yet well enough to read it. Ron knew about the memoir but did not have a draft copy. I brought a hard-copy version and delivered it to him personally. I told Ron that he had been mentioned multiple times in the memoir and I wanted him to verify my remembrances of him. I await his remarks. Carol took the time to read the entire manuscript the next day and gave me her comments via email. Carol wrote, "You did a great job. Lots of hard work to track all that down. Must admit I cried a bit." I also wanted to visit with a classmate I featured in the memoir. I dated her during the summer after I graduated and before I went off to college. It hadn't worked out for us, but I did want her to read what I said about her in the memoir. We hadn't seen each other for 40 years. She was one of those girls who looks the same with the passage of time. She was there with her daughter. She asked me to email the text I had written about her. I spent maybe five minutes talking to her and then she was gone. I sent the text, and she requested a few changes and possible additions. Most of the people I talk about in the memoir are now deceased. I wanted to make sure that I contacted those still living and most of those lived in Bloomington-Normal or were at the reunion. My small town of Normal, Illinois had changed much over the last 60 years. The local university, Illinois State University (ISU), had spread out and up with new classrooms and dormitories. Even my grade school, Normal Central School, had been completely obliterated by new tall buildings built by ISU. I couldn't even find a marker that identified the school I attended for eight years. It was hard to navigate the town since the railroad tracks were blocked off in several places to complete track changes to allow new high-speed trains to use them. My old house was still there. I talk about it extensively in the memoir. It was built in the late 1890s and looked the same on the outside. When my dad had died in 1992, the house was purchased and rehabbed inside. (I once got a tour from the owner who happened to be a neighborhood kid I used to know.) I found the car trip exhausting. I am having some trouble with an eye disorder, and I had to curtail taking my usual regimen of eye drops to maximize my ability to traverse the high-speed obstacle course of traffic that confronted me, especially on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. One of my stops on the Pennsylvania Turnpike was at Somerset. Only 20 miles away was the Flight 93 Memorial where the fourth plane crashed on September 11, 2001. I made a run over there arriving just after nine a.m. If you ever get a chance to see this memorial, take it. I have attached a few pictures of my trip. Much more about Bloomington-Normal and the secrets that were uncovered there by me may be read in my upcoming memoir, soon to be available on Amazon.
3. 101-Year-Old Biker and Veteran Gets His Last Ride: A long-time Harley rider and veteran had finally stopped riding but he requested that he be able to take one last ride on a motorcycle. Read the story and watch the video. 4. Latest Motorcycle Views Poll:
Here's Poll No. 44 (It may take a few seconds to load, so please be patient.): How old were you when you first got a license to ride a motorcycle? The latest Motorcycle Views Poll also appears on the front page of the Motorcycle Views website. There are now 44 Motorcycle Views Polls. Maybe you missed a few. Take a look at the following polls and please contribute if you haven't done so before: 5. Five Motorcycle Terms: I am featuring five (5) of my Motorcycle Terms in each issue of the newsletter.
6. Motorcycle Picture of the Month for October 2016: Motorcycle Picture of the
Month - October 2016 - 2014 Kawasaki Vulcan 1700 Vaquero SE: 7. Latest Motorcycle Pictures:
See the latest received pictures by category. (Send me a picture and description of your bike.) 8. My Memoir - Update: I wanted you to know that I'm writing a memoir. I started thinking about this more than a year ago and have been writing almost fulltime on it for all of 2016. It covers much of my life and reveals some secrets that almost no one knows about me. In fact, many I didn't even know myself until recently. You'll also find out how fate changed my course in life many times as I struggled to find out who I was, what I wanted to do, who I would love, how I came to become both a motorcyclist and a moto-journalist, and how I came to become an author in my seventies. It's a story that begins in the Midwest and spans more than a hundred years. It's a true story and it's almost finished. I currently have seven people reading it. So far the reviews have been very favorable. I should have the memoir available on Amazon by the end of the year. The Audible audiobook version will take longer. I'll have regular updates here in the newsletter. 9. My Four Motorcycle Books: I hope you will take a look at my four motorcycle books, available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.com. These books make great, inexpensive gifts. In fact, you can purchase all four for less than $30 total. I have reduced the price of my four Kindle editions to $0.0 (FREE) IF you also first purchase the corresponding paperback edition. That way you can always have the book with you if you have a tablet or smartphone with you. None of the paperbacks has color pictures in them owing to the high price of producing a book with color. However, every Kindle edition has color pictures, so the Getting Started Riding a Motorcycle and Motorcycle Haiku Poetry Kindle books are in full color.
10. Here are some very popular articles on the Motorcycle Views Site. Take a look:
11. Newsletter is Now Monthly: When I started issuing newsletters at About.com in 1999, they were weekly. When my four forums got very popular, I added a second weekly forum-only newsletter. That meant I was doing two newsletters each week. When I started Motorcycle Views, I issued one weekly newsletter. That continued for a while until I decided to stop sending the newsletter. Some more time passed and I restarted the newsletter every two weeks. Then I started writing motorcycle books. So far, I've finished four books, each with a Kindle edition and a paperback edition. I even did two of the books in Audible audiobook editions. I'm currently working on two more books, one a memoir. I'm finding it more and more difficult to continue delivering a newsletter every two weeks. It just takes up too much time. So, I will be sending out the Motorcycle Views Newsletter once a month on the first Sunday of the month. Of course, you can always visit my site any time to check out what's going on. 12. Newsletter Archive: I now have a Motorcycle Views Newsletter Archive to store all my newsletters. The archive gives the year, month, day, and subject for each newsletter. Each newsletter contains many links to the Motorcycle Views website. A link to the archive will also be included on the Home page of the site and on the page where users can join the newsletter list. Visit the Motorcycle Views Newsletter Archive 13. The Motorcycle Views Website is also on your Smartphone or Tablet: Are you relying more and more on your cellphone or tablet and less and less on your PC or MAC? Remember that all that great motorcycling information on Motorcycle Views is as near as your cellphone. It's also in a new format designed to fit your portable screen. Check us out anywhere you need motorcycle information. 14. Social Media: See me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and YouTube. 15. 2016-2017 Polar Bear Grand Tour Schedule Now Available: The 2016-2017 Polar Bear Grand Tour schedule is now available on the Polar Bear Website. Click Here 16. Polar Bear Grand Tour Best Pictures and Videos for the 2015-2016 Season:
See the Best Pictures and Videos of the 2015-2016 Polar Bear Grand Tour season. The Polar Bears consist of 550 riders from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Delaware, who ride each Sunday to a different prescribed destination where they sign-in and receive points. There is, usually, a restaurant at or near the destination. It gets cold, windy, and snowy on these rides. I've been a Polar Bear member for nearly 25 years, and I built and continue to maintain their website. The picture to the right was taken at the Cape May, NJ VFW. 17. Help Grow Motorcycle Views: The Motorcycle Views Website is here for you. We encourage you to submit a story, picture, poem, salvage yard recommendation, user review of your own bike, tattoo, YouTube video you made of your bike, motorcycle tip, etc. These will be evaluated for inclusion into one of our major features. Send us a submission today and share part of your motorcycling experience with our many readers. Read how to make a submission.
For New Subscribers: Expect newsletters on the first Sunday of each month. Please understand that the Motorcycle Views Newsletter is NOT the Motorcycle Views website. The newsletter provides a few links to content on the Motorcycle Views website. Once you click a link in the newsletter, you'll be getting access to content on the Motorcycle Views site. If you'd like to view any of our past newsletters, just go to the newsletter archives page. Thanks for signing up for the Motorcycle Views Newsletter. Using this Newsletter, I'll keep you up-to-date with what's going on in the Motorcycle Views Blog, the Motorcycle Views Website, and the Motorcycle Views Forum. Not sure what a blog is? It's like a daily readout of what I'm thinking about, similar to a diary at times. Most often, I'm using mine right now to tell my visitors what has been added to the Motorcycle Views site. See me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and YouTube. The Motorcycle Views Website is also on your Smartphone or Tablet: Are you relying more and more on your cellphone or tablet and less and less on your PC or MAC? Remember that all that great motorcycling information on Motorcycle Views is as near as your cellphone. It's also in a new format designed to fit your portable screen. Check us out anywhere you need motorcycle information. END OF NEWSLETTER All Previous Newsletters:
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© 2016 Walter F. Kern. All rights reserved.
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