Back when M*A*S*H was still on the air and my father was still alive, there was one show where Hawkeye spent the entire episode trying to get a telephone call through to his father in Crabapple Cove, Maine. If I remember correctly, the old man was about to undergo major surgery, and Hawkeye (a surgeon who knew just how badly surgeries could go wrong) was terrified that his father might not survive. He finally gets through to Crabapple Cove and talks to his father a bit, but when it’s time to hang up, Hawkeye will not let his father go until he can say ‘Dad, I love you.’
My relationship with my father had been contentious most of my life, and I couldn’t tell you the last time a word of endearment had passed between us, but in sobriety I was trying my best to make amends, and Hawkeye’s words inspired me. We didn’t talk often (the show went off the air in 1983, when long-distance telephone calls still cost a lot of money) but whenever we did, I would not get off the ’phone until I said the words ‘Dad, I love you.’
At first, he was embarrassed, and he’d mumble ‘Uh… God loves you,’ but I persisted.
After a while, he could say ‘We love you,’ but I didn’t quit.
Finally came the day he was able to say it back to me: ‘I love you.’
I’m crying as I write this. Yeah, I’m a big softy who cries at movies and Kodak commercials — so, sue me! 😆 — but I’m crying just thinking about how much our relationship was changed by those three little words. He became my Dad again — a title I hadn’t accorded him in over a decade — and we grew closer and closer.
My father died in February of 1997 — the cigarettes he’d smoked his entire adult life finally caught up with him, and robbed us of precious years — but we had nineteen years more than we would have had, if not for AA’s Ninth Step and a sitcom set in a war zone.
My last words to him were ‘Dad, I love you.’ I’ll let you guess what his last words to me were. 😎
So yes, say it now, say it often, say it to those who matter most in your life, and never quit saying it.
I love you.
My father served as a navigator in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Here he is on a military-issue Cushman scooter at an airfield in Lincoln, Nebraska.Eight years later he had married my mother, and they began doing their bit to increase the postwar Baby Boom. The infant in arms is my older brother, Lee.Forty years later, 1 May 1993, I got to take my father and younger brother to an antique motorcycle show in Hanford, California, the day of my younger sister’s wedding. He’s standing beside an Indian like the one he rode after the war. He told us he won the money for the Indian playing poker. and I don’t doubt that. Author Nelson Algren, in his 1956 novel, A Walk on the Wild Side, wrote ‘Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are greater than your own.’ Dunno about the rest 🤷♀️ but my father’s nickname was ‘Doc’, and he had one of the greatest poker faces you could ever imagine!😎Here’s my father seated on a Cushman scooter like the one he rode in the service. He stopped riding before us kids came along, but he never got over his love for motorcycles. It was something we shared during those happy years together.There’s my Dad on his Cushman, and me on my shovelhead fifty years later, at Shiprock, New Mexico. I didn’t see it at the time, but a few years after the Shiprock photo was taken I realized how alike we sat our mounts. He’s been gone for twenty-six years, and I miss him.
I’ve been doing a little research on songwriter Bob Dylan. Like most riders, I already knew about his mysterious wreck near Woodstock, New York, in 1966, where he dumped his Triumph, injured himself to an unknown degree, and went into seclusion for a while.
However, in reading through books about Dylan, interviews with people who knew him prior to his arrival in Greenwich Village, and his own Chronicles: Volume One (2004) I turned up a few references to Harleys, time spent running with the biker boys in his hometown, even being a bit of a “rough, tough” character. I don’t know how true any of that is, but he apparently did spend some time around riders, as seen in the photos below.
1956, with a friend’s Harley-Davidson FL:
1966, on the Triumph he later wrecked:
I always cringe at this one, because for some reason he’s dangling his feet – not a smart thing to do and goofy-lookin’ to boot!
The passenger below is identified as John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful, who went on to have a solo career as a folkie in the early ’70s. He was one of five acts on the bill at the very first real concert I ever attended*, at Randall’s Island, New York City, on July 17th, 1970. The others were Jethro Tull, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad and some guy named Jimi…. Jimi Henderson, or Hendricks, or some such. I wonder whatever became of that fellow? 🤷🏻♀️
I’m not sure of the year – probably mid-’60s – but Dylan appears to be riding a Yamaha….
….and in 2004, back on a Harley-Davidson!
One more, of the man on an entirely different kind of bike….
.…but wearing a motorcycle club jacket. Go figure!
UPDATE: 28 SEPTEMBER 2023
When I first published this article a little over ten years ago, I included the photo seen below. The image appeared in a book about Harleys, and although the rider was unnamed, the text placed the rider in the vicinity of Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota. Between that and the rider’s resemblance to a young Bob Dylan (and some wishful thinking and exuberance on my part) I initially felt safe in making the leap. However, my journalistic integrity niggled at me — I couldn’t swear that the knucklehead rider was, in fact, Bob Dylan — so I removed the photo.
Later, a post at Revzilla confirmed my original suspicion, so I am reposting the knucklehead photo.
Bob Dylan as a teenager, aboard a Harley-Davidson knucklehead bobbed in the post-war fashion, but still popular in the mid-’50s when this photo was taken.
….but wait! There’s more!
It has since come to light that Bob’s father, Abram Zimmerman, was also a rider. The photo below shows a young Mr. Zimmerman in 1938, aboard a Harley-Davidson flathead. The ‘F.C.’ carved on the battery box is for the Flying Cuyunas Motorcycle Club, founded by Duluth-based miners from the now-inactive Cuyuna Range. The pennant on the handlebars is apparently from the Beaver Bay MC, a friendly club the FCMC shared rides with.
Like father, like son? The resemblance is uncanny. Reports suggest that, while Mr. Zimmerman gave up riding motorcycles prior to beginning his family, he purchased a Harley-Davidson 45″ WL for Bob when Bob was a teenager. Apparently, Bob traded up at some point to the larger, faster knucklehead he’s pictured on.
Funny thing but, like Bob’s father, Abram, my father rode motorcycles prior to beginning his family. Unfortunately, and unlike Abram, my father was not about to buy his kids motorcycles. He never even told us that heonce rode, despite the fact that my brothers and I all had two-wheeled fever to some extent. Hell, we weren’t even allowed to have mopeds or minibikes!. 🙄
It wasn’t until I became an adult and had owned my first Harley for several years that I learned about my father’s history with motorcycles: that he won the money for his Indian Chief in a poker game 😎, that he rode after the war 🤠, that he had a get-off serious enough to convince him motorcycles were not the best choice for a family man 😮, and that — most importantly — he never got over his love of the damn things!🤷🏻♀️He never told us about his motorcycling exploits when we were kids because he didn’t want to risk encouraging us to do something he knew to be dangerous 🤔, but once I had my own bike it was something we could share; something we bonded over in the final years of his life. In fact, I am always patient with the oldtimers who approach me to say, ‘I used to have one of those….’ in part because my father was one of those guys! 😁The only pic I have of my father on a ‘motorcycle’ back in the day: an Army Air Forces Cushman scooter at an airfield in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1945.My father at the Hanford, California, vintage motorcycle show on May 1st, 1993, sitting on a Cushman like the one he rode during the war.My father at the 1993 Hanford Cycle Show & Swap with an Indian Chief like the one he rode after the war.Dad in 1945 at Lincoln, Nebraska, and your humble narrator in 1994 at Shiprock, New Mexico. I didn’t realize how alike my father and I sat our machines until years after the Shiprock photo was taken. The photos are now framed together in my office, and again in my living room. 😎
* The New York Pop Festival was actually an ambitious effort to recreate the three days of Woodstock (held the previous August) within the city limits. It turned out to be overly ambitious, but the first night — the one I attended — was freakin’ awesome!!! 🤘🏽 Look at that line-up!
I have written an essay about the New York Pop Festival — the production history, my experiences and the impact it had on my life — and will use that to create a separate post about the concert ASAP. For now, though, just look at that price: $8.50 to see five of the biggest names in rock music! 😮
The Shovel Shop 
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