February 2011 Asylum Mobilitarium

February 2011 Asylum Mobilitarium

I saw a conversation on Facebook the other day talking about vests, jackets, patches and pins. Motorcycle regalia is not an exclusive Harley thing. Other motorcycle companies put out their own style of clothing and metal pins and cloth patches. But nobody does it better than Harley-Davidson.

Yes, I’ve heard over the years from biker types that they don’t need no badges; I mean pins and other means of telling other riders where you’ve been and what you’ve done. That’s their choice, but it’s those bits of history that you attach to your vest that is just another part of the Harley lifestyle. All I can say is if you are a new rider, buy a sewing matching that can sew through leather; it will save you lots of money in the long run!

This is another in a tongue and cheek series on getting into the Harley-Davidson lifestyle.

When you ride a Harley –Davidson motorcycle, don’t wear white tennis shoes. It’s common on other brands but it’s just safer to wear boots my friend. Vintage is always correct, new looks just that, new. On the other hand it would be wrong to buy a biker jacket on E-Bay with scrapes and tears that are not of your making. It’s just bad karma. Matter of fact, everything in the motorcycle world is about karma. And prayer.

As in running in 10k races, don’t wear a rally t-shirt at the rally you currently find yourself attending! If you wear a dealer  t-shirt from a place you haven’t been, announce loudly in any social situation that “This is a t-shirt of shame!” Then you’ll be okay.  A doo rag is to keep your hair and sweat out of your face. A really faded one shows that you had it in the nineties when the helmet law went away, and everyone threw their helmets away. Well, for a time anyway. Then common sense and seeing a bunch of wrecks along the way changed our minds.

Have you noticed that many riders, ones that are known to have ridden many years and have “seen the elephant,” usually  wear helmets? They have been there and done that. But go to Duke’s on many Sundays and you will she many newer riders braving the hot sun on their recently divorced, now I have a Harley and a hot chick, bald heads. Make your own informed choice.

A “Clubman” hat was popular in the forties and fifties. A pogo seat had a spring in a tube running vertical on the bikes frame that was your shock absorber in the days before rear tube shocks. A cheese grader was a bumper looking attachment that was popular in the chrome laden fifties.

Schott leather jackets are the coolest vintage motorcycle jackets, if you can find one. Brando wore one in the movie “The Wild One.” A kidney belt was the wide leather belt usually with metal studs that riders wore years ago. It supposedly kept your insides intact without the rear shocks that were common on early bikes.

The commonly referred to  1%, outlaw, or three patch clubs are different than a HOG group. HOG has been around since 1983, and is the largest motorcycle organization in the world. HOG is called a “social riding organization.” That’s the difference.So there you go.  A clubhouse is what we don’t have.  The term “church” is used by some mc clubs to describe their club’s meetings.  Getting whacked is what we don’t do either.

A basket case is a project motorcycle in many parts, waiting to be put back together by some stalwart motorcycle person. A bike in a barn is sometimes a basket case, sometimes not. Many times these bikes are up in the rafters of a barn. It seems that farmers back in the day, when their sons or daughters started terrorizing the countryside on their bikes, had the bikes hoisted up high so the kids could not get to them. Then they were forgotten many times. Thus, “Barn Find!”

Willie Hank

Panther Creek historian

Youths Gone Astray since 1955

February 2011 Dallas Police Sheild, Back in the Day

February 2011 Shield Back in the Day

Recently on the retiree Yahoo group site, there has been a bunch of talk about characters that were a daily part of the lives of Dallas police in the sixties and beyond.

One guy was well known to many. If you called him Mr. Cunningham, you would do okay. But if you were say a rookie, and made the mistake of calling him “Alley Oop” or just “Oop,” well watch out! It seems that he was a prize fighter back in his salad days, and was still in good shape when I remember him as late as 2001 or so. The really strange thing was that he actually drank gasoline. Sometimes you might see him trying to pour that last drop of gas from a closed stations gas hose. He used a milk container to collect the gas.

But again, if you made the mistake of not calling him Mr. Cunningham, you might have a fight on your hands. He mostly hung around Central division.

Sadly, I heard that this Central hall of famer died a few years ago. I would be interested in hearing what he died of. Obviously his diet of petroleum didn’t do him in.

Other divisions had their own type of strange folks, but Central claimed “Oop” as ours! 

Police work is all about good guys, bad guys, and “exceptional” people as they were once called. Being “exceptional” was a code for just about any weird person an officer would run into out on the streets.  I wonder if the DPD still uses that term?

We of course used to encounter folks acting crazy as DPD officers do today. That’s police work. I would tend to ask the guy, “Are you just crazy or just drunk?” Nine times out of ten they would say crazy. Most were a little of both.

There was a writer for the Dallas Morning News in the 1940’s named Ken Hand. His column was called “Last Night on the Police Beat.”

I’ve read some of his work and it’s always interesting and sometimes amusing. These were not the stories of a serious nature for the most part, but the day to day activities that showed being a police officer was one of the most interesting professions that one could and can do.

I’d like to know where Mr. Hand got his stories. Did he hang around 106 like another newspaperman I remember from the late 1970’s? This particular guy that I remember wore a suit, and always had on the Stetson style western hat that the detectives wore in those days. As a young rookie, I thought he was a police officer. He seemed to be trusted by the plain clothes officers at 106, since if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be hanging around for long.

We all should remember Chief Carl Hansson. He was the longest serving police chief in Dallas. He served from the 1940’s until Chief Curry in the early sixties. He also created our badge numbering system that we have today. I’m not sure this is correct, but I read on a retirees post that Chief Hansson didn’t get along with legendary Homicide Captain Will Fritz. It might have had to with the status and popularity of Captain Fritz. I’d like to know from someone out there if this was true.

I found a story from the DMN from 1941 when Chief Hansson was a sergeant. A woman that lived at 3600 San Jacinto called the police late one night because she thought a burglar was in her house. Officers E.D. Jordan and J.C.Sanders arrived to investigate. Sergeant Hansson also showed up and with guns drawn the three intrepid men searched the house. They burst into the room that all the banging was coming from and found the family cat with a sardine can which the animal couldn’t extricate himself or herself from. Sergeant Hansson was taken to the Emergency Hospital with some evil looking scratches from the attacking cat. The officers were apparently amused and unhurt. Okay, what’s wrong with this picture?

The cat was taken to the fire station at Ross and Leonard where tin snips were used to free the cat from the can. Okay you can breathe now.

One night in January 1941 Officer A.N. Boggs was basically making a nuisance of himself by continually asking the dispatcher to “Go ahead.” The dispatcher was getting more and more disgusted with the officer which as we all know is not a good thing, especially when you want to check out to eat. Finally, for the sixteenth time, the dispatcher asked Boggs “What do you want?” Boggs answered that he thought that the dispatcher was calling him! Later it was heard “Houston squad 71 go ahead.” They were hearing the Houston police department all along. Funny, I remember hearing Houston from time to time myself on the DPD police radio.

As we’ve seen in this column before, the DPD lost a lot of officers just before and during WWII. The motorcycle unit was done away with only a few bikes left still in service for escorts, funerals and the like. Lt. A.N. Vittrup had to explain once again to patrol officers that they could not wear bow ties in place of the regular straight ties that officers wore. He said “I’ve seen some bow ties lately. Let me caution you that they are not regulation. Bow ties have been abandoned except for motorcycle men. And motorcycles have been abandoned.”

I know the way motor jocks think, and I’ll bet that the ex jockeys in the detail room did not want to give up their bow ties even if they now found themselves in Patrol. 

Ken Hand was a sort of self styled comedian. Or he thought he was! On January 1^st 1941 he gave out his New Years greetings;

“A Happy Happy Arbor Day to the firm of Welch, Walsh, Rader, Fritz & Company.” Of course he was speaking of Chief J.M.Welch, Assistant Chief Douglas Walsh, and Inspectors Charles Rader and Will Fritz.

To the readers of this column-all three-a glorious Fourth of July. To the City Editor, a happy Whitsuntide. To Simon Legree, the night City Editor, a sprig of parsnips.

As we know, even kind of funny newspaper writers are a thing of the past.

W.H.Croom, II #3973

Dallas Police Retired

    

Homer Lee Croom

It's soon going to be 66 years since Dad's brother was killed by a Japanese sniper in the Philippines. I asked Dad about that yesterday. Through the fog of Dad's disease, he remembered his brother for a moment, and then went on to something else. That disease Dad has robs one of you own history. It's sad. Senility is what they used to call it I guess. Everything is changing. I'd love to stop it but it's just the way life is...,

Dick Winters

So sad to hear that Lt Dick Winters, the real life hero in the mini series " Band of Brothers," has died.

Leaping Harley

Happy New Year

About to head out on Panther Creeks HOG annual Frosty Hog. 2010 was a good year. Some challenges but thats what lifes all about. Here is to a great 2011!