The Mouse - a story of my first Harley-Davidson

This is the story of my first Harley-Davidson and how it remains in the family.

Shortly after Buffalo and I bought our first house in Anaheim, California, Buffalo found some great deals on three motorcycles, two HD sporties and one Triumph. When he rode home the first Sportster, a '71 kickstarter, that we bought for $1500, he laid it on the front lawn of our home. As he walked up the steps of our front porch, heading in the house, he said over his should, "If you can pick it up, you can ride it." Five minutes later, Buffalo walked out of the house, mouth hanging open, then forming into a smile as I sat there proudly on that Sporty, waiting to take it for my first ride. He taught me how to kick start her and took me up to the corner, where I promptly rode into the curb across the street while trying to turn.

Although I had ridden dirt bikes for years as a teenager, I was rusty and had no experience since the age of about 14. So while I muddled my way through my first six months of riding that bike, I eventually took the MSF rider course and...as in true biker fashion...managed to finally actually get a motorcycle endorsement about seven years later!! (I kept getting permits and letting them expired before taking the test.)

The Sportster earned the name of the "Mouse" (anybody who has ridden awhile knows that a motorcycle must "earn" it's name - it cannot be picked) because she started out as an ugly metal flake brown with glued on Harley emblems. She was ugly in the eyes of others to begin with. After several years of riding, we picked up enough parts to build a complete set of hard stock saddlebags for her. Of course, one was orange and one was primer gray and between the two sets we got one complete set. But Sportster saddlebags being what they are, the hardware never worked quite right, so we turned to God's adhesive, duct tape, to keep them shut. I managed to locate brown duct tape to match the ugly paint job. And then, one day, we came to the realization that even though she was ugly, she was just too small to be a rat...so she must be a Mouse. And so, she became the Mouse and the name stuck.

Buffalo eventually gave her some lipstick and rouge, made her all pretty, but she was still a Sportster and he tired of the "Sportster drill." (Go for a ride, Sportster breaks down, Buffalo leaves Bobbi with the Sportster on the side of the road, goes home, gets the truck and bike ramps, comes back and Buffalo and Bobbi load of the Sportster and bring her home for some TLC.) He bought me a Superglide, a brand new 2000, and we decided to part with the Mouse.

Now, I didn't mention this, but Buffalo's daughter, Shani, aka "The Kid", was about 17 when we brought the Mouse home. She wanted to ride it so very badly. We sold the second Sporty to Buffalo's brother, Joe Oil, and we let the Kid ride the Triumph once or twice before that typical sticky Triumph clutch grabbed and threw her and that British iron to the ground. We eventually sold the Triumph, the Kid went on in life. So when she found out we were selling the Mouse, well, she just had to have that bike. She's had it for ten years now. And I'm very proud of her. She's dropped it and kept on riding, she deals with the constant mechanical challenges and always finds a way to get them addressed, working around the responsibilities of raising four kids. Some day, she will probably separate from the Mouse, but for now, for twenty some years now, the Mouse has been in the family. I loved that bike. I wouldn't trade it for my Softtail Deluxe I have now, but I wouldn't trade the experiences and the rides on the Mouse for anything in the world.