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“Papa Jim” Brewer and the Old Days of the MC’s — 10 Comments

  1. Brilliant article, read it all in one go. All those British bikes, brought back a lot of memories for me, when I was younger and there was nothing else that mattered but bikes and your mates.

  2. “Papa Jim” Brewer was most likely a friend of the BFMC, not a member.

    His stores were actually published in a couple of “Moto Monterey” newsletters as that’s where I originally obtained them. Used OCR to scan both stories into text files. I first posted them to the rec.motorcycle.harley newgroup, and they then started circulating all over the internet.

    I was contacted by the BFMC a whole bunch of years ago, and asked to include a disclaimer as they didn’t have any records of “Papa Jim” Brewer as a member.

    Those stories were eventually published in Chapter 12 of “The Original Wild Ones” softbound book.

    • Thanks for that, as mentioned I tried to get in touch with “Moto Monterey” but couldn’t find any current contact info. I’ll add this to the article.

  3. the reference to the B-25 aircraft sounds as though it has no basis. That’s unfortunate, as it may be true

    The story I have is a drunk & non member named Walt Porter named the club in 1946, so where did this aircraft story stem from

  4. Hi, this is Del Kuhn’s wife, Vicky. Del Kuhn, who is almost 87, ( I’m adding: plus a Natl. AMA inducee, won the Bear Run in 52 & the only Greenhorn 3 time winner) saying that he ‘knows a little about racing.’

    He wants to share his views on this article contructively. He was a Hill Topper from Long Beach, Ca.in the 1940s & 50s & knew many of guys listed. He’s still sharp and while reading this article, says, though you have the gist of the Bear Run itself, there are a lot of errors in how it went down, guys were NOT working on their m/c on blankets or anything, they WERE ready! Plus some the ID photo captions are also incorrect. Example: A photo that looks like the guys are running to their mc is NOT the Bear Run but a field meet, guys competing in 1 of the contests they had. We have a LOT of photos and even film/video of similar events. Another of your photos says ‘Aub LeBard'(Del’s idol) with the trophy at Catalina in 1951 but it’s really Feets Minert. He’s glad that people are interested in the ‘old days of mc racing’ and said there’s not too many of ‘us old riders around.’ He said the article isn’t bad considering that the writer probably got it second hand but glad that there’s effort & interest.

    We were just looking for another site when we came across yours. Long live m/c riders. May you all age like a vintage m/c and keep your ‘engines’ running smooth.

    • Vicky, much thanks for the response: I should reiterate that I didn’t write the original articles, they were written for / published in a newsletter called “Moto Monterey” back in 1991: likewise, the photos were contributed by Wingnuts MC. Both may well contain inaccuracies, but I don’t have the knowledge or facilities to correct them myself and rely on folks like you and Del to set the record straight. I will edit the post to include your comments, and if you would like to contribute anything further to the blog I’m sure our readers would be very appreciative. Please feel free to contact me through email at charvin23@gmail.com 🙂

  5. “Papa Jim” James Harry Brewer was my father. He passed away in 2008. We grew up hearing the motorcycle stories! He wrote this story later in his life. 🙂 I have never heard him refer to himself as “papa Jim” other than in this instance. He was known fondly as Jumpin’ Jim. Feel free to email me if you desire any further information.

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