BEST OF JODY’S BOX: SOME ARE BORN TO FAME AND SOME HAVE IT THRUST UPON THEM. I WAS THUS THRUST
My first stroke of genius, which is a fancy way of saying I had nothing to do with it, came from an accident of birth. I was born at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco at just the right time to be old enough to race motorcycles when the sport came to America in 1968. Any sooner and I’d have been a dirt track racer and any later and I’d been part of the great unwased masses who discovered the sport through the movie “On Any Sunday.”
My second stroke of genius was to get fast enough, at the right place, and right time to make the cover of Cycle News in 1974. There was no internet back then, there were barely any jungle drums to communicate who was who in the sport, but there was the weekly issue of Cycle News. It sat on the counter of every motorcycle shop in America and sold for $0.50. Being on the cover was a big deal, it sprung me from my obscure Texas racing roots to media darling overnight (of course a week later I was under the ejection end of 10,000 parakeets).
My education was important to my parents—and there was no way that I could disrespect the faith they had in me by dropping out of the University of Texas or later North Texas State University to chase around the country in a van with my bikes in the back. So, I spent nine years in college pursuing a Bachelors degree, Master’s degree and Ph.D in gerontology. I scheduled all of my classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, even though it meant signing up for some three-hour night classes in order to free me up to drive around the country in a van with my bikes in the back. I’ve used the education many more times than where the best place to start on the gate at Lake Whitney was.
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