By Emily Younker
Globe Staff Writer
GIRARD, Kan. —
Shirley Swart is clearly a grandmotherly figure. Pictures of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren are on display throughout her house, and she enjoys making sure that everyone -- even a stranger who came to her house to profile her -- is well-fed.
But you would notice that the house is littered with “Wing World” magazines, and in the garage you’d find a shiny, metallic silver Stallion -- not-so-subtle hints of Swart’s passion for motorcycles.
“I’ve been trying to think when I first got on a motorcycle,” said Swart, 72, on a hot, sunny July day at her home, “and I cannot remember.”
Lifelong love
Swart’s love affair with motorcycles began decades ago, when she talked her first husband, Bill, into buying a Honda 500 in the early 1980s. The pair upgraded to a Honda 1200 just a few years later and subsequently joined the Joplin chapter of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association, a social organization for motorcycle owners and riders.
By 1993, Swart said, they had bought a Honda 1500.
“I wanted it,” she said. “I told Bill, ‘I want that motorcycle. It’s got every bell, whistle and everything on it.’ It was a teal color, a beautiful bike.”
And that was when Swart began traveling the country on her motorcycle, riding behind her husband as they saw the sights and sounds of America.
“The first three years we had the ’93 Honda, we went 30,000 miles,” she said. “We seen a lot of the country.”
Learning to drive
After her husband died in 1997, Swart found herself suddenly a motorcycle driver by default. She took a beginner’s course that taught students how to properly drive motorcycles.
But she had been a rider for too long, and old habits were hard to break. She found that when she stopped, she would automatically pull her knees in, as she had done for years as a rider.
“And I’d fall over (on the motorcycle),” she said. “Damn thing just would not stay up.”
During one such incident, she injured her thumb and underwent surgery to heal it. And she went back to being a rider, traveling around the country for a while with her youngest son.
In 2004, she met her second husband, Don Stewart. After a big wedding in the garage of their rural Girard farmhouse -- where they stored their motorcycles -- the couple set their eyes on the Stallion, a three-wheeled motorcycle that had just been launched. They ordered one, and it took almost nine months to get delivered.
Once they had their new motorcycle, they started planning for more trips. Last September, they traveled around the Northwest and then “zigzagged” around the country to complete two of Swart’s goals -- to visit Laughlin, Nev., and to ride a zipline, she said.
It was a mission partially accomplished, she said. She visited the Nevada town and also found a zipline, but because the zipline could only be reached by walking to it, she had to forego it. Riding a zipline is still on her list of things to do.
“I’m gonna ride a zipline,” she said determinedly. “A big one.”
Family affair
Swart now has a 2008 Stallion, made by Thoroughbred Motorsports, in silver. These days, she doesn’t ride it very much because of the heat, which aggravates her health. If she needs to go somewhere during the day, she takes her car; otherwise, she prefers to ride her Stallion in the evenings once the temperature has cooled off.
Swart -- affectionately called “Granny” by her family, which includes three sons, 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren -- is not alone in her love of motorcycles. Several of her children and grandchildren have bikes, and she proudly maintains that they all are “legal” with the proper licenses, driving safely and defensively.
She is also not the only local to have traveled extensively via motorcycle. Dale Lambeth, a fellow member of the Road Riders Association, said he started riding in 2002 after a friend showed up in his auto repair shop with a motorcycle.
“From that point on, I bought a motorcycle and just rode off into the sunset,” he said.
Since then, Lambeth has put 119,000 miles on his Honda Gold Wing, traveling as far away as both American coasts and to Canada. Although he has a car, he said he would never consider taking a vacation in it.
“It’s totally different when you’re riding a motorcycle through the desert or Yellowstone,” he said. “You just see so much more. You’re riding in a cage when you’re in a car.”
Lambeth, of Joplin, also prefers his motorcycle to his car when he’s running errands around town. He said he has two trailers that he can pull behind his bike, so if he needs to haul equipment for his auto repair shop, he’s prepared to do so with his motorcycle.
He also isn’t afraid of foul weather, braving the freezing cold in winter and the blazing heat in summer instead of driving his car.
“Once you (ride a motorcycle), it’s in your blood,” he said.
Jeff and Jewell Wilkinson, Carthage residents who are also members of the Road Riders Association, admit they are more “fair-weather riders” than Lambeth. But in the 40 years the couple have been married, they have owned about 40 bikes, including dirt bikes, street bikes and their current 2002 Honda Gold Wing, Jewell Wilkinson said.
“When you ride a bike, everyone waves,” she said. “It’s like a brotherhood.”
It’s a figurative family that Swart is happy to be part of. At each place she and her husband stopped during their years of travel, she said, people would approach them, curious about their motorcycle and their journeys. Several times, curious bystanders would ask to take a picture of the couple and their bike.
“You get in a car and stop anywhere, and people won’t come up and talk to you,” said Swart, who insists that a motorcycle is the best way to see the world. “But you get on a motorcycle É and there’s always somebody you can visit with.”
