AFTER HELL AND HIGH WATER
CAME A FAMILY TRADITION
Written by Roger Hull
Hog Tales
Feburary-March 1988

Traditionally, of course, Kansas is the departure point for tornado-borne houses headed for Oz - which helps explain why members of the Topeka Harley Owners Group have those T-shirts which depict a couple on a Harley riding down a yellow brick road past the Kansas State Capitol building. In large letters above riders is the chapter name: OZ H.O.G.S. Between those two words there is a small coat of arms, a sheaf of wheat in the shape of a fleur-de-lis with the motto on the scroll reading: Established 5/10/85.

That date refers to the chapter, not the agency which sponsors it. Topeka Harley-Davidson Sales and Service goes back before that. Way, way back.

"There were two or three guys here along the way," says Henry "Pat" Patterson who became the Topeka dealer in 1949. "Apparently the shop here had gone downhill until Dutch Myers came to town and got it going again. I don't know exactly when that was. Dutch was here for a long time. Back in the early days of the Enthusiast you'd see Dutch's name quite often as a competition rider."

Born in 1910, Pat was raised in Grand Junction, Colorado. He enjoys telling people that he wasn't interested in the motorcycle business until after he got into it. What happened was about 1920 when he was a young boy Pat won a bicycle riding contest. His victory led to a job fixing bicycles at Grand Junction's Carson Bicycle Shop which also handled motorcycles.

"I got into the motorcycle part and started building it up, and it became real successful," Pat recalls. "But after the war, well, it was just a matter of I was in a rut I wanted to get out of. I asked the owner to sell to me, but he didn't want to sell. I don't know if you've ever heard of Jim Phillips or not. He was an old time Harley rep and quite a character in his own right. I told Jim I'd like to get something on my own and the next time he came through he got me off in the corner and said, 'Well, we've got two openings. Topeka and Kansas City, Kansas.' And thank goodness I didn't take Kansas City. It was just a madhouse over there in those days. They had four dealers there then so everybody was just fighting tooth and toe nail to sell something."

Dutch, who had become the Harley dealer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, planned to retain ownership of the building in which the Topeka agency was located as an investment. However he soon found himself in need of money and had to sell it. The new owner immediately doubled Pat's rent.

"So I started looking for something else and bought a building across the street. It was next to the old Throop Hotel. One night the hotel caught fire and fell over on my building. So we camped in an empty building across the street for nearly a year until I found this building. That was 1951 and we've been here ever since."

Two months after Pat had settled the agency in its new location of West Sixth Street, the nearby Kansas River overflowed putting large parts of Topeka under water.

"We moved out here just in time to be hit by the flood. Where I'm standing now would have been in 18 inches of water then. First the fire and then the flood. It was hell and high water then, and it's been sweat and tears since."

The Patterson family which moved to Topeka from Grand Junction consisted of Pat, his wife, Leola, and their two sons, Larry and Denny.

"During their growing up years, Larry spent a lot more time over here than Denny did. He liked to work on things. At that time I never did think that Denny would ever be interested in it."

"I grew up with it," Denny recalls. "I can remember coming over here when I was, oh 7, 8, 9 - sweeping the floor. I started riding when I was about 14." He went into the Air Force in 1968 and became a pilot, attaining the rank of Captain. After five years of service, the Air Force decided to put him behind a desk and Denny decided to resign. "When I got out in August of '73, I started pretty much working full time here."

As an adult Larry choose a different occupation although he frequently could be found at the shop helping out. But he developed health problems while he was young and in 1985 at age 44, he died following a heart attack.

Since the mid-1970's Denny has shared the management duties with his father. Pat is quick to credit Denny with being the essential factor in keeping the agency going. "He deserves the credit. Actually he saved the business."

According to Denny that business is going "…reasonably well. They're not big numbers, but they're black."

Denny, who recently became a member of Harley-Davidson's Dealer Advisory Committee, feels company management is doing great things for motorcycling these days. "They're really out with the people. We've been real fortunate here. We've had Mr. Beals in town and some other Harley executives have been in. They get the heart beat of what's going on. Not like Topeka is the heart beat of America. Our people get to meet these people. They get to chat with Willie G. and all the big gunners who, I think, have a pretty good feel for what is going on."

"We had a rally at the Holiday Inn one time when Vaughn Beals was here," Pat comments. "And he made it a point to go around and meet everybody that was there."

"And he took notes on some little 3 by 5 cards he had," Denny adds. "That was neat. I think he followed up on every one of those notes. I know some of our people heard from him. Then when they had the Liberty Ride they were scheduled to stay overnight in Kansas City but by what we've been told, he made a personal request that he wanted to stop in Topeka instead. And he got a tremendous reception here. We kicked off the auction idea here and then he carried that on the rest of the way."

Pat picks up the story. "He couldn't believe what we were getting when we were auctioning stuff off. You know, banners and things with his signature, Willie's' signature on them. And Mrs. Beals. She's marvelous. She doesn't fit what you think of as the stereotype of the CEO wife at all. She's real common with the people. You can see that she knows there are good people in motorcycling."

The Pattersons agree women are becoming increasingly important to motorcycling; they encourage interested women to take the local Motorcycle Safety Foundation course. These days often a good percentage of the MSF students are, as Denny puts it, "Harley women."

"We're getting more and more women on their own bikes all the time. They don't want to ride behind anymore after they've experienced the other side of it. So they take the course. From the personal point of view - Linda, my wife, several years ago had her own motorcycle. She fell down a few times and got scared. She took the course last spring mostly to be a companion to one of the women who wanted to go. And she got out of the course with new-found confidence. Now she's riding some again."

Pat and Denny cite Harley-Davidson as a pioneer in the effort to improve motorcycling's image by promoting rides which benefit charity; specifically, Harley's leadership in raising funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

"It's not just good for our business, but good for motorcycling. We get out there and they see us on TV and on the local telethon. The numbers in Denver and L.A. are wonderful but our Topeka people here are really involved. This is a small community but a tremendously strong charitable one with motorcyclists. When we present one big check which amounts to ten percent of what the whole community does…well, that has a pretty big impact."

Held each spring, the Topeka H-D MDA ride probably is number one in the nation based on population and percentage of participation. The agency also helps support ABATE of Kansas on an annual fall ride to benefit the local crippled children's school and hospital.

Other annual agency-sponsored projects are the U-Kan-Tour, a summer long contest in which prizes are awarded based on points and accumulated by visiting various places in the state of Kansas, and high mileage contest which includes non-Harley and women categories.

"We didn't want to get away from taking care of our customers but also we wanted to encourage the other brand riders to come in here. And we're seeing more and more of them."

And then, of course, the agency sponsors the Oz H.O.G.s. and helps organize a variety of activities for the chapter throughout the year.

It has been nearly four decades since Pat moved his family to Topeka. Today Harley-Davidson Sales and Service is a father-and-son operation which threatens to become a Patterson family tradition.

"I have a step-son, Jeff. He's seventeen. I don't think motorcycling is in his future," Denny pauses, "buy you never know. I didn't really have an inclination until after I got out of the service when I was 27. My nephew, Mike - Larry's boy - worked real hard for us this last summer. He's into flat track racing pretty heavy, too. The Oz H.O.G.s. help sponsor him. He's a junior at K.U. in business computer science. I can see Mike getting into it."

Gradually Denny has taken on most of the management and decision-making responsibilities while Pat sometimes claims he "is more or less retired." If so, it's mostly because he remains extremely active in the business on a day-to-day basis. A year of so ago he underwent a hip joint replacement operation which prevented him from riding. However, his recovery has been complete and there is talk about him climbing on his old 1950 Harley and leading the next MDA ride.

Denny laughs, "I can't get rid of him. He's still hanging around."

"He even tired to boot me out today," Pat grins.

"It's too nice a day to be hanging around here," Denny tells his dad. "You ought to be out on the golf course."

Pat grins again - and goes. Not to the golf course but to answer the phone just as he's been doing for nearly 40 years …traditionally.