The Good Life - January/February 2014

Born on a farm north
of Huron, South
Dakota, Del Hofer
(pronounced: Ho-fer)
was a middle child in
a family of four boys
and one girl. Del’s parents rented
a small farm on the outskirts of
Huron, where farmland was rough
and rocky. Del, his brothers and his
dad plowed and seeded their land
with horses. Victims of an economy
often unfair and always unkind to
small farmers, his parents lost their
farm in 1947.
When Del was 12, the family
moved into Huron where Del picked
up odd jobs here and there, as many
children did back in those days in
order to help out their families. But
during his free hours Del could be
found two blocks from his home,
outside the Harley-Davidson store,
hunkered down watching as older
young men with a penchant for speed
and adventure blazed by on huge
28
motorcycles breaking the serenity of
Huron’s small-town dullness.
Mesmerized by the sleekness and
speed, Del continued to watch day
after day as the motorcycle riders
vanished before his eyes. Until
the day one of the burley-looking,
hoarse-throated men suddenly
stopped right in front of Del and
asked, “Hey, kid! Ya wanna ride?”
Del climbed behind the mammoth
man and off they flew. “I thought
I’d died and gone to heaven” is Del’s
description of his first ride on a
Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Utterly
hooked, Del knew one day he would
find a way to buy his own bike that
would blister the rough terrain
leading out of South Dakota.
A couple of years passed with
Del still watching the motorcyclists
coming and going through the tiny
town of Huron. Del’s older brother
had a motorcycle of his own but as
older brothers tend to do with little
brothers, Del’s brother ignored Del’s
pleas to take it for a ride, until one day,
Del’s brother said, “Tell you what. If
you can start it up, I’ll let you take it
for a spin.” For nearly two years Del
had watched the motorcyclists only
two blocks away coming and going
from the Harley-Davidson store as
they climbed their motorized horses
and started the engines. Del had no
doubt he could start his brother’s.
He was 14 years old with a chance
for the first time ever to actually
straddle a motorcycle and take it
wherever he could. All he had to do
was get it started. Challenges were a
part of life for this young man-child
whose only dream in life was to take
off on a thundering machine with two
wheels. Del got the machine started,
took off on his brother’s motorcycle
and simultaneously made the first
step of his lifelong journey.
From that day on, every extra
penny Del made was saved for one
purpose: a motorcycle. The simple
yearning for a motorcycle had grown