The Ghost Chasers Motorcycle Club of Spencer, Iowa

The deep bass rumble of the '47 Harley Davidson Knucklehead is an unmistakable sound. At a young age, I could discern the sound over the kitchen radio broadcasting from local radio station KICD, with mom's favorite songs on high. She would be ironing clothes or washing up dishes or rolling pie crust, singing along to Doris Day's "Que Sera, Sera -Whatever Will Be Will Be" or Patti Page's "Tennessee Waltz" and the low throated rumble of that Harley would find my ears, calling out its drum beat rhythm "potato, potato, potato" and I'd be gone in a flash.I would appear in the farm driveway and make myself visible to dad, hoping I hadn't been "on his nerves" too badly that day. There I would pretend to study rocks in the gravel or gaze up at the clouds, giving him a wide berth but also an occasional and hopeful side-eye. If he thought he had the time, he'd give a nod and say, "All right, get over here." After the same stern warning from him I always got "You keep your leg away from those pipes!", off we would go. That, to me, was more fun than if I had sprouted wings and could fly.More than half a century passed, and I was compelled to write a documentation of the Ghost Chasers Motorcycle Club of Spencer, Iowa after unwrapping the treasured keepsakes examined after his death. Some of the stories were hidden deep in my memory, with bits and pieces of conversations coming back to me like those songs on the radio. The unlocking and documenting of the stories of the young men who banded together and rode as the Ghost Chasers became a story of mysteries and memories and ghosts. Indeed, I became a bit of a ghost chaser myself - albeit of a different type. Within these pages is a record of the Ghost Chasers Motorcycle Club and its members. Through newspaper documentation and personal accounts, it is a story of a motorcycle club that existed in Clay County, Iowa, from 1938-1999 - a span of 61 years. Read more