PERSPECTIVES

PERSPECTIVES OL’ MALCOLM

BY MITCH BOEHM

As I write this column it’s been exactly a year since I joined the AMA team and took over the editorial duties here at American Motorcyclist. Obviously, when you find yourself entrusted with something as foundational and historical as the AMA’s in-house magazine — which has roots reaching back to the early 1900s — you want your very first issue to be as compelling and memorable as possible…something that’ll move people emotionally, make ’em sit up and take notice.

To do that I went with a person who’s about as foundational, historical, compelling and memorable as you’ll find in our sport — the one and only AMA Hall of Famer Malcolm Smith. And based on the reaction to that issue, featuring Malcolm in that first cover story was a pretty good choice. Because when it comes to a person who maybe best encapsulates the joy, freedom and fun of motorcycling, you really can’t do better than — as the late Hall of Famer Bruce Brown used to call him — Ol’ Malcolm.

Malcolm Smith turned 81 in March, and despite the nasty effects of Parkinson’s and the many debilitating injuries he’s suffered over the last 70 years (it’s quite a list!), along with a bout with pneumonia a month or two ago, the old guy just keeps on chugging along, spending a lot of quality time with his family and grandkids, traveling to his and his wife Joyce’s beach home in Baja, and fiddling with stuff in his garage.

“Mitch,” he texted me a couple of weeks ago, “I am much better now! Been out in the garage working on our new Honda Talon four-seater. We’re sending it to Baja, and then we’ll head down there and do a whale-watching trip across the peninsula. Last time there were hundreds and hundreds of whales in the lagoon…”

I have a lot of great memories of Malcolm, but some of the best are the ones generated during the two-plus years we spent on his 2015 autobiography, titled Malcolm: The Autobiography. During the initial fact-finding phase of the project, which took about a year, we’d get together once a week at his home in Riverside, Calif., and spend several hours talking about a specific period in his life. I’d record those discussions, take detailed notes on my laptop, and put events on a dryerase board under the year that they happened so we could easily see the larger picture.

Once we got enough material for one of the chapters we’d sketched out, I’d write up a rough draft, which we’d then go through together, line by line, Malcolm reading a printout and me typing on my laptop. We’d tweak and modify and revise, and a week later, after I’d worked those changes into the text, we’d go through it again and again until it was just exactly perfect — and then we’d move on to

TODD WESTOVER

The author and AMA Legend Malcolm Smith, reviewing a chapter of his acclaimed autobiography in his sitting room sometime in 2014. For a copy of the 400-page tome, check out themalcolmbook.com or malcolmsmith.com.

the next chapter.

Malcolm has lived a thoroughly fascinating life, from his adventurous parents and early childhood days in the Pacific Northwest and San Bernardino, to his golden years of late…and to hear it all in such detail — and be fortunate enough to chronicle it for fans and motorcyclists everywhere — was a thrill I still can’t get my arms around.

We’re bringing you snippets of his story in our new — and monthly — Malcolm’s Moments segments (see page 24), but to get the full impact of the Malcolm Smith story you’ll need to (Spoiler alert…Blatant pitch ahead!) read the book, which is available at either themalcolmbook.com or at our own Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum. It’s big and heavy and 400 pages; it contains nearly 500 photos from Malcolm’s personal archive, and was designed by our own Todd Westover, who makes American Motorcyclist look so good every month.

So thanks, Malcolm, for 81 years of doing what you do. And Happy Birthday, old friend! .

Mitch Boehm is the editorial director of the AMA

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