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Teri Forkner: Part 1

Teri Forkner: Part 2

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February 1, 2001
‘TERI’ EVELINE FORKNER
ORIGINAL BOOZETTE
 

 ‘Teri’ was born 7-22-22 in Los Angeles, CA. Her father came to LA from Minnesota in a covered wagon. By 1917 he was riding an Eagle motorcycle. Her mother came from South Dakota. As her father worked as a street maintenance supervisor the family grew. Teri has an older brother and sister and a younger brother.

    Teri is a graduate of Freemont High School and it was during that time that she met a rambunctious young student named Willie Forkner. They met in a malt shop and that romance led to a very exciting marriage in the two-wheel world.
    Wino Willie was always a live wire, taking Teri with him to the Big ‘A’, racing events, and fishing expeditions. She remembers once they were fishing down along the Mexican coast in a small 36ft boat called the "Little Dipper" when a school of whales approached and started to rub against their boat. They were bad about doing that to scrape the barnacles off their back, many times capsizing the boats in the process.

 Wino shot the gas to it and tried to out maneuver the pursuing whales, with a lot of zigzagging among the other boats, as they would close in on him. As Teri would point and scream, "Here comes another one," Wino would whip the boat in the opposite direction and belt out with a loud laugh, "Missed me again you SOB. Ya gonna have to do better than that!" Teri realized then that there was some kind of daring unusual spirit corked up in that jovial stocky young man.

    During the war while Wino fought with a machine gun from the side gunner’s position of a B-24, Teri worked at Northrop helping make more aircraft to support the war.

    She remembers that when Wino returned after the war he seemed wilder than ever. So much so that the 13 Rebels MC, in which Wino rejoined, had a problem with his lose cannon attitude and dare devil actions. Needless to say, that led to his dropping out and subsequent starting up of the Boozefighters MC, later to become labeled, "The Original Wild Ones."

When asked how the "Boozettes" got its start, Teri related the following. "Naturally as the guys had their club, we girls had a common bond. Finally Goldie (CB’s lady), Ethelia (Joe Anchando), and Sally (can’t remember) and I got together and discussed having our own club. Pat Manker and some gals joined our Boozettes club later. There was a bunch of us by 1947. ‘Dago’ wasn’t but about 16 at the time, but she’d sneak out of the house and join us when she could. Later when she got older she became a regular and eventually married ‘Fat Boy’."

 "We wore the same shirts as the guys except with "Boozettes" printed on the back. And then when Wino cranked up the Boozefighter’s racing team, we wore the "Yellow Jackets" T-shirts just like the guys did. We’d have Boozettes shirts on one day, then at field meets we’d wear the yellow jackets.

 What did you have to do to be accepted as a Boozette back then? Teri explains; "We’d have a meeting and discuss it. If we all agreed to let someone in we’d decide her initiation. Usually it would include things like rooting a penny out of a bowl of flower with her nose. Then with one pant leg rolled up high, the other down, and wearing fuzzy house shoes, she’d have to walk down the pike at an amusement park on the beach."

    How’d y’all handle problems? "We’d have a saucer party. We’d sit around a saucer of milk in private. One by one we’d speak our peace to it, whether it was a complaint about another girl or bitching about our guy, we’d have our say without interruption. When we got through we’d pour the milk down the drain, saying the cat drank everything that was said and it was never to be repeated again!"

    I heard somewhere the girls handled a lot of the plans for the field meets and parties. Was that true? "Yeah we’d do most of that. Every time we would put on a race event I would go to the county and pay the $1.00 per day for the Saturday and Sunday’s beer permit. We usually had the event in an open field on Rosecrans Street, where the Rosecrans Speedway is now. We would build the beer stand, sell the brew, and then during intermission Boozettes would circulate among the cars and spectators asking for a two bit ($.25) donation to the race winners. The sponsoring clubs would split the profits of the beer and hamburgers and things we would sell."

 Did you really break Wino’s nose with a wine bottle one time? "Who told you about that?" Teri snapped back.

Visit our Web site next month for part II of the Teri Forkner article, and learn the true story about the wine bottle, and Wino’s nose!

Teri Forkner: Part 2

February 1, 2001
‘TERI’ EVELINE FORKNER
ORIGINAL BOOZETTE

April 21, 2001

Teri Forkner

Original Boozette -- Part II of II

    Did you really break Wino’s nose with a wine bottle one time? Who told you about that? Teri snapped back. Wino did, I replied. Well I sure the heck did, She fessed up. And since he told you about it, I’ll tell you the true story. He claimed it was an accident but it really wasn’t.

We were coming back from the Crater Camp Hill Climb, just outside of LA back then. A bunch of us were ridding on the back of J.D. Cameron’s flat bed truck that was padded with a layer of hay. Wino gave me some money to go get another bottle of wine at a local place on the way back. Red-Dog hauled me on the back of his bike. When we caught up with the truck Wino was wallering around with a couple of the girls. It wouldn’t have been that big a deal except I figured that he was trying to make me jealous. As we pulled up beside the truck, he rolled over on his side and said, hi honey, pitch me the bottle of wine. When I drew back that bottle everyone around him scrambled out of the way. I guess they read the expression on my face. As Wino raised up I chunked the bottle as hard as I could. It went right through his hands and splattered his nose all over his face. Did it break? I ask. Not the bottle, but it sure did his nose. He drank it anyway, I guess to help the pain.

    You all had fines for various things back then didn’t you? Sure, things like not looking clean. Sometimes we’d spend an hour or two shining our boots before we went to an event. Then we stomped around in the mud and dirt. But we never went anywhere looking dirty. It was kind of a pride thing. And if anyone used the F… word they were fined 5 cents. We didn’t like dirty talking around other people either.

I gather that the wild ones tamed down a lot as people got older, raised families, follow careers, and moved around. When did Wino and you reduce activity? About 1953 Wino wanted to go up coast where there was better fishing. We moved to Trinidad in up state California and he fished with a 52-foot long boat named Mary LaRocka. Later we moved to Fort Bragg. However, we always had Boozefighter’s reunions and a lot of them on some land that we had at Fort Bragg.

    Once while we were gathering, a helicopter hovered above and then set down. Wino thought it might be some kind of mistaken raid at first. When people started getting out Wino charged forward raising cain until he realized…..It was a bunch of Boozefighter’s from Santa Rosa. They really pulled one on him.

    How many children did Wino and you have? We have two daughters named Patricia and Terry and a son Bill. You met my grand daughter Dusty Dawn in Hollister. She turned 18 today (1-14-2001). There are a total of 8 grand children, 7 great grand children and 3 great great grand children and all of them have Wino’s blood in them.

 What’s your advice to the Boozefighter’s and Boozette’s of today? Enjoy yourselves, for life is shorter than you’d think. You only go around once, so you had better enjoy and live it up while you can.

Story By: JQ ‘History’