Kerry Ruth
Herb was very skilled riding motorcycles. Our family was living in New Orleans when he was serving in the US Navy. He stopped at our home for a couple of weeks while on his way to Norfolk, Virginia from California to his new duty station, the USS Truckee (AO-147). We were riding around New Orleans on his Kawasaki Z1 900 which was one of the fastest bikes off the showroom floor at that time. We decided to cross over past downtown New Orleans via the Mississippi River Bridge from the West Bank. Once on the bridge, the traffic was light although rush hour and Herb opened up the throttle. We accelerated to @115 mph, Herb did not know the traffic pattern at rush hour, we came off the bridge heading past the Super Dome and as we sped along we were getting close to the predictable traffic backup and not decelerating. I tapped Herb on the shoulder and told him he had better slow down as we came upon a slight rise while Herb was downshifting and braking and sure enough on the other side the traffic was stopped if we had not slowed we would have rear-ended the cars. The thrill of acceleration and high speed was common with Herb and later myself when I bought my own bike.. ~Kerry Ruth