Welcome to Everglades Motorcycle Services Home Page!
Each month we are going to feature something a little different for you on this page.
Our featured customers this month are Frances Billker and her partner Carol
Frances and Carol “layered up” at Cedar Key, FL on a cold morning
Frances and Carol have been together for six years and while Frances has been a biker since she was 16 (“a very long time ago” she says), Carol had never so much as sat on a motorcycle in her life before “the Jerseygirl” came along. Frances remembers, “Carol’s first ride on a Harley was around a Mall parking lot after the Mall had closed and I thought she was going to strangle me.” Carol says, “It got a lot better really quickly after that first ride” and Frances agrees. They have ridden all over the eastern US since.
While Carol was born and raised in Rochester, NY, Frances has led the life of a much-traveled Air Force brat. Born in the Base Hospital at Mitchel Field (AFB), LI, NY, she grew up on Long Island, in “The City” (NYC for those who aren’t used to the native New Yorkers’ assertion that it is the center of the universe), in Jersey, and on the east coast of Florida. When asked why she uses the nickname “Jerseygirl” she replies that she spent much of her childhood being raised in the same town as Bruce Springsteen and that she adheres to the code of the Jerseygirl – “work hard, play harder and never let ‘em see you cry.”
Carol graduated with a BA and an MBA, both from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and set off on a career in the corporate world. Frances followed both her Grandfather and Father into the Air Force, stopping along the way for her underegrad degree from the U of F (Go Gators!) in Gainesville and grad school and beyond at Drew University. Her Air Force career took her from doing photo-reconnaissance as the system operator in an RF-4C in TAC to piloting KC-135 tanker aircraft in SAC. Following a 26-year career she moved to Ithaca, NY with the intention of “quietly retiring.” “Yeah”, she says, “Didn’t happen then and hasn’t happened yet.” J
When Carol’s employer in Rochester was absorbed by a larger corporation they moved first to Clearwater and then to Naples – which Frances remembers from the 1960’s as “a sleepy little fishing town and artist’s colony – when what we now call ‘Old Naples’ was all of Naples.”
Frances’ first motorcycle ride was as a 4 year-old “lap passenger” on an old Indian ridden by her next door neighbor’s Dad, who she says was like a surrogate Dad when she was growing up in Jersey. That first ride “took” because 12 years later that same “Dad” went with her to buy her first Harley at an NJSP auction. It was a very used 1953 FLH (P) trooper’s bike. It’s been all Harley ever since, eight in all. Both in and out of the service she has ridden in all the “lower 48,” doing the “round the border” ride using up some leave time in the 70’s. “I’d love to do that again,” she says. She remembers Sturgis when “rice-burners” might just end up as kindling for a bonfire somewhere late at night. You either rode a Harley or you didn’t go.
Frances and Carol now spend their riding time mostly on the East Coast. They ride often in the southeastern mountains, the Great Smokies, Shenandoah and Blue Ridge when Carol can take time away from her job. Frances’ son is a reactor operator in a Navy sub and they are looking forward to visiting both him and his wife in New London as well as seeing other friends and attending a family wedding in upstate NY early next fall. Both say that they’re really looking forward to being up there when the colors are so beautiful but getting back well before the snow falls.
Frances can be found frequently at Everglades MC looking for what’s new and better, hanging out with Michele and Lynn or giving Frank a hard time about working on her bike – an ‘07 Ultra. “There’s only one shop you’ll find me at – Everglades.”