WINNEMUCCA - The old saying, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach," still seems to be operative today. At least part of the reason Lynn Lehman, 68, moved here three years ago was because of his stomach and all the good restaurants he knew to be in town.
The Ohio native moved to Nevada to take a job at U.S. Gypsum in Empire several years ago and to take advantage of all the amenities offered in the outback. The town ceased to exist last year when the recession finally closed the company plant and the town down.
"If you want to know where Empire is go out on Jungo Road and don't get off," Lehman said.
When he lived in Empire, every year he went to Burning Man, because it was cheap and, unlike those from out of the area, local people could come and go as they liked.
"That whole playa is cleaner now than it has ever been. I think they get down with little rakes and tweezers, 'cause they don't leave anything," he said.
Living in Nevada, and especially the small town of Empire, was a bit of a culture shock for the Buckeye native, but he realized his first day there that he liked it, and each day after he liked it more. Later, as he began traveling and exploring Nevada, he found that he gave Winnemucca the highest grades.
"Big enough to have everything I need but small enough to be kind of a community. Good restaurants. I would prefer it did not have a Walmart or an Interstate, but otherwise it passes with flying colors, so this is where I moved when I retired," he said.
His brothers wanted him to move to California. One lives in Nevada City, Calif., and another in San Rafael, Calif., but he told them, "I'm not movin' over there. I'd have to change the license plates on my vehicles."
Lehman was born the first of five male children and raised in the village of Navarre, Ohio, about 60 miles south of Cleveland. Somewhat of an idyllic place quiet with the Tuscarawas River flowing by the 1,600 people that live there with little change in their community in the last 80 years. The Nickles Bakery is the eminent business in town, supplying stores all over the state with goods packaged under several brand names.
After testing with the wheel bearing manufacturer Timken Company, they hired him straight out of high school on the day of commencement 1962 and 11 days later he began their machinists' apprentice programs.
"That was a meal ticket for life," Lehman said.
However, working in a machine shop all day week after week can make a guy long for the outside world and increase his interest in roaming far and wide.
He may have gotten his interest in machinery from his mechanic dad. They didn't talk much about ethics, religion or politics at the dinner table, but what they did talk about was physics.
"We got into everything," Lehman said. "I'm not really the outdoorsy type, but I do enjoy it, just for the complete change of pace. I've been riding motorcycles 48 years, so I do like to be out, and I've never had a motorcycle with a windshield and I don't wear a wear a face shield. That's why my face looks like this," he said.
But if you see him around Winnemucca he is probably on his bicycle, simply because he feels he is healthier.
"The more I ride the better I feel," he said. "I just enjoy getting out, talking to people and riding my bicycle around town."
In 1992, explorer Lehman took off from his home in Ohio on his twelfth or 13th motorcycle and his first Harley, a Sportster, for a trip to California to visit his brothers and four weeks and 7,000 miles later he returned home.
"I saw America from the backroads," he said. He avoided Interstates, eating in fast food restaurants and staying in chain motels.
He took the southern route to California and the northern route home. As if that wouldn't take the wanderlust out of most people, two years later he took another route west, that time traveling 12,000 miles.
His current ride, a Harley-Davidson DynaGlide, may be getting a little big for him and the interest in getting something less heavy is growing, but after 14 motorcycles and 400,000 miles on them he still enjoys getting out and going.
When he first started riding he spent a lot of time practicing stopping and preparing for worst case scenarios, all of which has paid off well for him. It didn't take long for all his preparation to pay off because within two weeks of getting his motorcycle he had two emergency stops where he used both foot and hand brakes.
He said one of the scariest times for him on a cycle was actually a deer that he didn't know existed until he saw its face in his rearview mirror as he jumped within inches of him, but behind him.
"I thought, 'Man, that was a close one,'" he said. "That was too close for comfort."
Even with hundreds of thousands of miles under his wheels, he has only had two wrecks and in neither case did he get hurt. However, he has noticed one thing, that his accidents seem to happen when he is going slow.
"You drop your guard when you go slow. You get lax with your thinking," he said. "When you're going fast all cylinders are on what you're doing."
Anymore, he normally wears a helmet, but much of the time in his native state he did not, and said that he has noticed that the safer he dresses the less careful he is. Fortunately, the two times he has wrecked he has had a helmet on, which absorbed the skid marks and not his head.
He came to the Pleasant Senior Center for lunch a couple of times when he first got to town and several months ago he began coming regularly, and like so many others before him the place just began to grow on him.
"I met some people and now we're kind of a family," he said. "I think it is for a lot of people. I push people's buttons, I guess. I like to tease everybody, get everybody laughing."
Lehman is one of those people who knows no strangers - with a personality that allows and encourages him to walk up to people he has never met and begin a conversation.
In all his travels, he has only missed motorcycling in the states of Florida, South Carolina, Alaska and Hawaii.
"Florida's nothing but old retired people from Ohio and Indiana. Why would I want to go there? It's flat, covered with bugs, rains a lot, hot and humid. The highest point in Florida it 324 feet," he said.
When thinking about what to say to young people, he noted that in Japan kids are told not to do something that would make their parents ashamed or ask yourself if your mom would approve of what your contemplating.
"If you can live to keep mom and dad happy you're probably doing the right thing," he said.
Lehman said he enjoys the company of the people of Humboldt County and doesn't intend to leave.
"I plan on spending the rest of my life here," he said, "unless they throw me out of town. I'm glad I moved here."
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