Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE I magine one of the seminal figures in motorcycle journalism of the 20th century, a man who helped build American Motorcyclist from a club newslet- ter to one of the largest and most respected mo- torcycling publications in the world. Now picture the surprise when researching the life of longtime magazine editor Alton Ismon, Jr., after learning the ironic fact that this purveyor of moto-journalism never so much as threw a leg over a motorcycle himself. Instead Ismon (Al, as his friends called him) was a behind the scenes worker at the Ameri- can Motorcyclist Association, in the shadow of the association's big personalities, who worked tire- lessly to get the news out about the sport, in a day when that's how most motorcyclists got their news of what else was going on in the world of the sport they loved so much. May of 1954 was the first time Ismon's name ap- peared on the masthead of the American Motorcy- clist. At that point the AMA was tiny, but growing rapidly in the post-World War II years. Ismon was given the task of bringing back the magazine, which due to lack of advertising, had diminished to club newsletter during the war years and it was lucky to even survive in that form. But now it was the Nifty Fifties. Jobs were plentiful, living expenses were relatively low and motorcycling was making a solid comeback. Interest in the AMA and its racing pro- grams were growing at an unprecedented rate. "I think it was my dad and two others [president E.C. Smith and race director Jules Horky] in the office in an old house on Buttles Ave. [in Columbus' Short North]," said Ismon's daughter Trudi Merryman. "I think they had a small part-time secretarial staff, but that was about it. I used to go in the office and I was small enough that I sat under my dad's desk. He was always working laying out the magazine and to this day I love the smell of rubber cement." Ismon was a newspaper veteran by the time he came to the AMA. He had the experience needed to be a one-man show to put the magazine to- gether. Writer, photographer, proofreader, tran- scriptionist, paste-up man, artwork expert and even mailing label stamper. You name it in the magazine business and Ismon did it. The one thing he wasn't though, was a motorcyclist. "I think he loved watching motorcycle racing and admired the talent of the riders, but he never had a desire to become a rider himself," Ismon's son Mike explained. "He used to take us kids to the races. I remember going to Laconia and the Char- ity Newsies race at the [Ohio State] Fairgrounds, but for whatever reason he wasn't a motorcyclist." One can only speculate that by the time Ismon came to the AMA he was already in his 40s, had a family and having watched countless riders get banged up or worse in racing, perhaps he felt taking up riding at his age was just too risky a proposition. Even though he wasn't a rider, he obviously enjoyed writing about the races and the personalities in the sport. "He could have had any other of a number of jobs, but I think he enjoyed the excitement of working in the AMA at a time when it was growing and he felt like he was part of a bigger commu- nity," Trudi ventured. Possibly another reason Ismon was a success THE VOICE OF MOTORCYCLING, WHO P108

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