The Indian in my signature picture belonged to my Cousin Billy...he was the "black sheep" in the family, but he and my Dad were close and as a result I was too. He was always good to me. He rode Indians and Harleys all through the 50s and 60s and many times my Dad rode on the back for a short hop and so did I. Billy wasn't in any MC that I knew of, but his "troubles," major and minor, were always the talk of the family gatherings...which, truth be told, probably made me want to be like him even more. It made my pee-pee tingle even back then when I heard a Harely go by...

HS brought an unrequited desire for an XLCH Sportster. A confession here, and one I'll probably pay for from y'all...;-)! I had a Honda Super 90 at 16 that sported Apes and a vacuum cleaner pipe for exhaust. The Lead Singer in our band had one too, decked out in the same "chopped" style. One night he and I went to the Linclon Theatre in Chicago Heights to see "The Wild Angels." Saw it a handful of times in Chicago and when it came to the Heights we went. After the show we fired up the 90s, and while waiting for the light in front of the theatre to change we were revving those little puppies up...and Mark lost his grip on the clutch and the bike jumped up and on the bumper of the car in front of us. The older woman in the car was stone stiff scared...rolled up her windows, looked straight ahead, and ran away from us heathans as the light turned yellow for the other lanes...;-)!

Rode other foks' bikes in the 60s when I had the chance, but once I left for the military I left motorcycles behind for a long, long time. Promised myself that one day I'd get the Harley I wanted, and it took me 39 years to do it.

Long story short, I admit it...I admired the life back then, and had some things been different might have taken a different path. But a super girlfriend and a very successful and promising rock 'n roll band I played in turned me another way. I think my signature pic says it all...bugbit early and never wanted to make the itching stop!

 

I was inspired back in '74 when I moved to a new town in 7th grade and met a friend that rode dirt bikes behind the house in the woods in Northeast OH. Also had an older next door neighbor (high school aged) that was always wrenching on old Trumps and BSAs. Got me hooked for life. Mostly rode jap bikes cause that was all I could afford. First real street bike was an H1-500 Kawasaki (2 stroke). Somehow I survived that. Happy with my American bikes now. The Indian in my avatar is stripped of the tins and they are in for paint.

 

Do the Sons of Anarchy count?

 

Creak ... another long dead coffin opened .

 

Deep down...admit it or not...all of us.

 

You mean like William H. Macy?

 

Reading Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels was a part of it for me, but not because of the outlaw aspect. It was this excerpt:

Midnight on the Coast Highway
Hunter S. Thompson, San Francisco, 1965

"All my life my heart has sought a thing I cannot name."

Months later, when I rarely saw the Angels, I still had the legacy of the big machine - four hundred pounds of chrome and deep red noise to take out on the coast highway and cut loose at three in the morning, when all the cops were lurking over on 101. My first crash had wrecked the bike completely and it took several months to have it rebuilt. After that I decided to ride it differently: I would stop pushing my luck on curves, always wear a helmet, and try to keep within range of the nearest speed limit ... my insurance policy had been cancelled and my driver's license was hanging by a thread.

So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head, but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz ... not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all night diner down around Rockaway Beach.

There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.

Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out .. . thirty-five, forty-five ... then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of those - and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything - then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a highboard.

Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Tail-lights far up ahead coming closer, faster, and suddenly - zaaapppp - going past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea.

The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oil slick ... instant loss of control, a crashing, a cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two inch notices in the paper the next day: "An unidentified motor-cyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway 1."

Indeed ... but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there is no sound except wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.

But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right ... and thats when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at one hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporise before they get to your ears. The only sounds are the wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it ... howling though a turn to your right, then to the left and down the long hill to the Pacifica ... letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge... . The Edge... . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others - the living - are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to chose between Now or Later.

But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.

 

If by "outlaw" you mean the original definition of those who live apart from society's norms, the rebels, the nonconformists... then
Yes.

But, if you mean the media/LE definition of outlaw biker as those who are criminals. No.

 

I was inspired by a former boss. Great guy. He was the president of the Huns MC, Tucson chapter. Not an outlaw MC by today's definition. Unfortunately I didn't get my bike until moving to VA. I would of loved to have the opportunity to prospect.

 

Exactly. Riding and brotherhood with men that are cut from the same cloth so to speak.