Gulf Coast Boy..The Biker Years

Well folks, it's time to talk about another segment of my life. I told you that I gave up fishing and bought a well used Harley. I'm going to keep this thing as 'polite' as possible, but it was a hell of a ride.

It was 1986 and I had sold my boat. I was 38 years old. Actually, Danny and I were flounder fishing on late afternoon in a driving rain storm and I said "I want to buy a motorcycle".

Danny looked up at me, water running over his face answered, "You, too?"

So I bought a Kawasaki and got familiar riding it. Danny had ridden dirt bikes a lot in his younger days, almost losing one leg in a wreck.

I enjoyed my Japanese toy until one day Danny came by my house on a used Harley, 1983 narrow glide.

I snorted, "Man, you're gonna have to work on that thing every day and it's gonna leak oil everywhere."

Danny smiled and said, "Just get on it and ride a few miles down the road."

I did. And I was hooked. I learned that moment that there are motorcycles and then there are Harley's.

Soon after, I found a used one, same model and year as Danny's, except his was a cherry and mine was a tired old iron horse. But, we had an ace-in-the-hole.

We knew a man named Steve that owned a 'Hog Shop". He is one of those easy, laid back people that can back up everything he says and not be bragging. He didn't sell Harley's, but he could, and still can, fix anything with a Harley name on it. I started hanging out at the shop and became friends with Steve.
My bike had a lot of problems. The first owner had tried to make it a drag bike, souping it up with a bunch of stuff like cams, lifters, oversize carburetor jets, etc. It needed work. Steve taught me how to work on it. With his help, I tore it down and rebuilt it, several times, from the block to the ignition. It ran a lot better, but never as good as I hoped for.

The hog shop wasn't your average yuppie Harley owner hangout. Steve's friends and customers might have been a bit rough, but I never met one that wasn't good people. I had found a new home.

I loved that old bike. It was a shovel head, 1983, just before the new 'evolution' engine came out in 1984. But, I actually enjoyed working on it, except when I had to repair it on some back road or beer joint parking lot to get home.

But riding it was great. The pipes and the vibration...well, it was a Harley, a real Harley. My wife would wrap her legs around me and doze as she leaned on the 'sissy bar' as we tore down some piece of hi way.

A big group of us would go every fall to a small campground on the banks of the Guadalupe River in central Texas during 'October Fest'. Party time!

I learned how to pack a tent, sleeping bags, clothes, and food on my Harley. And have room for one wife. (Plus a complete set of tools.)

Sleeping on rocks on a steep river bank got old quick. But the partying was great! We were all friends, but an occasional fist fight or knife waving broke out, but you've got to expect that. Getting caught slipping off with someone else's woman might get a bit more serious, but, that wasn't too common.

Once, a woman walked into our camp as we were having a typical beer drinking evening. She said she wanted to party with some bikers. She and her husband had a large motor home parked a hundred yards away. She was looking for some adventure and her husband stayed in the motor home, just peeking out the windows as his wife wiggled her ass in front of every guy.

Several of the guys were getting pretty wound up...but the biker girls and wives took her aside and explained to her exactly what they were going to do to her. She put her top back on and ran back to the motor home, they were gone the next morning. Ah, 'wanna be's' .
I've seen two biker women fight from inside a bar out into the shell parking lot and wind up under a truck. A bucket of water was all that stopped them from killing each other.

On one trip, some of the guys decided to roast a whole pig on a spit over a fire. Seemed like a good idea. They dug a pit, hug a rod and began to cook the pig. We were there for three days and all these guys did was turn that damn pig....and it was still only half done...

In the end, no one ate any of it...we were bikers, but hell, we weren't crazy.

On another trip, we went to Austin to an Easy Rider rodeo.

Easy Rider is a great biker magazine, full of bikes, tattoos, naked women...good stuff like that.

Outside the building, vendors set up displays of their stuff. One that caught my eye was a guy selling nipple rings for the ladies. He had a whole selection of them. No piercing. He had an album of Polaroids showing how they looked in use. His wife offered to show us the live product. She pulled up her Harley shirt and gave us a 'hands on' view. Being a biker was very good.

The rodeo had many interesting events. One was a 'wienie eating contest'.

A large sausage was suspended on a string and a biker would drive under it. His woman would stand up on the back pegs and try to bite as much as possible of it without using her hands. The driver couldn't stop or put his feet down, just one pass. Amazing how talented some of those ladies were.

Back at the hog shop, we would hang out, drink beer, bar-b-que, tinker with our bikes...If a 'real' customer came in needing a new tire or something minor, one or two of us would do it. It was a small way to repay Steve for all that he did for us.

None of us were 'patch holders'. That's someone who is a member of a bona fide MC club. Some clubs were outlaw and some were fringe and some were regular, but I never had any trouble with them. I wouldn't stop at a beer joint unless there were bikes out front. I was comfortable there.

One of our group was a 'pledge' to get int the Viet Nam Vets MC. They were good people, people I understood. He tried to get me to join, but I passed. Us old vets were getting scarce in the late 80's.

I started to rethink my life. I loved the biker lifestyle. Hell, why not? Beer, boobs and bikes...you could pour testosterone out of your boots.

I guess my final straw was at a beer joint. A guy started giving the barmaid some lip. She was perfectly capable of handling him, but I felt the urge to step in. Before I did something stupid, I thought about it. I was about to pick a fight in a beer joint with a guy I didn't know, who hadn't done anything to me or hurt the barmaid. My biker career was getting out of hand. I had to get all the way in or get out. I was getting way too comfortable.

I sold my beloved old Harley, bought Dockers, a set of golf clubs, joined the Chamber of Commerce and became the oldest yuppie in town.

Evolution is weird, isn't it. It was 1990. I was 42 years old.

I have one more chapter to add.

Thanks for reading.