A biker club story

Joined
Jun 5, 2003
Messages
27,884
Location
Apple Valley, California
About 30 years ago I had a neighbor that was a patched member of a well known club. Long beard,tattoos leather jacket etc.

I only passed him on the road and didn't know his name or anything else.

One day he dropped his Harley on the dirt road. He was unable to pick it up. 3 cars passed and didn't stop to help.

I stopped and helped him get it out of the ditch.

He told me that if I ever needed something to call him and he gave me his number.

I'm guessing that he would beat someone up for me if I asked lol.

We became acquaintances over the years mostly on Facebook.

About 25 years after I helped him pick the bike up my mother passed. Before she did she was in the hospital. She went in there with an oxygen tank used for breathing.

They put her on their oxygen and put her tank in a closet.

When she came home she didn't have the tank.

After she passed I started getting charged for a tank rental.

I knew the tank was in that closet but the hospital would not let me get it. I tried a couple of times and got threatened by security.

I called my biker friend and told him that there was an oxygen tank in a closet next to room 301 and it had a tag on it with my mom's last name.

Him and a couple other guys walked in,went up to the 3rd floor, got the tank, walked out and hand delivered it to the tank rental place.

Then made sure that it was recorded so that I would not get billed for it any more.

Wish I was there to see them get it!
 
Some of the nicest and most honest people I know have tattoo's, beards, patched up vest's and ride Harley's. Don't judge a person by their looks. You'll end up disappointed. Nice story Chris142.
I just randomly met one at the smoked jerky counter. Turned out he retired from the power company at 60 - bought his first HD … Now rides with a group of just 8 guys all the time. He sure seemed like a class act to me …
 
Some of the nicest and most honest people I know have tattoo's, beards, patched up vest's and ride Harley's. Don't judge a person by their looks. You'll end up disappointed. Nice story Chris142.
Once when my wife and I were vacationing in Daytona Beach, we talked to several of the bartenders and cocktail waitresses in the bigger nightclubs and bars there. Every one of them told us the same thing.

Daytona entertains 2 huge groups of people every year. Bikers during Bike Week. And college kids during the Spring Break season. ALL of them said they much prefer to have all the bikers over ANY college kids.

They all told the same story. If you respect the bikers, they will respect you. They all tip very well for good service. And most of them know their limits with alcohol. They won't start trouble, but they won't walk away from it, if it comes to them in the form of disrespect.

The college kids are all undisciplined, crazy, drunken idiots. All of them are power drinkers. They fight more, tip like crap, and in general act like fools. Several get severely hurt every season. Some even die falling off balconies drunk, or hurt themselves performing stupid, drunken stunts.

Others destroy hotel rooms with drunken vandalism. Most of them can't hold their booze, and tend to prove it. Most all the bartenders said they're all far more trouble than they're worth. It's why many spring break areas like Palm Springs are trying to get rid of them. Even here in Lake Havasu, no one is singing the blues when they started going elsewhere. They all just tend to be a great big PITA.
 
I have a friend who is a biker, used to own a biker bar, and had friends and road with a similar (or perhaps the same) organization. He also had friends in law enforcement, some of whom had motorcycles. He went to parties for both, and was asked to affiliate more closely with both. He said the people were pretty similar between the groups.
 
So many people are searching for their tribe, and if you are at BITOG, some would say we have our own club structure. That bikers have a common appearance is, IMHO, just evidence of the person belonging to a group / tribe that shares many - perhaps not all- values of a that group.

I belong to multiple watch collecting forums, we have GTG in cities all across the world, and I know if I was to visit certain cities in Japan, Sweden, Brazil, USA or Canada I could arrange a meeting with someone...we don't have a specific look but we do tend to wear watches and often more than one at a time. Heck, I know there are BITOG members that also collect watches! what a small world ?
 
I'm 66 years old now. And one thing I've learned in life. is you can't judge a person by how they look. Some of the nicest people I've run into. In this world. Have been some of the people that you would think by how they're dressed. Would be some of the worst people in the world? And some of the worst people I have run into in this world. Have been some of the nicest dress people. They've turned out to be people with money. And think they're God. And have treated me like a horse's hind end. Say, a donkey's behind him. If you get my draft. I have absolutely no time in this world for people like that? And I don't care what type of a situation those people would be in. But I would never lift one finger to ever help them. But somebody else I would bend over backwards. To do whatever I could to help Them.
 
One of my physician friends used to do a lot of medical assessments for a major Alberta employer.

On a vacation in eastern Canada (about 3,000 miles from home) he and his wife were staying at a hotel. When they went down for breakfast he noticed that there were quite a few bikers in the room but thought nothing of it. Not long after they sat down he noticed that all the bikers were looking at him. Whew, uncomfortable. Then one of them asked, "Dr XXX, is that you?" Well it was of course and with that, all the bikers crowded around and had a good visit with him and his wife.

A lot of eastern Canadians work in Alberta. And it seems a lot of them ride bikes.
 
My girlfriend said I could get one of those decal tats,,,then I could change them as they wear off,,,good idea,lol
Do they still have them in the 25 cent dispensary machines? You can say they're for your kids :D
 
Just like the saying goes: “It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war” or something to that effect.

I think movies and TV shows have greatly contributed to how we view the “good” and the “bad” guys. Too much emphasis on outward appearances.
 
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