My brother Larry was about 6′ 7″ tall and weighed about 280 lbs. His nickname was Tiny. When he was about 22- years old he joined the St. Louis chapter of the Saddle Tramps motorcycle club. I’ve heard stories about his initiation into the club that ranged from letting them beat you up to putting your leather jacket underneath a leaky bike to everyone in the club taking a leak on it. Who knows how much of all of that is true but I do remember some interesting times: like my brother spray painting his bike silver, leather seat and all to the time that he ran into a parked car and fractured his collarbone and shoulder in several places and refused to go to the hospital. Instead he chose to hold it together with duct tape until it healed. I remember some of the other characters that were in the club like Pappy, Frenchie, Rusty, and Big John. Big John died tragically when he crashed his tricked out Harley on the highway. No one wore a helmet back in those days. A lot of the times the guys, (and the two women) would hang around on the front steps of our house. It would look like a convention with all of the hog Harleys lined up in the street out front. My mom would usually feed them when they came over. After a few years my brother joined the Army and was shipped off to Vietnam and the “boys’ didn’t come around very much anymore.
Of course the most famous of all of the motorcycle “clubs” was the Hells Angels of California. Some say that they got the name from World War I and II flying squadrons like The Flying Tigers. There was actually another squadron named the Hells Angels, but the motorcycle chapter’s website denies the connection. They shot to fame from exaggerated news reports of the Hollister riot in the late forties where they supposedly took over a small town and terrorized all of the citizens. The movie “The Wild Ones” staring Marlon Brando was based on reports of the incident. (www.wikipedia.com) Later, on in the sixties, Hunter S. Thompson would write a book (Hells Angels) about his experiences riding with them. He almost didn’t survive.
The clubs like the Hells Angels and the Saddle Tramps have been nicknamed the “one percenters” by the American Motorcyclist Association and that’s probably true. Most cyclists are retirees and business professionals and working class folks. Now, according to a story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, (www.stltoday.com) bikers finally get their own memorial in Roxana, Illinois. Some thirteen clubs across the state contributed to its making. The memorial includes large stones bearing the name of each club and 74 bricks with the names of area motorcyclists that have been killed in accidents over the past few years.
Big John and the others who died when I knew them probably aren’t on the memorial. It happened too long ago. But for the spirit of freedom that I experienced as a little boy riding on the back of a Chopper, I salute them.
