OPINION
I’m now 82 years old. Since I was a little boy, I’ve always loved motorcycles. I grew up in a little steel mill town, Verona, Pennsylvania, on the Allegheny River.
Across the river was another steel mill town called Harmarville and there was a motorcycle club there. This was the era of Marlon Brando and The Wild One. The name of their club was the Harmar Villains. I loved it and they would come across the river and go to a diner called the TV Diner, named in that era because they had a television set where you could watch TV. They brought their girlfriends, aka “Mamas,” and watched TV inside and made a lot of noise with their motorcycles outside in the parking lot. The owner of the diner put up a sign on the parking lot wall that said “No Motorcycles Allowed.” Immediately the Villains returned telling the cops they thought it meant they weren’t allowed to be on the wall. At that point in my little Irish rebel mind I thought this makes sense.
And then in our neighborhood one still unnamed guy I grew up with bought a Harley Hummer, it was a very small motorcycle, I think 125 cc, two cycle Harley Davidson.
Hard for anyone to believe but I suspect he had stolen it. And I was about 13 when I got to ride my first motorcycle. After that I was hooked.
The first time I saw outlaw motorcyclists I was on the Nimitz Freeway and passed by two members of a one percent motorcycle club. The term one percent came from an event in California in Hollister and that was the famous Life magazine staged picture of the drunk, rowdy biker, and Stanley Kubrick picked up the story and made the motion picture The Wild One with Marlon Brando. One of the actresses asked, “What are you rebelling against?” and Brando, in the character of Johnny retorts, “What do you got.” I saw that and something went off in my head.
Much later having gone through a number of motorcycles including Hondas and following bypass surgery I said, what am I missing? And the answer was motorcycles.
And I went to Vinnie Terranova’s shop, Rocky Mountain Harley Davidson. The first time I went into the original dealership it resembled the bar scene in Star Wars. I was hooked again.
My first Harley was a Deuce, and I immediately graduated up to big motorcycles and then I got a chopper.
Then I had two motorcycles and when somebody said how many are enough the answer always was — the next one.
I am now a member of the Ugly Brothers Motorcycle Club. I’ve had a very lengthy conversation with the late Peter Fonda, another milestone, Easy Rider. I found out the title came from New Orleans and a place called Storyville where Louis Armstrong was born. It was shut down by the American military in the First World War, and it was full of gambling, drugs, and prostitution. The easy rider was the man who lived with the prostitute. He didn’t pay her and he didn’t make money from her. He was not her pimp, he was the easy rider.
What was explained to me was we are easy riding freedoms. If there’s one thing that motorcycles are, it’s freedom. I’ve ridden up and back to Sturgis 25 times. I hang out with some individuals that I respect and love that would not be accepted by the general population. And they are some of the best.
Now, I’m an old man. Several years ago, I had a minor stroke. And was having a very difficult time riding two wheels. My response? Get a trike. I have become the ice cream man from hell. The trike is like a motorcycle except it has two back wheels. I can’t drop it.
This column appears in the March issue. The weather is changing. Leaves are going to be green pretty soon and you’ll see a lot more motorcycles out there.
Louis Armstrong — he hated being called “Louie” when asked about jazz — said if I have to explain it to you, you won’t get it.
I’ve learned to say the same thing about motorcycles and motorcycling. If I have to explain it, you won’t get it. There are certain kinds of girls that always want to go with you and others who won’t get on for all the tea in China.
I recently even started wearing a helmet and I hope I have a couple more years in me before we go to the big biker rally in the sky.
We know that these kinds of clubs and thought processes had their beginnings after the Second World War. The original Hells Angels were a bomber crew. People like the Top Hatters, and the Boozefighters, and the early outlaws, and now I see these young men back from Iraq and Afghanistan with tattoos on their bodies that say they’re Infidels doing the same thing the men in the ’40s did after the Second World War. It’s hard to think of another product that people will tattoo the corporate logo on their body.
If you have to explain it nobody’s going to get it.
I got the trike as tricked up as I could thanks to Devil’s Head Choppers in Castle Rock. It’s won three awards in motorcycle shows. I take great pride in that.
One day I won’t be able to do it anymore but until that time, get your chin in the wind, get your knees in the breeze. Live to ride. Ride to live.
Thank you.
— Peter Boyles
