Recently I posted an old picture of myself dating back to about 1971(?) and the 'remains' of my rags as they look today.

As was the custom then, a prospect/newbie would buy a brand new jean jacket, cut the sleeves off because we knew why, and have the pristine white three patches sewn to the back when he earned them and was voted in. They would never look that way again. It was also the custom to let them 'age' in a combination or chain cast-off, road grit, having them bounced off a barroom floor (with you in them) and other indignities too vile to mention in a family oriented forum. Additionally, they were never washed. Mine never have been, even now.

One of the UW teaching assistants took a series of pictures for me, and as I finished my smoke to leave, she snapped one last shot of my pretty new rags.

BI63, were we ever really that young, stupid and vain? I was so full of myself that I even slept in them.

https://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb23 ... g010-1.jpg

...and they were never that clean again...

and they should never be.

Agreed, it was an era in time. About one year ago I saw a documentary on the Angels, and they were very clean-cut. Again, my era came and went.

BTW, as for "being clean," I stopped smoking soon after that, thankfully. Along with intense exercise and staying out of smoky bars for decades before Madison went smoke-free, my doctor tells me my lungs are clean, open, and they displace 6 liters. That's about 40 years, no backsliding.

As my colors got older they got dirtier. As I got older I got cleaner. Like I've always said, the kid in these photos was one foolish, naïve SOB.

In this case, the initials stand for Stupid Obtuse Biker.

Great to see you're not being warned,banned or censored for sharing a very real part of your development. A part not many have the balz to partake in or that any organization springing up today knows how to properly implement. Todays neuvo riche' new riders want the bike and mail order colors ergo Black Label, SOA and to many other fly by night colors for cash grabs. Its gonna blow up one day soon. It always does, its cyclical.

I'm glad, too. However I think everyone knows me by now and understands that demystifying the past is one of my tenet beliefs. I have always said that I was not a biker when I first patched, but I was a real biker when I left the club. It might sound counterintuitive, but it's the truth.

This 'real biker' thing will never leave our debates. It's a lexicon word by now. Funny how we are all different and yet everyone thinks his lifestyle is valid of consideration.

Not true. That boy on that bike had perhaps 18 months of untrained rider skills when he sat on that Harley. And despite those badass colors, he passed real-deal hippies on the road that had better skills and more saddle time as they rode their Vespa scooters.

The difference is not what he wore or what he rode, but how he evolved. The defining attributes of his credentials for being a 'real biker' were the values and life lessons he saw and learned by mentors who cared enough to teach him.

Going on line and buying SOA colors and then popping out a credit card for a Blackline is hardly the same experience and imparts zip, zero, zilch ideology that one might need later in life.

One thing our founding prez reviled was thievery. Some clubs have a loose network of selling stolen motorcycles and their parts. Our prez sent out an enforcer committee upon learning a full patch member possessed a stolen front end. I know, I was on that committe. The full patch holder was the best man at my wedding.

One of the biggest regrets of my life is the time I lied and wrapped myself in false glory. Today 'bikers' get on the internet, lie like rugs from their mom's basement, and use the excuse that 'everyone does it.'

"Hey, c'mon, Tourist, it's just the internet."

No, it's not. It's part of your life. Part of the experience you will one day look back on with shame and regret. And from my point of view, those life lessons are of more value than that embroiddered patch on that boy's back. "Real bikers"? My sincere belief is that most of the guys who claim that title couldn't even be FOC, most likely never make prospect, and certainly never hold a full patch.

When the 'era' just becomes a costume and you do not live the values, you are not authentic. You want to wear your grandfather's clothes, then adopt his values.

I disagree, respectably.

Sometimes it takes more balz to NOT be a club member.

I ride FOC, I don't have anyone to do my bidding or have my back. I ride for the pure pleasure of the sport. But when I stop and sit on my bar stool and some drunken "townies" decide to mess with me I have only myself to back me up. My "bros" are located on the ends of my arms and legs.
I have a very checkered past and I just dont feel that the "INTERNET" is the place for me to discuss it. So you can show off your tats and colors but keep in mind gentlemen that there are some very bad/dangerous people that keep that side of their lives private, the way I was always taught to.

That's the choice we make as free men. BI63 will ride FOC, and technically I did it for years. And truthfully I never knew a single individual who was 'scouted' by an MC. It's like a very smelly fraternity, you have to ask to get in.

Some people do not need clubs. I did. Lousy homelife, and my Dad was an enabler. He seriously believed that if you keep quiet it's best for everyone. Other than use a few hand-tools, he taught me very little. I even had to get other kids to teach me how to swing a bat.

For guys like me--and there were thousands--the MC lifestyle of the 1960s was the very thing we needed. And I always add that it was the gift that kept on giving, I use those ideals to this day, some forty years from the day I patched.

Study the college protest years. Those were kids who never learned to respect anything or anyone.

Maybe and on occasional as there are exceptions to any rule but as a rule its aparently easier to play a pretend role(poser),key board commando. I'd certainly rather be a 1% than a LEO any day. At least the 1% doesn't pretend like he is the good guy.

Well, I intended to show a funny picture, evoke a laugh from some of the graybeards here, and take a trip down memory lane. Instead I found the necessity to explain the past. I didn't pretend to be anything, I just enjoyed the hell out of the late 1960s, even if I was a goofy kid--that's all.

Within the membership here we undoubtedly have guys with pictures of themselves as hippie sandal freaks, disco dancers in lime green day-glo Staying Alive trash, and more than a few dressed in drag for Halloween parties. It's our past, we share photos, we laugh.

I found a stack of old pictures. Forty years have passed. It's a bike forum. Some folks need to connect the dots.

I have 8MM footage of 1960's Laconia that my mother took everytime we went, some I've put on VHS tapes. Triple engine triumph,scrambles,general hanging around the campgrounds,the convergence of multiple race teams to informally challenge each other at the campgrounds

I was given my adopted fathers AMA pins and belt buckles from the late 50's and early 60's. And various photo's from that era.

My favorite picture is my adopted father doing a evil kneival on his Sportster over a pretty steep berm and he is airborne wearing his cuffed jeans,duck tail hairdo and fonzi type leather motorcycle jacket and with a big grin on his face.

My biological father has great stories of kicking ass during 1960's Laconia,getting arrested once but having the cops give him a break being as he didn't start the fight. His oponent manned up and agreed, sparing my father a weekend in jail. BEing from North Carolina he wasn't relishing being incarcerated in yankee land.