I got my latest Harley spring apparel catalog the other day, and I was most gratified to learn that it's 1966 once again. Gee, I hope this isn't one of these "naked and missed my final exam" dreams I hate.

I've noticed that Harley now sells shirts. And in that fashion, there are lots of stripes and plaids. While I think they're ugly as a fistful of aching sphincters, I understand the marketing idea.

MoCo loves the 1960s, and they want to make sure you love the era, too. It's easier to sell you bikes from that time--like peanut tanks, black everything, softails that look like hardtails, and your grandfathers' clothes. I'd like to give you a little lesson in history.

During the mid-1960s the traditional "highschool/switchblade" era was winding down. Most baby-boomer trends were about to come to a bitter end, the war was becoming more of an issue. That seemed to show up in the choice we made in clothes.

That era broke into three distinct trends. The jocks--who wore team jackets with 'flat-top' haircuts. The hoods (or 'greasers' as known in my area) who wore the typical 1940s crap with Cuban heeled shoes. And a new breed we called 'the college.' That's pronounce 'cull-leeg.'

That uniform was maroon jeans, conservative haircuts, and shirts called "madras." They were ugly checkered and striped clothing made to fade when you washed them. The college looked like childish parade floats.

But, alas, other than white button-down dress shirts, that's what they sold. And if a biker needed a shirt (like for a job interview or a funeral) he had to buy a checkered shirt. I have a few of them left at the back of my closet.

Bikers didn't seek out that style--they settled for it. Apparently that makes no difference to MoCo. Somewhere there must be an old picture of a bunch of outlaws on hardtails, burying a brother, and everyone is wearing checkered shirts. Ugly then, ugly now.

But don't let that stop you. You can't look like your grandfather unless you buy every shirt, belt, concho, faded pair of jeans and then run around 'commando' unless you hunt down every detail of the 'uniform.'

I need a few bucks. If you're in my area, please stop by so I can sell you some real-deal biker crap actually purchased during 'the golden age.' Bring Benjamins. Lots of them. I'm not letting go of this valuable era in history for just pennies. And as an added value sevice, this stuff even 'smells' like that time period.

Heck, I can't get out the aroma of cigarette smoke, marijuana, cheap saloon booze, cheaper bike-chick perfume, a layer of road bugs, replete with sweat stains so vile they will make your eyes instantly tear up, and I've been washing the stuff for over three decades...

Edit: I'm not kidding, guys, I got these shirts from the back of my closet:

https://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb23 ... 01-136.jpg

Don't let MoCo see um. They'll be in next years catalog! And there goes your Benjamins.

LOL. You should see the flannel shirts I still have from that era. I think someone cut up a bunch of picnic blankets or the seat covers from a red 1960s VW Beetle.

As an older biker I have to pose this question. Truth or dare, are modern 'bikers' so hard up for recognition and glory that even ugly shirts from the 1960s are a valid boost to their street creds? Why not just cuff your blue jeans?

BTW, biker babes of that era wore what's known as "vintage Harley caps" with a large babushka tied over the top of it. Do you think that will come back, as well?

Edit: This thing about the shirts was not just a midwest thing. Before I even owned a bike, Hunter Thompson wrote that he saw one Angel in a brand new shirt. Supposedly the Angel got a 'righteous job' and had no good clothes. Shirts weren't tapered then, so what the biker was wearing was just like the white shirts on the TV show "Mad Men." This 'period crap' becomes ridiculous when you study what was actually happening during those years.

I have a nephew that dresses like a hippie, Freak or head whatever we called ourselves in those days. Well tourist, you were a biker. But you get the point, he's copying a by gone era and he's calling it "being an individual". I found a picture of myself taken back in the seventies. At first I thought it was a picture of him. (We look allot alike) I asked my wife when did we take this pic of him? She looked at it and said that's a pic of you daddy. OMG it was. Boy I'm glad those days are over. Anyway I showed the pic to him and asked him if he remembered when I took this pic of him. He looked at it for about an hour then he said "that's not me, that's you" I told him I know. then I said, and you thought you were an individual, hell your just a pale copy of the original. Marketing and technology has destroyed the imaginations of the youth today. They don't know how to create their own era. So they are told they can buy one. They think the way we dressed made us who we were . But it was how we lived made us who we were. The cloths just happened to come along with that life.

I agree. I think newbs also have to get one thing straight about clothes representing "an era."

I didn't buy "road clothes" when I patched. I already had long hair, Wrangler jeans, Frye boots and crappy T-shirts. I wore that stuff from about high school into my freshman year at college. The reason why period hippies wore baggy crap and sandals was that members of Haight-Ashbury Improvement Plan dressed that way before the term became popular. It's where we get the term 'hippie.'

What I do not understand is why modern young bikers don't embrace the period in which they live. For example, I just saw an ad in a bike magazine showcasing a new boot design from BiLT. Modern technology constructed of new fabric components. Why don't 20 year old 'outlaws' wear this stuff and trick out Buells or Viper motorcycles? We did much the same at our time.

Many of our bikes had SU carbs from Jaguar automobiles. The 'old' guys at that time were baffled that perfectly good Linkerts or Bendix Zenith carbs were being thrown away.

The simple fact is that this is why posers are considered posers. They are 20 years old, posing as time travelers. The problem is that they don't fool anyone and get laughed off the planet when they leave the room.

Checkered and plaid shirts? Period garb? Why do you think they're in the back of my closet?