Angels Among Us

I think it was my first post last summer, when I wrote that summers are great here in Gunnison, CO.  From Memorial Day through Labor Day, there is some event happening every weekend.  Good old all-American activities like a weekly farmer's market, local bands playing downtown each weekend, an Art in the Park festival, a super fireworks show, and the balloon festival.

This weekend is no exception, while maybe not quite as all-American as the previous weekends, this one is off to an interesting start.  This weekend more than 300 members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang are staying in town.  It's not quite like the old days when the town would empty when Bonnie and Clyde came to town.  But the town definitely prepared.  About 150 policemen and state troopers from other areas of the state came to provide extra law enforcement.  The strategy of the police seems to be to shadow each group of cycles wherever they go.  If you see more than five motorcycles going down the street, they have a police car alongside or behind.  Still, I have seen several arrests being made.  But overall, so far at least, not too much excitement.  Hopefully it stays that way. 

The Angels last came to town in 2002.  According to news reports, they were very well behaved.  In the three days there was only one murder!  Oh yeah, and a rape.  Guess the bar for good behavior is set a little low where the Hell's Angels are concerned.  As the national security director for one of my accounts said, "They are trying hard to remake their image, but for each picture you see of one of them with a Santa sack full of toys for kids, I can show you a picture of a dead body."  Kind of puts them back in perspective.  

My only other experience with the gang was with one of the members back in the 1980's when I had the book store.  One of my most regular customers was a guy named Charlie.  He was a Hell's Angel that had moved from California a few years earlier.  He looked just like you would picture a Hell's Angel.  Long stringy black hair, a leather hat, a leather vest with the Angel's colors on the back, big black leather boots, spiked leather gloves, and spiked leather armbands.  And of course, the cigar.  When I bought the store, I made it non-smoking.  Charlie had no problem with the new policy.  He just broke the cigar into pieces and chewed it.

Charlie came in just about every Sunday.  During football season, he had the habit of arriving just as the Cowboys (knew I had to work them in here, didn't you?) came on the radio.  And Charlie loved to talk.  He would talk for hours about mystery novels.  Mickey Spillane was his favorite.  I don't think I ever read a Spillane novel, but I knew the story line of all 100+.  He did turn me onto a a couple of good writers.  I especially liked the noir style of Jim Thompson that Charlie recommended.

What really made Charlie interesting was his mode of transportation.  When he came to Texas, he fell on some hard times.  An accident destroyed his motorcycle and left him with a bit of a limp.  He replaced his Harley with what we now call a "townie" bicycle.  If you aren't familiar with the townie, it is a throwback style of bicycle that looks like the bicycles that were popular in the 1950's and 1960's.  Especially in small college towns like Gunnison, townies are cool now.  In Texas in the mid and late 1980's bicycles weren't cool.  And townies especially weren't cool.  They were just old and cheap.  And to further add to the image of the leather and spike clad Hell's Angel riding through the city on an old style baby blue bicycle, add a wire basket to the handlebars.  Oh yeah, fill the basket with paperback mystery novels.

I once asked Charlie why he hadn't replaced his Harley.  He had a good job at a factory in Grand Prairie that made either Colt revolvers or ammunition, I can't quite remember which.  He was saving every cent possible to make his dream come true.  His goal was to buy a hearse and convert it to a home on wheels.  When I sold the book store, Charlie was still riding around Arlington, TX on an outdated rickety bicycle.  

One day, several years after I had last seen Charlie, I was driving in the usual heavy traffic near the campus in downtown Arlington.  While I was sitting in the left lane, a hearse passed me on the left and pulled into the left turn lane.  I glanced over at it and saw the famous Hell's Angel colors in the back window.  When my light turned green, I slowly passed the hearse and looked over.  The windows were covered with black curtains, each with the Harley Davidson logo.  The front window was rolled down and blue cigar smoke was rolling out.  There in the driver's seat, complete with scraggly beard, leather hat, and big smelly cigar sat Charlie looking as happy as could be.  

I would bet the back was filled with Mickey Spillane novels too.  I guess dreams do come true.  

A Nation of Cowards????

Our current Attorney General, Eric Holder, has been quoted as saying that America is a "nation of cowards when it comes to race."  

One of the bright spots in this early "WTH" moment has been the focus by some on the true history of race in our country.  First Glenn Beck brought David Barton to his show to give some true history of the contributions of black Americans (I refuse to hyphenate, we are all Americans) to the revolution.  One of my favorite segments was about James Armistead who was one of our country's first and most important spies.  He was one of many black patriots whose story was taught in American history classes, until Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive movement decided to remove their story from history in order to create a repressed class of citizens dependent on, or "owed" by the government.

I won't go into a rehash of Mr. Barton's biographies, but will mention two of my favorites from Texas history.  The first is the basis of a character in my favorite book, Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.  In the novel, the two former Texas Rangers, Gus and Call, depend on a former slave who has worked with and for them since their ranger days, Deets.  In the opening scene of the book, Deets is returning from a three day trip to San Antonio after making their bank deposits.  They send Deets because they trust him, and who would expect a black cowboy to be carrying that much cash?  Deets is based on a real hero of the old west, Bose Ikard.  Ikard was a hired hand, and former slave, who worked with and for Oliver Loving, and after Loving's death, Loving's partner, Charles Goodnight.  Gus and Call are partially based on Loving and Goodnight.    Goodnight said of Ikard, "he was my detective, banker, and everything else in Colorado, New Mexico, and any other wild country I was in."  When Ikard died, Goodnight had a granite marker engraved with the following epitaph, which will seem very familiar to Lonesome Dove fans:  "Bose Ikard served with me four years on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, never shirked a duty or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with Comanches, splendid behavior."

Could anyone, black or white, ask for a better memorial?  Sounds like the rampant racism we were taught in history classes?  Hardly, and this was in Texas, shortly after the Civil War.  

The other story comes from a historical marker less than five miles from my parent's house in Young County, Texas.

 After reading this marker on one of my trips home, I did some research on Britt Johnson.  (Once again, thank you Al Gore for the internet!  You deserve a massage!)  Johnson was a former slave who became a respected and much sought after scout and mule driver.  While away on a trail drive, his brother and son were killed by raiding Kiowas and Comanches.  They also kidnapped his younger son and wife.  Johnson trailed the kidnappers until he found them.  He lived with them for a winter and negotiated the release of his family.  This act made him famous in the area where such raids and kidnappings were common.  He tracked down and either negotiated the release, or rescued victims of at least two other raids.  Unfortunately, this did not endear him to the Comanches and Kiowas.  As the marker above relates, the Kiowas eventually got their revenge on Johnson and two other black men who were accompanying him in Young County.  Johnson's exploits in the Elm Creek Raid, where Goodnight was also a major participant, were the basis for John Ford's movie, The Searchers, starring John Wayne as a character based on Britt Johnson.   

As these two stories illustrate, even in Texas, shortly after the Civil War, Americans "judged (others) based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin."  Just as Dr. Martin King dreamed.  Why is our current department of justice not living up to this heritage?  Is it possible that Mr. Holder and President Obama are cowards when it comes to the issue of race in America.  What would happen to their agenda if the race card were removed from their playbook?  I guess we can dream too.

Fourth of July and Winning

If you are ever nostalgic for the America that you remember from Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best, (when was the last time the media told us that Father does know best?), plan your summer vacation around visiting a small town on Independence Day.  I lived for maaany years in Arlington, TX.  It has been about 40 years since Arlington could have been considered a small town.  Still, it had a good parade and an excellent fireworks show.  But looking for a parking spot in a crowd of thousands of cars does not give you that nostalgic, patriotic feeling.  It mostly gave me a headache.

Last year, I wrote about the wonderful fireworks show, parade, and balloon festival here in Gunnison.  Just about 50 miles away is a very small town called Lake City.  I haven't seen their fireworks yet, but to me the main draw is the reading of the Declaration of Independence.   They have colonial re-enactors ring bells and performing a reading on the town square.  I think we all need to be reminded of our history and what the holiday is all about.

When I was a kid in Gruver, TX, we had a great celebration in the city park (yes, THE city park, there was only one).  They had a greased pole with a pocket knife taped to the top.  Anyone who could climb to the top got the knife.  When I was 11, the new kid in town, Russell Murphy made it.  I think they had used the same knife for the past five years.  No one had even come close to getting to the top.   The city workers also put pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters in the sandbox for a real life treasure hunt.  Rumor was that a kid found a silver dollar back in '72.  All I ever found was pennies and the occasional gift from stray cats.

I have mellowed with age, but until very recently, I was extremely competitive.  I once bragged to a co-worker that I beat my 10 year old daughter 32 - 10 in "slug bug / bruiser cruiser" on the way to work.  He was just as competitive.  His wife threatened to make him walk if he didn't stop counting PT cruisers on their drive.  Anyway, my competitive drive was still in its early stages back in Gruver.  I wasn't very athletic, but I really thought through the games.  One I was sure I would win was the shoe race.   In a shoe race, competitors take off their shoes and the judges mix them into a big pile at one end of the park.  The competitors return to the other end.  Then they race to the pile, put on their shoes and race back to the finish line.  In those pre-velcro days, I concluded that a lot of time was wasted tying the shoes.  So, I wore my cowboy boots, figuring that the loss of some of my already tortoise-like speed would be more than offset by not having to tie my sneakers.  When the shoes were piled, I discovered an unforeseen benefit - mine were the only boots in the pile!  When the whistle blew, we all ran for the pile.  I arrived in about the middle of the pack and immediately grabbed my boots, pulled them on and raced back.  But my friend, Clifton was also starting back and he was faster!  He also was a strategist - he had marked his white shoes with a red magic marker and didn't bother tying them.  So as we ran back toward the finish line, I was slipping all over the dried mid-summer straw that passes for grass in July in Texas.  Clifton was stopping every ten yards to put his shoes back on.  We traded the lead back and forth like NASCAR drivers on pit stops.  And as we slipped and tripped the last few yards, Curt passed us both, with his nice tightly tied PF Flyers.  Speed beats strategy every time.

My last chance at a blue ribbon was in the bicycle race.  As I said before, I was athletically challenged, so I didn't even come close to the blue ribbon, or the red, or the green.  I think I finished fifth out of eight.  My little sister, LeAnne, the most athletically gifted, but somehow the least competitive of all of us raced in the second grader's race.  She could not have cared less about winning.  So at the whistle, she took off at a leisurely pace and wove all over the street like a drunken sailor, waving to everyone she might possibly know.  She fell so far behind, I was almost embarrassed for her.  Or at least would have been if she were not my sister.   Then I learned how cruel life can be.  LeAnne was so far behind her race that the first grader's race started.  She finished just ahead of the first six year old to cross the line.  In fact, she was so far behind the last place finisher in her race, the judges thought she won the next race!  With a huge smile, she took her blue ribbon and proudly showed it to all her friends, and of course to all my friends.  Then, it occupied a prominent place on the bulletin board in her room.  Until it mysteriously disappeared.  Last summer our dad found the perfect sign to take the place of the ribbon in her game room.  It says, "I'm so far behind, it looks like I'm ahead."  Some people are just winners, no matter where and when they finish.