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.  

Hometown and Roots

If you aren't familiar with Steinbeck's Travels with Charley:  In Search of America, it is his observations about America and Americans as he travels from Maine to California with his dog Charley.  From the very beginning of the book, he writes about his yearning to be on the move.  He also notices the longing looks he gets from both friends and total strangers when he talks about his plans.  He feels that Americans have an inborn need to travel and explore.

One of his observations early in the book is of the large numbers of mobile homes he is seeing on the interstates.  At one point, Steinbeck has dinner with a family whose mobile home sits alone on a hill near the highway.  He asks about the lack of roots such a lifestyle provides.  The man says that his family has never had roots.  His father came over from Italy and lived in New York apartments moving with the availability of work.  His wife's family had the same experience coming over from Ireland, where their "roots" tied them to a land during famine.  They welcomed the opportunity to cut the roots and come to America.

Steinbeck predicts that the mobile homes will become more popular, since they offer a nice, inexpensive home that is, by definition, mobile.  If work or opportunity presents itself in a new location, all the mobile home owner has to do is pay for a trucking company to move their home to a new location.  No more being tied to a specific area because of a home that you may not be able to sell.  Maybe that will be the next recycled new idea to come out of the current tough economy and housing market.  

Steinbeck also speculates about the previously mentioned American need to be on the move and to explore.  He thinks that maybe the need is genetic.  Other than the relatively small Native American population, all of us came here from somewhere else.  Our ancestors pulled up their roots and came to America.  Whether we inherited the desire to move, or we learned the behavior from our ancestors, it has always been there.  And, as Steinbeck points out, from the beginning of mankind, we have moved constantly in search of food or a better climate.  Today we do the same in search of better employment or business opportunities.

Another interesting observation is about communication.  He mentions calling home at least twice a week to get in touch with his wife during his journey and reconnect with who he is.  He uses the analogy of a comet.  His past and responsibilities are the tail he carries with him like a comet's tail.  Steinbeck muses that only 100 years prior to his cross country journey, families moved from east to west going years without communicating with friends and family "back home."  Today,50 years after Steinbeck's travels, with cell phones, we are rarely out of touch for more than an hour. Even in the unpopulated, mountainous area that I live in, I am very rarely in an area where I can't be reached by cell phone.  Does that make me more mobile, or just give me a longer tail?

  

 

Hometown

One advantage to business being down this winter is that I'm not working 60-80 hours a week this year.  That leaves some time to do more recreational activities.  Of course the disadvantage to working less hours with slower sales is the decrease in income.  That seems to be one of the unfair facts of life.  If you are making money, you have no time.  If you have time, you are not making money.  Such is life.

So, I have been reading more than I have in several years.  Two books I read this week both have hometowns and roots as a major theme.  The first one is Larry McMurtry's wrap-up of his first protagonist, Duane Moore from The Last Picture Show.  In this new book, Rhino Ranch, Duane feels disconnected from his hometown of Thalia.  A wealthy philanthropist has started a preserve to save the rhino and the town welcomes the business and money, but not the people involved.  Duane is torn between loyalty for his town and disgust for the way they treat outsiders (anyone who hasn't lived there for their entire life).  And even worse, as he ages, he is becoming one of the outsiders.  His successful oil company is now being run by his son, and now if the young people know him at all, it is just through stories or rumors about his series of wives and scandals.  He even goes through the stereotypical you young 'uns get off my lawn old man stage.  Well, sort of.  His involves the omnipresent meth cookers.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has read the previous books in the Duane Moore saga:  The Last Picture Show, Texasville, and Duane's Depressed.  It's a good, quick read.  As longtime Dallas sportswriter, Blackie Sherrod once said, McMurtry has written great books and good books.  The story might not be great, but he can't write a bad book. 

The second book I'm reading this week is John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley.

I think I'll write about it in tomorrow's post.

Patriots

I've always enjoyed American history.  I never have been able to get interested in world history too much.  I guess I just don't have the imagination to be able to identify with Charlemagne, the Russian czars, or King Louis I-XXXIV, or whatever.  But I love American history.  I am currently reading A Patriot's History of the United States. Unlike a lot of history books, it is very readable. And very informative.  Just a trivia note, I learned today where Cajun originated.  At the beginning of King George's War in 1755, a group of colonists took it upon themselves to take Acadia (Nova Scotia) from the French settlers.  At the end of the war, the British gave much of the conquered territories back to the French, but kept Acadia.  They were concerned about having French loyalists in their Nova Scotia, so they deported them.  A group of the deportees relocated in current Louisiana and were called Cajuns, a slurred version of Acadians.  That also explains the presence of their French influenced dialect.  Impress your friends at the bar with that little bit of trivia.  

One side note, I am reading this book on the Kindle Reader for PC.  It seems that as I am getting older more mature, those evil publishers are printing books with smaller type.  With the free Kindle Reader,I can download Kindle books to my laptop and read them in a slightly larger font.  I can also read in a poorly lit room (i.e. any room in our built in the 40's house).  Another advantage is that the Kindle version is generally cheaper than the hardback and I get it within seconds of ordering it.  There are also a lot of free books available for the Kindle.  The only downside is the fact that they aren't books.  As a former bookstore owner, I really like the smell, feel, and look of a book.  So I will probably end up buying hard copies of this one and a couple of others I have read on the Kindle.