Well, I am deciding on joining a club. I was never a club kind of guy. I operated by myself or with one other person. Now, things being as they are in America, I feel that being with some like-mined men; yeah, I think so. Haven't had that since 1970 and our Charles House gang. We were a unit. Now it's a choice of where exactly I fit in. I'm older now. A titanium knee, a new shoulder, and two back operations. Can I keep up? Ride here. Ride there. I don't know. Guys I've ridden with in the past were riders that all went their own way. Always an issue. Who didn't gas up. Who dropped way behind. Who just decided to disappear. Couple clouds on the horizon, a couple would turn around and go home. That always irked me. Didn't want to get their bike wet or God forbid, dirty!
I'm not a shine by day rider. I don't care that much. It's not an affliction for Christ's Sake. It's just a motorcycle with some dried dust. I like a warm summer rain on me when I ride. Especially on a hot day. The smell of fresh rain...it's a good thing. My pickup? It's white. White doesn't show dirt hardly. So I wash it a few times a year. No big deal. Who cares? I don't. I see a bunch of patches and everybody close in formation. I like it. No stragglers. The guys you leave with are the guys you come home with. I have a lot to offer. A club could do worse than me. I'm thinking anyway. Maybe not. We'll find out. Thin that also weighs on my mind is my age. By the time I get to be close friends with anyone, I might be dead. The alternative is continuing this somewhat boring routine. I work. I come in. I eat. I watch some TV or read a book. I hate traveling anymore. With the seats smaller and my ass bigger, never the twain shall meet. Last two times traveling back from New Orleans I was stuck in Charlotte 7 hours due to bad connections. I haven't flown down to see my son in 5 years. I drive. 22 hours down and a longer 22 hours back. I still prefer the truck to airports. Rode the Harley down last visit. Left Rochester May 1st and it was 37 degrees. Hit snow on Lake Erie. By the time I hit Toledo I was a popsicle. 75 mph at 37 degrees...and I was stiff as a three day old dead cat. They should have dry saunas interspersed along the thruway for motorcycle riders. Like a month in May and another in November. Up along the lake all the way to Washington State. You pay $10.00, get inside with your leathers on, and bake for 10 minutes. "Bake the bread" so to speak, with other ice cube bikers. Where you going? How you doing? What are you ridin'. Where you from? How frozen are you. You're nose looks a cadaver's. Might have to come off. You probably should have it looked at. I've seen that movie, the cowboy with the leather nose...not a bad look...go for it, I'd say. Hell, you're nose is huge anyway...hehe. Then back on the road. Big, like a walk-in freezer with long benches, only with convective heat and some deep infrared ray beams whatever. Warms from the marrow out. But back to this club business...whenever you do anything there is an opposite reaction that is the same or greater. With wives in particular. You married guys know this. You move as much as a lamp 9" from where it was and they have it back in place the minute you turn your back. I take a jacket out of my closet to wear and before I can put it on, it's back in the damn closet. Things may suffer on the home front. Wives don't especially like change. At least the ones I've had. You move their cheese and it results in--perturbation. You've been married 34 years and NOW you decide to "join a club"...? Really! Who's the woman. Well, no woman...it's a club, honey. My ass it's a club...you don't love me. Anyway, that you have to deal with your own way. old hollywood prom dresses
It's a choice. And a commitment. You can't, after a month or three of investment--you in them and they in you--and say "my wife doesn't like it." You won't find any sympathetic ears I doubt. You'll get: "you should have thought of that before you joined, asshole." And that's why I'm here discussing this with myself--and some of you. I have been going to all the club events. for years. I'm good among my kind. But still a "civilian." No patch. And without a patch you are kind of a nothing. You're like a planet in no solar system. Just out there hanging....f-ing lone planet... You're an uncommitted guy that is a voyeur, an interloper, and you have no "family" around you. Tolerated but not included. All my pals are bikers and club members of one organization or another. I just need to find where I belong. And time's going by. And time is not what I have an abundance of. We shall see. Billy D. On the up side? You get to have a place in something larger than yourself and less empty folding chairs at your wake. On the downside? The wife notwithstanding, nobody really wants you. lol. And that possibility you have to live with as well. In fact, upon that end, you might have to ask yourself what the hell the wife sees in you anyway? And work on straightening up your shit. Take a bath for starters.