I knew a bunch of them in Charlotte when i was a kid. I ran with a rough crowd, and had several of the local bikers “take me under their wing” so to speak.
That Church that you were working on is about 1/4 mile from where we hung out off Tuckaseegee. We were closer to Camp Greene.
I grew up catty corner behind Freddy Scarnichia’s Mom, and knew him since I was a kid. He was a motorcycle mechanic that worked on their bikes when I knew him. I lost touch with him, and about 10 years later I read he had become the East Coast Chapter President after Thunder Fizarro was found in a car trunk. A couple years later they found Freddy in a car trunk, or the equivalent.
There was a long running war between the Outlaws, and the Angels, the worst of which was the massacre out on Mt Holly Huntersville Rd in 76 when they found 5 Outlaws, and their women executed.
It’s funny most people don’t know that the guys in leathers, beards, and riding formation, are just the ground soldiers now. The generals wear double breasted suits and drive Porsches and ‘Vettes. At least they did when I hung around them.
I guess the point I was making was the same as yours. I never had a seconds problem from any of them. As a matter of fact, I was a fat kid, and got picked on a lot before I toughened up a little, and those guys helped do that. Plus NOBODY messed with me after they found out I was friends with those guys. I can’t say I didn’t do a lot of stupid things back then, but I also learned a lot of the things that have kept me and my family safe since then. I don’t condone the criminal activity some of them are involved in, but I understand all too well how some of them get swept into that life. It’s fairly exciting when you’re a kid.
I also don’t go all panicky when I see a group of them like most people do. The only knowledge of them coming from the same TV that gives everyone such a wonderful impression of guns. LOL. They might test you, but if you stand your ground and show that you have a set, they’ll respect you for the most part and leave you alone.
Small world indeed!
That church was the old Garr Tabernacle that used to be the Charlotte Civic Auditorium. In 1928-9, Dr. Alfred G. Garr bought the building for scrap and moved it, literally brick by brick, to Tuckasegee Road.
That was a pretty rough area when you hung out there. By the time that I was doing ministry there in 1995, it was over run with crack heads, pimps, and “ladies of the night”.
It is remarkable to me that some of us survived our youth and others that should have did not fair so well. Perhaps God allows for a brief moment of our lives to be lived in the sewer so that we can reach others with our testimonies when we turn it around.