“Bikers aren’t all thugs.”
Your comment reminded me of an “ex” Hell’s Angel that I while working as a project manager on a large construction job in Charlotte, NC back in 1995. I was doing ministry work at night and found out that the old church we were ministering in was up from the corner of Trade and Tuckasegee where a Hell’s Angel bar used to be. My friend told me that they used to get drunk and shoot at the “Jesus Saves” sign that was on the roof at the time. He couldn’t believe that he was now saved and helping me to work on the building.
His life away from work was a literal hell, between family members staying in trouble, and the feds harassing him. I lost touch with him in 1997 and had no luck trying to find him until your post prompted me to try a “Bing” search on his name. It turns out that my friend stuck a knife in somebody in a biker bar in Rock Hill last May. Apparently he is still an active Hell’s Angel as he is listed on their website.
The funny thing was how my four year old daughter walked up to this fellow who was well over six feet tall, with a big belly, and patted that belly calling him her “Buddy Bill”. He had tears running down his face.
I am going to visit him in prison as soon as I find out where he is.
Glad to have helped...
Did you ever see the movie ‘The Godfather’? Did you catch yourself halfway through the movie rooting for these killers? Many people did. As I’m sure it did for many people, it spurred a thought process within me - and one of the main conclusions was that such people were guaranteed to exist - a world far away from the comfort I thought of as reality - and that I preferred that at least these people had a set of morals, were human, and ultimately the people who they ended up hurting knew exactly what they were getting into, and most likely in at least some sense deserved thair fate.
Only right at the end of the film does that fact change, when a woman in bed with a gangster is (presumably) killed. Has even she made a bad choice about joining a world of easy money in exchange for a risk she knew existed?
It’s just a movie of course. Is life really like that in any sense? Is there a valid point there?
Certainly the end of the movie is all about that point, especially with Michael in the religious environment while everyone is being killed, with a face we haven’t seen before, I feel like the director really was laughing at his audience, saying “haha, I got you to support the devil”. But up until that point, he wasn’t the devil, so it was a bait and switch..
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.