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FReeper Motorcycle Hooligan |
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(Yes, I know the 1947 incident was nowhere near as bad as portrayed in LIFE Magazine and in the movie -- the above photo was staged)
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FReeper Motorcycle Hooligan |
| Send FReepmail if you want on/off FMH list | |
(Yes, I know the 1947 incident was nowhere near as bad as portrayed in LIFE Magazine and in the movie -- the above photo was staged)
Woo, good thing, I thought I was busted! <|:-)
Nice pics. Chrome dresser is cool!
Helmets,,oh my!
Cool ride! Thanks for the ping and the pictures.
Now try to imagine at least twenty times as many bikes. In Milwaukee, the organizers are limiting the number of participants in Harley 100th Anniversary celebration parade to a mere 10,000 bikes.
Regarding the staged photo, I thought I'd read somewhere that it wasn't even his bike!
Indeed it was. That pic is of Don Middleton of Rockford, IL, then 19 years old and in California on a visit, and happy to oblige the photog who later sold his staged pics to Life Magazine. The Life article was followed by an even more imaginative fixtionalized account by writer Frank Rooney entitled Cycle Raid and published in Harper's Magazine. Read by Stanley Kramer, the yarn was tirned into a screenplay by John Paxton, with the resulting film staring Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin. The rest is history.
Don Middleton passed away in 1996, and was remenbered a year later in a short ceremony by some of those who had been there that day fifty years before. The beatnik-looking fella in the background wasn't one of the bikers, though, but is Gus Despera, a Hollister resident who still resides there. And still shows up as a welcome guest at the annual Hollister event biker parties. Boozefighters up!
