My own son ambushed me at breakfast with legal papers, claiming I was “too mentally declined” to own a motorcycle anymore. Kevin stood there in my kitchen – the kitchen where I’d made him pancakes every Sunday for eighteen years – with a lawyer and a psychiatrist, telling me I needed to sign over my…
My mother-in-law called the cops on me for “attempted kidnapping” when I picked up my own son from school on my motorcycle. Twenty other parents saw her screaming that a “dangerous biker” was trying to abduct her grandson, pointing at my gray beard and leather jacket like they were criminal evidence. The principal had to…
The cops arrested my 68-year-old biker father for assault after he defended himself from three men who attacked him at a gas station, but they let his attackers go because they were “upstanding citizens” and he was just another dirty biker. I watched the security footage later – Dad pumping gas into his Road King,…
An Arizona Highway Patrol officer stops a Harley rider for traveling faster than the posted speed limit. He asks the old biker his name. “Fred.” He replies. “Fred what?” The officer asks. “Just Fred.” The old man responds. The officer is in a good mood and thinks he might give the old biker a break…
I told the funeral director to call the police if any bikers showed up at my mother’s service. “Those people have caused enough pain,” I said, handing him photos from her Facebook. “Especially this one – Tank Williams. If he comes within fifty feet of this funeral home, I want him arrested.” The director looked…
I lost my daughter 13 years ago when my wife left me for another man. Yesterday, I received a letter addressed to “Grandpa Steve,” and my heart nearly stopped when I read what had happened. Thirteen years. That’s how long it had been since I last saw my daughter, Alexandra. She was only 13 years…
Bryanne Sturch had dreamed of running her very own lemonade stand since she was old enough to squeeze lemons. At eight years old, her dream finally took form on a quiet street corner in Chili, Indiana, with nothing more than a simple wooden table, colorful handmade signs, and pitchers filled with fresh lemonade. She wore…
I used to be embarrassed when Grandpa Jack drove me to school on his motorcycle. The other kids’ grandpas wore cardigans and drove sensible sedans, not leather jackets and rumbling Harleys. When I turned thirteen, I told him to drop me off two blocks away so my friends wouldn’t see him. He never complained, just…
I told my father-in-law he could see his grandchildren the day he sold his motorcycle and acted like a normal grandfather. That was six years ago. He chose the bike. Every Sunday, I watch him ride past our house at exactly 2 PM, slowing down just enough to look at the window where his grandchildren…
“You’re an embarrassment,” I told my biker father the last time I saw him alive. His cancer-ravaged body looked small in that hospital bed, but I still couldn’t find an ounce of compassion. All I could see was the worn leather vest hanging on the back of his door, those ridiculous patches and pins he…
I buried my only son yesterday. Then drove home to find someone had spray-painted “Dangerous Old Biker Trash” across my garage door. Thirty years I’ve lived in this neighborhood. Thirty goddamn years of waving to these people, shoveling their sidewalks, fixing their kids’ bicycles for free. Now, they’ve decided I’m the enemy. Because last week,…
“You’re not bringing that biker trash lifestyle near my daughter anymore.” Those were the exact words my own daughter said to me, standing in her $800,000 house that my forty years of factory work helped pay for. The same girl who learned to count by polishing chrome with me, who wore my club’s support shirt…
“They said no motorcycles at Dad’s funeral. Said it would be ‘disruptive’ and ‘inappropriate’ for their establishment.” My mother’s hands were shaking as she hung up the phone with Riverside Funeral Home. I watched the color drain from her face as she continued. “Michael, your father planned this for twenty years. His whole club was…
I was finally going to sell my father’s “death trap” after his stroke. The doctors said he’d never ride again, and at 76, it was time he accepted reality. That ancient Harley had been nothing but trouble – the reason Mom left us, the excuse for every missed school event, the endless Sunday mornings I…
I declared my father-in-law mentally incompetent to sell off his motorcycle collection. That stubborn old biker was eighty-three, still riding his Harley through mountain passes, still refusing to move into assisted living despite falling twice last month. It was easier than I expected – just a few doctor’s appointments where I did all the talking,…
They made me take off my military motorcycle vest at my own grandson’s funeral because the pastor said it was “inappropriate for a house of God.” Forty years of wearing those patches with pride, including the one that said “KIA – Afghanistan 2021 – SGT Jake Morrison – Beloved Grandson” that I’d added just three…
Diesel’s mind raced. Last week… Snake had stopped by to drop off a part for a customer’s bike. Snake had a record from a bar fight thirty years ago, before he got sober and turned his life around. But on paper, he was a felon. “The children were at school,” Diesel said carefully. “He was…
“You’re a pathetic old man who has no business riding a motorcycle,” the department-store doctor announced, staring at my medical chart without even bothering to look me in the eye. I’d gone in for a simple physical required by my insurance company, but the moment this 30-something physician saw my age – 72 – and…
The Last Time I Heard My Son’s Voice, He Said Bikers Like Me Deserve to Die….. The call came during a thunderstorm so violent my phone barely had reception. I was waiting it out at a truck stop in Montana, sixty-seven years old with rain dripping from my gray beard, when I saw my son’s…
I found a toddler abandoned at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, screaming her lungs out next to a dumpster in the rain. Nobody wanted to touch her. Not the teenage cashier, not the truckers hurrying past with averted eyes, not even the couple in the minivan who kept saying “someone should call…
Diesel Spellman adopted and raised his sister’s triplets after she passed away during childbirth. But five years later, the triplets’ bio father showed up to reclaim the children – armed with a social worker who believed no biker should raise kids. “Breathe, breathe. It’s all going to be okay,” Thomas “Diesel” Spellman gently told his…
The leather-clad animals were back, trying to force their way into my ICU to see their “brother.” Twenty-eight years as head nurse, and I’d kept every single one of these so-called bikers out of my ward. Didn’t matter that visiting hours had started or that the patient kept asking for them. ICU rules were clear:…
“A motorcycle mechanic with a criminal record has no business raising three innocent children,” the social worker stated coldly, not even looking up from her clipboard. “These boys need stability, not some biker uncle who probably deals drugs on the side.” My sister Amy had died giving birth to triplets five years ago, and I’d…
I came back home to see my furniture on the road. After two weeks fighting for my life in the ICU, the taxi dropped me at my house to find everything I owned scattered across my lawn like trash. My late wife’s rocking chair sat in a puddle. My Harley parts collection – fifty years…