“Your grandpa’s just a dirty criminal on a loud bike,” Jason sneered as he shoved me into the lockers for the third time this week. The metal hurt my spine, but not as much as hearing someone talk about Grandpa Joe like that. They’d been doing this ever since Career Day when I proudly told…
I buried my only son twice. Once when he was just eighteen—the Marines sent back a folded flag instead of my boy. And again last week, when I found out the military was wrong. Joey had been alive all these years. For forty-six years, I’ve lived with a ghost. His room untouched since 1975, his…
I got my 73-year-old neighbor kicked out because his Harley was “too loud” and he looked “too dangerous” for our family neighborhood. I complained to the HOA board seventeen times. Called the police twice. Even started a petition that got forty-three signatures from other neighbors who were “concerned about property values” and “safety of our…
I told my husband the doctor said he could never ride his motorcycle again after his heart surgery, but that was a lie. Dr. Morrison had actually cleared him for riding after six months, said it would be good for his mental health, even wrote it on the discharge papers. But I burned those papers…
I’ve rejected 1,847 motorcycle insurance claims in my fifteen years at Provident Insurance, and I was proud of it. Every single biker who walked through my office door got the same treatment – denial, delays, and lowball offers that insulted their intelligence. “High-risk lifestyle choices,” I’d write on every claim. “Contributed to own damages through…
“Another drug-seeking biker,” I announced to the nurses as the leather-clad man limped into my ER at 2 AM. Sixty-something, gray ponytail, worn Harley vest covered in patches, grease under his fingernails. I’d seen his type a hundred times – tough guys who crashed their bikes doing something stupid, then wanted painkillers for their “10…
The cop made my 72-year-old husband lay face-down on the asphalt in 97-degree heat, his arthritic knees grinding against the burning pavement while four squad cars blocked traffic for what they called a “routine stop.” Twenty-three minutes Harold spent there, his gray beard pressed to the road, hands cuffed behind his back as passing motorists…
“Those damn bikers don’t deserve to be here with real heroes,” I muttered to my partner as we watched a group of leather-clad veterans roll into the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington Cemetery. Twenty-three years on the force, and I still couldn’t stand seeing motorcycle clubs at official events. Didn’t matter if they’d served –…
I’m having my 76-year-old father declared mentally incompetent as he refuses to stop riding his motorcycle despite clear signs of dementia. I fear he kills himself or someone else on that death trap he calls his “iron horse.” The neurologist said his reflexes are deteriorating a bit which happens as people age. But to me,…
My father fell off his motorcycle last week—just a minor spill in a parking lot—but I used it as the perfect excuse to finally force him to sell that death trap and act his age. At 69, he had no business straddling a Harley anyway, pretending he was still some young rebel instead of accepting…
My father died alone on the side of Highway 49 last week, sitting against his broken-down Harley in 103-degree heat, waiting for the daughter who was “too busy” to answer his calls. The coroner said he’d been there for hours, his phone showing seventeen missed calls to me over three days, all ignored because I…
I sold my 1972 Harley Shovelhead to save my wife’s life but then I found it on YouTube, being destroyed with a sledgehammer by some punk kid for views. “Watch me DESTROY this old piece of junk!” the title screamed. Two million views. Forty-seven years of memories reduced to scrap metal for internet fame. My…
Then, like an answer to a prayer I hadn’t dared to utter, I heard what might be the most beautiful sound in the world: motorcycles. Not one, but many, their combined rumble growing louder until it felt like the whole building was vibrating. Then silence. Followed by heavy footsteps in the hallway outside my apartment…
I spent my whole life hating my father for being a big, scary biker. Growing up in small-town America as “Rattler’s daughter” meant enduring whispers every time Dad roared up to school events on his thundering Harley, his massive frame covered in leather, gray beard reaching his chest, and arms bearing the faded ink of…
I took the envelope reluctantly and opened it to find a check inside. Not for the full amount of my debts, but for a significant portion. Enough to make a real difference. “What is this?” I asked, confused. “The money from selling my tools,” he explained. “Everything else—the shop, the parts inventory, my savings—went into…
My 73-year-old father just blew his entire retirement fund on a $35,000 Harley Davidson instead of helping me pay off my loans, and he has the nerve to call it his “last great adventure.” For five decades, he wasted his life in that grimy motorcycle repair shop, hands permanently stained with grease, smelling of motor…
They took my daughter away because leather vests and tattoos make you an unfit father—at least according to the judge who awarded full custody to my ex-wife despite her having cheated on me with three different men while I was getting shot at in Afghanistan. “The court finds that the respondent’s motorcycle club affiliations and…
My wife of thirty-eight years left me the day they amputated both my legs after a logging truck crushed my Harley—and the worst betrayal was discovering she’d moved in with my best riding buddy two weeks later. I also overheard her tell our daughter that she “couldn’t waste what’s left of her life changing an…
My son told me I was “an embarrassment to the family” and kicked me out from his wedding because the bride’s parents didn’t want “some old biker with tattoos” in their wedding photos. After everything I sacrificed to put him through law school, after selling my prized ’72 Shovelhead to pay his college application fees,…
“Listen, old-timer, that bike’s too powerful for someone your age. Do everyone a favor and sell it before you kill yourself or someone else.” The police officer smirked as he handed me back my license, his badge catching the sunlight – Officer Brandon Collins, barely thirty with a power complex wider than my Harley’s handlebars….
Only when I was several miles from the house did I pull over to collect my thoughts and check my phone, which was buzzing incessantly in my pocket. Six missed calls from Carol, three from Mark, and a text from Janet that simply read: “You’re making things worse. Bring the bike back NOW.” I didn’t…
They sold my father’s 1972 Harley while he lay fighting for his life in the ICU. His step-family called his beloved bike “old junk” as they pocketed the cash. My voice broke as I explained the situation to the lawyer on the phone. Dad had suffered a massive stroke two weeks ago, and while he…
I never understood how cruel people could be to old bikers until my father’s funeral, when the funeral director refused to allow his brothers from Rolling Thunder to honor him with a motorcycle procession. Dad spent forty years riding with these men—Vietnam veterans who escorted fallen soldiers home and stood guard at veterans’ funerals—but this…
When my 68-year-old father suffered a massive stroke while riding his Harley, the hospital staff treated him like human garbage. “Another organ donor who drove recklessly,” the ER doctor muttered when they wheeled him in, not realizing I could hear every word. Dad lay unconscious, still wearing his leather vest with combat patches from two…
The next evening, I made my way to the community room—a space I’d rarely entered in all my years in the building. Walking was harder these days; the old shrapnel wounds ached constantly, and the doctors said there wasn’t much more they could do. Pride made me minimize the limp, but by the time I…