In Sturgis, South Dakota, the Sturgis of the famous Black Hills Motorcycle Rally, there isn't a real Harley-Davidson dealer or Harley-Davidson shop. There is, however, a monstrous "Harley-Davidson" " for the lack of a better word " boutique. In this "bikers boutique" it is possible to buy almost anything emblazoned with the Harley-Davidson marque: leather jackets, leather chaps, leather vests, leather bras, leather thongs, rain suits, sweatshirts, coffee mugs, lunch pails.... even official Harley-Davidson shop rags (for wiping up oil spills!)....at $4 a rag! The atmosphere of this meaningless extravagance and over-priced abundance is overpowering. Overpowering and, indeed, heartbreaking.
While strolling through this cultural monstrosity on a recent tour, I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks, almost as if I had walked into an invisible wall. High above the heads of the frenzied shoppers, in a mounted print measuring 3 feet by 5 feet, was an old black and white photo of an early Harley rider.
He was young -- mid- twenties -- and movie-star handsome with an exuberant, gleaming smile. His riding gear was probably standard for the time (1948... I asked a clerk.): he wore a soft leather aviator's helmet with aviator goggles, an oversized bombardier's jacket lined with sheepskin, blue jeans with the obligatory 3" outside fold, and strong, oil-tanned engineer boots. It was apparently not high hot summer when this photo was taken. His 1948 EL (again, I asked a clerk....) was equipped with a half-canvas, half-plexiglass touring fairing, and he looked as though he had ridden some distance before posing in front of Mt. Rushmore on that sunny day with his compelling smile. There is sometimes no arguing with a photograph; this guy was a rider, a authentic rider, sure...... I know it in my bones.
There is something military about him. Of course, in 1948 there was something military about everybody -- those that had survived, that is. He could very easily have crawled out of the cockpit of a B-17 or slipped down from the turret of his tank " and swung a leg over the huge seat of his Harley.... maybe, maybe not.... but he's of the right age. I know his name but not his history (again, I asked a clerk.) and out of respect for him and his generation, I'll not share his name.
In a sense, I am enamored of this guy. Or at least of his image. He rode to the Black Hills of South Dakota from somewhere. No trailer queen, he....this face on the wall. Iowa, North Carolina, Texas, California..... somewhere from deep in what F. Scott Fitzgerald once called the Dark Fields of the Republic, this young American long ago pulled on his surplus bombardier's jacket, kick-started his new EL, and rode out to Sturgis... and posed in front of the recently finished Mt. Rushmore. He seems suffused with joy, and happiness, and hope.... After all, hadn't he and his countrymen just survived a Great Depression and a World War for which they had been so pitifully unprepared? Hadn't he reason to smile? Reason for joy? How could anything possibly undermine America now?
Behind me, a woman in stupidly tight jeans squealed loudly with delight when she found and held aloft a black leather Harley-Davidson bikini bottom. I looked at her red perspiring face as she dug for credit cards while clutching the leather garment as if it was something important...... and I looked up again at the smiling face on the wall.... and I despaired.
