The Wild One, staring two celluloid icons, Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin. That 1953 black-and-white movie was allegedly inspired by an event that occurred in 1947 at Hollister, California, although the director once insisted in a newspaper interview that it was not, that it was inspired by an experience when he was in his car with his family and some bikers pulled alongside. Imagine that! You pull alongside a car one day and sneeze, and the next thing you know there’s a movie about it.
But that’s what happened (a movie about bikers, not about sneezing). Today the two are inseparable, the event in a rural California farm town and the movie featuring a wandering Marlon Brando in small town, U.S.A. Both rocked the nation, although in different ways. The 1947 Hollister incident forever imprinted itself on the public’s attitude toward bikers, while the movie inspired record sales of black leather jackets. Too bad licensed products hadn’t been invented yet.
Anyway, when I heard that the 9th Annual Independence Day Rally at Hollister had been cancelled, the movie became a subject of conversation with some of my regular contributors. The mere cancellation of a bike event seemed to be just enough of an excuse to go on a ride to Hollister, so contributors Clem “Dago” Salvadori and Reg Kittrelle joined me for a little Harley romp in the hills (see page 30).
When we met for lunch in Atascadero to begin our trek, I found myself muttering aloud, “Do we really need an excuse for us to get together for a ride?” The instantaneous consensus was, we didn’t. In fact, for a real rider there’s no excuse for excuses: This is America, we want to ride, let’s ride.
I’m not sure anyone really cares about our reason or excuse to ride, no matter how profound or silly. When I tell people that I rode to Hollister or Sturgis or where ever, they usually don’t ask, “Why?” They usually ask, “How was it?” because they want to know about the experience, what actually happened. Whatever reason I may have had floating around inside my head for going on a ride isn’t significant enough for anyone else to care.
Of course, when editors get together to create a story about riding, it helps to have a theme to tie the tale together. As an editor, it only seems natural—and very important—to have a destination worth riding to. Purists would no doubt argue that since riding Harleys is all about the journey, the destination doesn’t really matter. That’s a topic that we needn’t discuss here, because we all know the outcome....
We plan to do another staff ride in the near future. When we do, rest assured we won’t need to resort to the endless stream of old biker movies for motivation. The journey will provide the reason. And the title. I’ll call it, “No Excuses.” U
|
