Topic: Hill People and Hell's Angels

[Rocking-M]

I know some you call us Hillbilly but that's ok too!

Just reading Hunter's book on the Hell's Angels and got to the section on Bass Lake.

Here is an interesting observation,

"In the Carolinas they say "hill people" are different from "flatlands people" and as a native Kentuckian with more mountain than
flatland blood, I'm inclined to agree.........unlike Porterville or Hollister, Bass Lake was a mountain community....and if the old
Appalachian pattern held, the people would be much slower to anger or panic, but absolutely without reason or mercy
once the fat was in the fire. Like the Angels, they would tend to fall back in an emergency on their own native sense of justice--
which bears only a primitive resemblance to anything written in law books. I thought the mountain types would be far more tolerant
of the Angels' noisy showboating, but--compared to their flatlands cousin--much quicker to retaliate in kind at the first evidence of
physical insult or abuse. "

Seems this held true at Bass Lake cause the Angels never got out of line.

[seaweb11]

I am reading the same book right now.......well not right now, but when I'm reading it

[Rocking-M]

Hey Sea, it isn't quite what I expected. An interesting read though.

[seaweb11]

It's a bit long winded, but a good slice of US culture in that time frame.

I have a few HA books I have read, and a few on the shelf still to get at.  The Nanaimo, Vancouver East end and White Rock chapters are  are the wealthiest drug clubs in the world

I see them on the Ferries from time to time. When I say "them"  I mean their patch workers, not the RICH guys. They just killed one of their own that was snitching a month or so ago up the Valley......no one can find him.............

[Shenanigans]

I read it a little while back and enjoyed it. Some parts do seem drawn out but I agree it is a very interesting read.

[UnCrash]

Hey Rocking,

I just want to make sure that you know that this particular slice of culture (which I have personally experienced in the Blue Ridge Moundains) also exists elsewhere........

Here in Maine, my Step Father who many would qualify as a hot blooded redneck call just everyone South of central Maine, "Flatlanders".

It's pretty hilly in central Maine...

Here are some indication of this particular slice of Maine culture:

• I was taught how to shoot bird by my Step Father throwing used up lightbulbs which I was supposed to shoot instead of him and he was standing in front of me
• For the first Christmas he took my Mother tree hunting, where he had her select which tree top she wanted as a Cristmas Tree and with one shot he lopped it off and they had it in the living room that night.
• We had no running water in the house (previously a barn) for the first 6 months that we lived there
• We used an outhouse for the first two years that we lived there
• One day as a kid I came home from raking blueberries in the summer to him cutting into the side of the house with a chainsaw.  He picked up a casement window on the side of the road and was installing it.
• We grew all our own vegetables, and raised all our own Beef without being all "Back to the Land" and "Crunchy" about it.
• We drag raced an old Camaro on Sundays
• We had a dunebuggy that we tore around the woodlot on.  One day he was driving, I was a passenger and we went over a ridge really fast.  We came down HARD and ground to a halt.  The two rear tires rolled right past us on either side of the Bug!
• When it was really raining hard my step brother and I were handed a bar of soap and told to head outside.   

[Rocking-M]

Hey Rocking,

• When it was really raining hard my step brother and I were handed a bar of soap and told to head outside.   

  Did I meet your step-father while I was living in Maine that one winter? 

Reminds me of a happy Goodman joke,

"we grew up in a dirt floor shack, cracks in the siding let the snow blow in in the winter,
we'd wake up and shake the snow off the covers before we got up,
our heat was an old barrel with a stove pipe sticking through the wall.













and then the depression hit!   

[burmashave]

Have you ever noticed that when Shmollywood wants to portray someone as stupid, they use an actor with a lame back woods or southern accent? Torques me, it does. It's not so much that I'm sensitive as it is that all the politically correct who do it don't see the hypocrisy. On the other hand, it's those folks from the hills, country, etc. whose respect I value.

[mrbreeze]

NO SH!T!!!!.......Look at a big city dude.... a power failure is the end of the world!!! No lights,no computer, etc.,etc. Up in the mountains....Head outside ,sit in your lawn chair,drink beer,look at the sky..........AWWW hell!!!!....I'm gonna go out and do that anyway!!
As far as the Hells Angels books....I read Hunter Thompson's many years ago and I need to reread it. I bought a copy of Sony Barger's"Hell's Angel-The Life And Times of Sonny Barger And The Hell's Angel Motorcycle Club" when I was at Corbins in Hollister getting my seat made.It is a good read.I grew up in the 60's-70's in the SF bay area so I was brought up with 3 differt chapters of HA's....San Jose,SF,& Oakland. They were all over back then....my step dad worked with a couple of them at the old Ford plant in Milpitas,Ca.The Rolling Stones/Hell's Angel/Altamont deal went down less than 30 miles from my house although I was only 12 yrs. old then!

[dustyc]

I've been told alot of stories about my hillbilly relatives.  One that won a suit in a raffle and then wore it to work in.  When he was questioned about it, he said a man only needs one good suit and he already had one.

[Raul CB750K1]

Back in the 80's my grandparents died without last will. Their four offspring did four parts and raffled them. The house went to two of my aunts, and my mother got a piece of land and the old house that had been used as a barn. She loved to spend some time in the village where she was born, so my dad and her decided to build a house in the piece of land she inherited. While we were building -summers and Christmas- we lived in the old house, with no electricity, no running water, no restrooms, no air conditioner, during a few years. There were mice and fleas. We bathed in the barrels that we had at the construction site, were we stored water for the concrete and cement. It was only 25 years ago, but believe me, has it been today, social services would have taken us from our parents.


Probably a city boy finds a catastrophe when the power fails, but if I have to choose, give me the city life anytime!!!!  I got used to lack of commodities because I had no other remedy, but if I can choose, I rather have comfort. Carrying pots of water, #$%*ting in the open field, washing in a barrel of cold water, heating at a fireplace, may seem like something cool, something old school, but the only reason my parents did it when they were children is that there was nothing else available. I love to go to my mother's village but please give me running water, a clean restroom, and good heating -and keep the fleas and mice for you too-.

[Terry in Australia]

An "Ex"  Hells Angel got himself shot dead here in Oz yesterday. I've never been a "One Percenter", but even I could have told him that the only "Ex" Hells Angel is a dead Hells Angel, but maybe he forgot? Oh well, he won't forget again, I guess?

I have to laugh about the "City Boy" stereotype though, when I was a kid growing up in a country town 200 miles from the city, we all thought "Farm Boys" were pretty tough, until one day a bus load of "city boys" from a tough suburb of Melbourne (Richmond) came to play football against us, a lot of these kids were first generation Aussies from predominantly Italian and Greek families, and they were tough little buggers, for sure!

As I said, we were supposed to be playing football, but by the end of the game we all looked like we'd been dragged thru a wood chipper backwards!

[Raul CB750K1]

I remember it was cool that the boys at my mom's village could drive a tractor or a car at 12. Going to move the cattle didnt' seem that fun though.

My mother used to tell us that we should learn from them, how acute they were and how hard was to fool them. I used to believe that they must be. One day one of the boys proposed we shoot the hen. I said no way. They asked me whether I had no balls. So I had to accept. The boy shoot -bb gun- and said "#$%*, I missed. Your turn". I took the gun and surprise... I missed too. He didn't fool me that time.

Another time we were racing our bicycles. I was ahead and one of the boys told me: "let's get through that detour". I said "OK". When I got to the detour I didn't take it and continued. The guy told me "why didn't you take it?" and I replied "I forgot, but why didn't you take it?".

I can hardly remember a time that they fooled me. But one of the grown men of the town was recently out of 3K euro in a nearby village. He claimed he was stolen at gunpoint. The people at the bank didn't remember him looking nervous when withdrawing the money. After the police pressed him, he admitted he had been ripped off -an old rip-off consisting in offering a fake winning lottery ticket-. Living in the countryside leaves you out of every influence, good or bad, and obviously, keeps you uninformed of the world around you.

When I see myself and the boys that decided to stay at the village, I thank my mom for leaving that lost village and go to Madrid to get a life.

Well, I must admit I fooled them at least once. I took my wife from them. Many girls from the village fleed to marry city boys. We can always offer more than a boring life in a forgotten village. Living in a big city has it's downsides, but you have lots of things to do and people to meet, and that is always enriching. People at villages in Spain still have the old idea of family farm, raising animals and crops for personal consumption and sell them to make money. It doesn't work like that anymore. Either you become a businessman and run your farm like a business, or you will struggle to survive.

[tramp]

read the book a long long time ago
the hells angels aren't stupid
they only go where they can control

[gerhed]

I believe Thompson rode a Ducati during his final years.
His essay in "The Art of the Motorcycle " book is good reading.
I think he ended up living in Arizona near Sony Barger.

[upperlake04]

   

On the other hand, it's those folks from the hills, country, etc. whose respect I value.

 Saskatchewan is called the Kentucky of Canada by the rest of the country and we are usually portrayed as dumb hillbillies and hayseeds.     On the other hand, this a friendly place where I know my neighbors, am not especially concerned with crime, get waves from locals (strangers) when I ride out on small rural highways and can be almost sure that someone will stop and offer assistance if I have a breakdown there. At the gas station, when someone asks 'how ya doin" they look you in the eye and expect a reply.  I like where I live.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2008/08/28/sk-immigrants.html[quote

[firecracker]

Read the book a few years ago.  Gave it to a buddy, so I guess that's a book I'll only read once (note to self, stop giving books away).


You should try living in Oklahoma.  Even in the "big cities", people are small-town friendly.

Plus, Norman is a college town full of smokin' hot babes.   

[dustyc]

I've got a couple internet friends from Saskatchewan and the funniest description I've heard was that it was so flat you could watch your dog run away for 3 days.

[Demon67]

Hey upperlake as I move farther from the city the people be more self reliant and friendly now that I'm in the wilds of Wiarton even Ontario becomes decent.
Bill the demon

[Rocking-M]

   

On the other hand, it's those folks from the hills, country, etc. whose respect I value.

 Saskatchewan is called the Kentucky of Canada by the rest of the country and we are usually portrayed as dumb hillbillies and hayseeds.     On the other hand, this a friendly place where I know my neighbors, am not especially concerned with crime, get waves from locals (strangers) when I ride out on small rural highways and can be almost sure that someone will stop and offer assistance if I have a breakdown there. At the gas station, when someone asks 'how ya doin" they look you in the eye and expect a reply.  I like where I live.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2008/08/28/sk-immigrants.html[quote

I think it's the same way pretty much anywhere away from the hustle of the big cities.
that's the way it oughta be eh?    Wait a minute, hillbilly Canadians and hayseeds too! My opinion of Canadian Miscreants has been bumped up a
positive knotch. 

[Demon67]

Rocking m wait till you get to know us we're even worse.
Bill the demon.

[upperlake04]

 Don't know what a knotch is, but it sounds good

[BobbyR]

Yeah I did some living off the land in the 1970's up on the NY. I did not find rural folk all that friendly. I have been to Maine a lot and they don't like outsiders much. Even though I grew up in the City and it's suburbs we learned skills through the Boy Scouts. I still hang with the same friends and we can, shoot, hunt, and fend for ourselves.
I spent time in the South and they are not dumb. They have a culture and rules of behavior you have to understand, but, it is fine. I do enjoy my indoor plumbing, central heat and air. I don't like trash, white, black, northern, southern, western. There are Country folk and there is trash. It ain't hard to figure who is who.   

[MRieck]

 The Angel's beat up Hunter (a VERY little) and threw him in the trunk of a car during the Rock incident(if I remember correctly)...a woman getting slapped around. The Angel's told him to screw after that. Hunter was pissed they blew him off and never got over it. They thought he was a big pussy. I've read Sonny's book and just about every book written about the Angel's. What was it...the Quebec Chapter guys were so absolutely nuts the Angel's ordered hits on all the leaders? Sleeping bags with lifting plates in a major river.