I'm sitting in the western end of South Dakota watching another "Black Hills Motor Classic" (Sturgis Rally) start. Virtually all of the vehicles for a 100+ mile radius are motorcycles and 99% of those machines are Harley-Davidsons. And most of the local businesses are thrilled with the money that the bikers bring with them. One place in a small town just north of here doesn't like bikers. Of course the owner will still serve them, but he's now considered some old relic of the past when bikers were nothing more than low-life trash. I remember those days from before the 1960s through perhaps the mid to late 1980s when anyone who rode a Harley had tattoos and whatever other accoutrements motorcycle riders wore back then were considered pariah. We weren't welcomed. "We" were just blue collar workers who loved big air-cooled V-twin engines and were not wanted anywhere.

What happened? I have no idea, I'm not a sociologist and can't intelligently comment on how social mores shift over time. But, something happened in the early 1990s and the people who started riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles were a different group. Professionals with degrees and money started buying the machines. Then, those in that same group (and others) started to think that tattoos were something to get. We old bikers became part of a new group, where what we'd been doing was now drifting toward some level of mainstream culture and positive rather than negative acceptance. Bikers were historically seen as rebels, yet those who were most profitable in our society were embracing that image, an image that was completely opposed to success. The biker image was some tangled group of now hackneyed phrases about freedom and life on the open road, brotherhood and loyalty to some club of like-minded individuals (an individualism that is but is not, as bikers tend to dress alike and act alike yet are still fiercely independent). It must have been that image that at least some of the "new" bikers were attempting to connect with by purchasing big, loud V-twin air-cooled motorcycles. Could it be that some of the successful people wanted an outlet for some sense of rebellion, where they could assume the persona of someone else? An image, a sense - at least for a while - of freedom that they may have lost by becoming what they are, living within current social mores that, just maybe, they sometimes question.

That's likely enough deep thinking for one day, questions without answers. I always felt that virtually all people are sociologically oriented rather than psychologically driven. But, that's just me. If you're coming to the Sturgis Rally this year, ride safe.