Watch Out - This is a Biker Bar

When you hear the term, biker bar, what comes to your mind? For many people it is someplace scary that only really tough people would dare to enter. Everyone knows that bikers are mean and nasty characters that kidnap and rape women and run drugs for a living. WRONG!

I don't ride; I have never had the interest in going that fast on something that can fall over. My son has had a motorcycle and my step-son has one now. Amazingly enough both are still sane responsible people. Most people who ride enjoy the feeling of the open road. It does bring together free spirits into clubs; but people wearing a patch on a jean jacket aren't anymore prone to dangerous crime than a person wearing a tie with a sports jacket.

Last month my son's band played a gig in Springfield, Virginia. My buddy Steve and I went to check out the band. We went to Moe's Peyton Place in the heart of Springfield. For reference, Springfield, Virginia, is a suburb of Washington, DC, located in Northern Virginia where the Capital Beltway and Interstates 95 and 395 intersect. It is about as American Suburbia as you can get. There in the middle of suburbia is Moe's, a biker bar.

This was not my first experience in a biker bar. In the seventies I used to stop by a place called Saint James Infirmary in Mountain View, California. That experience gave me what I needed to include a biker theme in my novel "The Long Journey Home." In the story the hero learns a lesson about assuming all bikers are stereotypical bikers.

I was surprised to find out Moe's was a biker bar because of its location, but I wasn't uncomfortable being there. While the band set up I asked a few questions and found out that the band got the gig because their friend rides with some of the patrons of the bar.

As the band played the patrons filed in. The guys seemed to get bigger and bigger in their jean jackets or vests and classic biker style. I looked at the patches on the jackets and I found many were not bike club patches but American War Veteran patches. These were not the bad guys; these were the good guys.

As the evening went on there was plenty of laughing and drinking. The server added to the festive mood by skipping and dancing her way to and from the bar. If there was an odd person in the place it was me. Here I am dressed in khaki pants and a three button shirt with my brown hush puppies on; I looked like someone's high school teacher and I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was there for hours with a room full of lifestyle bikers all having a good time. Do you know how many gave me a glance or made a remark; the answer is zero. The other things that didn't happen all night were fights, spilled drinks, or harassment of any kind. It was a night and place when people who happen to like a lifestyle came together for fun.

Are there dangerous bikers? Yes, of course there are, but not in any higher proportion than there are dangerous teenagers, or dangerous cowboys. Like in most groups, the bad guys get all of the press.