In 1965 when I was 23, I quit college and enlisted in the US Air Force. After basic training in Texas, I was assigned to a training base in Biloxi, Mississippi for training as a radio communications technician. The war in Viet Nam was warming up then, and rumors abounded. The scuttlebutt was that Air Force radio operators had a limited life expectancy there, crawling about in the jungle with a radio to "spot" for air strikes by approaching close to the enemy. None of that was more than 0.02% accurate, but who knew? Thus my attitude was one of "what the hell, I'm going to die in the war anyway". At first opportunity I bought a motorcycle- a 1965 Triumph Bonneville. I had been forbidden any contact with motorcycles while at home, so this was in part a statement of my independence. During the ensuing year that I was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, about as far into the cultural "south" as one can get in the US. I was one of a group of local "townies", most of whom were illiterate, and at least one other USAF trainee that formed a motorcycle "club". In truth it really was a gang, with little respect for the law or social conventions, my rationale being to pack as much into what remained of my life as possible. The answers to why an outlaw motorcycle gang was picked as the venue for that enterprise are to be found elsewhere. In any case, we had "colors" and rode as a pack, getting into the sort of mischief best described elsewhere as well since some of it was outside what was lawful. During the last few days of my training, when orders were being distributed for our first duty assignments, I was shocked to find that I wasn't going to Viet Nam after all. I had been suspicious that the rumors didn't apply to me, the specific training I had undergone had no application out in the jungle with a backpack radio and M-16 rifle. My training prepared me for duty in permanent radio installations on Air Force bases, and my first assignment was with a radar squadron about 8 miles from home back in New York state! What a relief! And leaving Keesler Air Force Base, and Biloxi, and the gang, and Mississippi, and in fact the entire Confederacy all were a source of boundless joy for me.
I packed my uniforms and what other meager gear I had- one large duffel bag and a couple of smaller packs- on my Bonneville and set out northbound for home with the other bike gang Airman on his Triumph, similarly packed and joyful, the trip being about 1250 miles. It was early March when the nights were often freezing and the days not much warmer, conditions which got worse as we progressed northward. Travel was slow with many stops for hot coffee and the warmth of anyplace indoors, and countless efforts to stay as warm as possible, none really very successful. We rolled newspaper around our legs and lined our jackets for insulation; I tied a cigar box lid to the front brake lever to act as a windbreaker for my throttle hand, but at 80 mph it would push the lever far enough to drag the brake, so that didn't work. I found some relief by tightening the screw on the throttle housing that would keep the twist grip where I put it instead of rolling back to idle, and laying on the tank, putting both gloved hands on the engine for warmth and trusting the bike to steer itself at 80, which it did- I loved my Triumph!
We planned to stay in motels along the route, and were successful in finding warm beds for three nights after days of freezing our hands and faces in the wind chill of 40 degrees ambient temperature and 70 or 80 miles per hour of windstream, northbound on US Route 75 and making distance very slowly.
But on the 4th night when we got off the highway and into a little town in Tennessee after dark, there was nothing open, not a soul in sight. It was a one-stoplight town which "rolled up its sidewalks" at 6 pm, and offered no place for us to take a room. It looked like we were going to have to camp out for the first time on our trip when a car behind us lit us up with a spotlight and lit up our surroundings with flashing red lights. It was the town constable, who gruffly demanded our driver's licenses and ordered us to follow him. We did, to the police station, where he told us to empty our pockets on his desk. After we did that he took us through a door to a row of jail cells. He gave us towels and soap and ordered us to take showers while he stood by, a shotgun nearby. The warm water was wonderful! Then he locked us in a cell with two bunks and told us we'd be fed shortly. In a half hour or so he came back with a tray with bowls of stew, fresh baked bread and hot coffee, which we ravaged in short order. We found out later that the constable had a contract with a lady in town to provide meals for the jail, and she made them as though they were for guests in her home and not for jailbirds. The bunks were warm and comfortable so we slept like the dead. She did as excellent a job with breakfast the next morning, after which we were taken from our warm, comfortable cell and our pocket contents were returned. The constable told us he wanted us out of town in 15 minutes after he released us, there were to be no motorcycle bums in his town. In those days the only experience most people had with motorcyclists from out of town- our driver's licenses and license plates were from Mississippi- was with Marlon Brando's movie "The Wild One" wherein a rough, disrespectful gang took over a small California town. We sure looked like those guys did, disheveled and windblown, mostly because our faces were so windburned we couldn't shave. We told him we couldn't hang around at all, we had to be on duty in a few days.
He said, "Duty? What duty?"
We said, "We're in the Air Force and on our way to new assignments. Our leaves expire in a few days so we have to be on the road ASAP", and showed him our ID cards and leave papers.
He said, "Why didn't you tell me you were military?? I wouldn't have hassled you!!"
We said, "Thanks for the room and board!", saluted him in the best military fashion, and hit the road.