Category: General

On the ‘internet’ I saw this nice photo from the seventies. Love it.

Hard to imagine, if you sit at the porch of our new clubhouse, that this was were we came from.

A few weeks ago I wrote about u being in Paris in 1985. This photo is on the same spot were we saw the Harley Sportster café-race and ‘Blochhead’. The one on the top was my younger brother Blut his Sportster. The Liberator belonged to former member Kwak, then my Harley and on the bottom Schweik’s Harley.

In the mid-1990s, Schweik and Nol were busy drag racing. But in addition to those two heavily tuned Harleys, we also had a two-stroke racer as a side-kick. That thing made a noise, not normal. And there seemed to be no limit to the RPM’s. Lots of fun and lots of attention with that ‘mini’ racer.

Junior [in the car], then still a kid, Jezus, Ger, Jocky and Fonda. Also Torra and Stud are visible on the backgrond.

Fonda and Ger.

Yep, there we go again…

This day, in the evening of 1987, I had my accident. I broke my neck quite high then. C5/C6 for those who know what I’m talking about. Now I have had quite a lot of misery in my path over the past 35 years, but certainly as much, if not more, happiness. I met my wife when I was already in the wheelchair. She was an economics teacher and I retrained as an accountant and IT specialist. And the support of my brothers has been and is phenomenal. Well, the years fly by like a Harley with some extra horsepower. And you know what’s crazy, I’d do it all over again, and if it were possible, without some parts. Ha, ha…!!!

A few hours before I was hit by a farmer on a tractor, I was visiting an aunt and uncle of mine. My nephews and nieces were allowed to ride with me a bit behind and in front of the motorcycle. So that was my last photo where I can be seen on my Harley. Less than four hours before my accident. Well, it can go wrong.

Then I have a photo of Loek, a former member, and me busy replacing a window frame. I was a carpenter at the time. This photo was taken two weeks earlier that same year and was pretty much the penultimate photo of me in my old ways. And now on to forty years!

Five years ago I had a big party at our clubhouse to celebrate my 30th Anniversary. That was a great party.

I’m not sure if you can call this a sporting activity, but with a big hangover after a long weekend of partying it is certainly not an easy activity. Dismantling and neatly storing the tents again. Many of you know what I mean. Nowadays they often just leave the ‘junk’ alone. Then it was different. Here are some pictures of these activities during the Superrally in Denmark. That was mid-May in 1986.

Brom was a hangarround at the time, but never a member. Kwak and Toon are former members and Blut and Schweik are no longer among us. May they rest in peace.

Yesterday I already mentioned it; ‘blood brothers’. More than 38 years ago in May, our club only existed for more than 4 years. We were all still young guns and had the wildest ideas. We read the Easyriders magazines, Iron Horses and flipped through the Jammer Handbooks and the ‘In the Wind’ magazines. And then you sometimes come across an article where you think: “Hey, I want that too, to be a blood brother! But with whom?”

In this particular case we are talking about Nacks. At the time he worked for the Dutch navy and later in the French foreigners’ legion as a ‘specialist’. At the time he lived in Den Helder, the naval city. Skully lived just outside Den Helder and worked in the fishing industry. In short, shared activities, ‘the off-shore’ and living not far from each other and last but not least, not wanting to be inferior to each other. Sea bonkers are a bit different after all.

That evening an old-fashioned razor was used to make a cut in each other’s hands so that it started to bleed. That blade from the buck-knife wasn’t exactly sharp, so it took some extra force to make the cut with greater damage as result. So the old razor hat to do the trick. Then both hands were tied together to secure the blood brother band. After which we threw a lot of beer over it to complete the ceremony.

AIDS and Hepatitis B were of course not considered at all at the time. For us it was an extra side-kick on the spot. And it certainly was at the time. I had my camera, as in most cases, to hand and made photos about it. With today’s knowledge, these kinds of actions are of course not recommended, but what the hack, we had a lot of fun with it at the time.

Here we see Schweik, Nacks, Skull and Beer.

The weekend is just around the corner and many are already digressing to what they are going to do in the coming weekend. That was no different before, okay maybe during the corona lockdowns. But that’s not what this is about now.

Years ago, in this case 1984, we regularly went to bar-dancing café Loek in Opmeer. At the time, that was the place where just about everyone from the area went. The place to be, as it were. In the photo we see Beer, former member Cancer, myself and Hond. I think this is a great photo. That particular weekend, Nacks and Skull became blood brothers. I will come back to this tomorrow.

This photo was made on the 20h of May, 1984. As most of the time I brought along my camera as well fot in case something interesting happened. More pictures of this evening tomorrow.

Many clubs all over the world are great in building or making things for their club. A clubhouse is one of those things and the most rewarding as well. Ones it is ready, a sense of relief and also a great feeling of proud comes over those who have been a part of this process. Not everybody is as handy as they would like to be, but that doesn’t mean they can contribute during this period.

All clubs who have been building a clubhouse know what I’m talking about. Anyway, here some photo’s of a quarter century ago when we build our former clubhouse, the one that has gone up in smoke.

On this two photos we see a former member, Torra, buisy with a pump and a shovel. The pump couldn’t pump the muddy clay away, so the shovel had to do the trick. And yes, that’s heavy work.

Stud and me looking at the result so far.

Stoker at his best.

The ‘Theo’s’ and Beer

Bruut and Brembo