The Unfriendly Skies

The Unfriendly Skies

On Sunday I took a motorcycle ride to the East, up from Castle Creek through the small canyon into Valley Center and the Rincon Indian Reservation to the base of Palomar Mountain. It was a near perfect day with sunshine and blue skies and a temperature just barely tipping into the 80’s. This is always one of my go-to rides that makes me feel free and wonderful. I had picked up Jeff from the hospital that morning and seen a formerly robust man of my age wince in pain as he got into my Tesla X, which I own because Jeff spoke so passionately about electronic vehicles. He had abdominal distress from a repaired bleeding ulcer and yet he still suffered from inexplicable fluid in his lungs that made his breath noticeably short and labored. My friend and Kim’s brother needed to rest and heal and was not thinking of motorcycle rides or any pleasures that didn’t involve being prone and still in his own bed. The thought of his situation made me appreciate my ability to take my favorite ride on such an otherwise perfect day.

I had my Sena Calvary helmet on so that I could stay cool and still listen to my favorite up-tempo playlist. One of those uplifting songs came on as I cranked my BMW R1250GS Adventure around the switchbacks on Rt. 76 as I headed towards Lake Henshaw and it’s nice little cafe. I had decided to go there first and leave the mountain climb for after lunch, less from hunger and more to beat the crowds. When I pulled in and headed for my favorite parking spot under the shade of one of the flanking trees at the entrance, I was glad to be arriving early as the cars and bikes were already piling up around this otherwise remote rest stop.

The dining room was already crowded by COVID standards, but the entry porch was empty so I took a table directly over my parked bike. All the better to watch my helmet and gloves, which I had left on my sheep-skinned seat. I ordered my usual bowl of chili with a side of potato skins. As I quenched my thirst with a tall Diet Pepsi with crushed ice, I noticed a group of bikers heading out to bikes near mine. Then I noticed that they all wore the leather vests with the colors of the Hell’s Angels on the back. That took me aback. I don’t think in all my fifty years of riding I had ever seen a real Hell’s Angel. I’ve met Sonny Barger’s daughter with the SQUAAA license plate in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I have seen many bikers who looked the part of Hell’s Angels. I had ridden leaving Las Vegas (on the Indian Motorcycles Centennial Ride Across America) next to Peter Fonda wearing his Captain America Stars and Stripes helmet. But I don’t remember ever seeing a group of real Hell’s Angels. I had parked my bike in tight to that shade tree and in doing so had partially blocked one of the choppers parked there. Imagine my surprise when this Hell’s Angel gently eased his ape-hangers around my bike, being careful not to bump my bike. That was an unexpected bit of gentility.

Those bikers sported colors that said Hell’s Angels of California. They were from the mother ship. As they rode off to the south, I headed north back towards the back road up to Palomar. Weekends are biker days on Palomar, but I had the S7 to myself at that moment riding up the sweepers and into the alpine meadows. As I rode I was listening to Leonard Cohen singing Hallelujah. That familiar croaking voice and those biblical lyrics seemed strangely appropriate on this Sunday afternoon.

As I lost myself in the sweepers and the smooth tarmac, I saw two large birds of prey doing their own swooping up above the mountainside. They were California Turkey Vultures looking forward to their next meal of carrion from some backroad mishap or coyote kill. I only saw two birds so I’m not sure that officially constitutes a “kettle” as a flock of turkey vultures is called, but with their wingspan of 5-6 feet, even two birds are impressive. You don’t want to mess with these birds. Clearly they look menacing with their large bodies, red heads, big beaks and yellow legs. Like their fellow Californians, the Hell’s Angels, these birds sport their colors to keep others from bothering them. And I can’t help but mention that the primary defensive strategy by the vultures is to projectile vomit on their enemies. They use this maneuver for attacking trouble-makers up to ten feet away. That’s a pretty effective weapon I imagine, especially since their stomach acids are so pungent since dissolving rotting carrion is no small feat. Like the Hell’s Angels, I had never seen turkey vultures before and it made me wonder what it must have been like when California Condors owned these skies. Their wingspan is ten feet and they are just as ugly and nasty up close, but majestic in flight I imagine.

California Condors, while not technically extinct and now being gradually reintroduced in the wild, are rare birds whose legend exceeds their reality. That sounds a lot like the Hell’s Angels and it may just be a California thing. Leonard Cohen probably hung with Hunter S. Thompson since they were contemporaries and while Hunter Thompson wrote for Rolling Stone, he must have had to cover Cohen one time or another. They are both iconoclasts in their own way, but its unclear that they stood for the same things. Hunter Thompson rose to prominence by writing Hell’s Angels in 1967 and famously said, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” He usually said that while brandishing a gun from his motorcycle seat. Leonard Cohen was mainstream and non-violent by comparison and he began his singing career in 1967. His most famous song, Hallelujah (which was still in my Calvary helmeted ears) has the ending stanza:

Well, maybe there’s a God above

But all I’ve ever learned from love

Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya

And it’s not a cry that you hear at night

It’s not somebody who’s seen the light

It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Thompson killed himself at age 67 (my age now) almost as a symbol of a man who took on an ugly image to show the world the ugliness all around us. Cohen died of natural causes at 82 and published a posthumous album called Thanks for the Dance. There is a message there about the unfriendly skies that surround any of us on any given day. You can observe the same good and bad in life and you can see the turkey vulture for its ugliness or for its soaring beauty. Those Hell’s Angels I saw wear the banner of violence, but in practice they respect their norms like we all do. Ugliness may simply be more in the eye of the beholder and then how it translates into each of our lives is of our choosing. Blue skies can be unfriendly to some and sweet and soulful to others. Choose your path wisely and get the most out of the most valuable asset you will ever own, the friendly skies and the days of your life.