Ashes of the Phoenix

This story depicts a biker and his experiences of becoming involved with people in a small Oklahoma community in the mideighties. Set in a time before the custom-bike craze with its TV shows and celebrity riders, this tale tries to present real situations because they are based on things that either happened to me or around me (or I just made up a good lie). This man, injured in the Vietnam War, medically discharged, having to relearn to walk and being labeled an outsider upon his return, becomes involved with a violent streetwise motorcycle gang and their drug- and alcohol-induced law-breaking ways. Becoming unhappy with the hard-core biker lifestyle he is living in California, he is miraculously freed from his club ties and takes on a new identity. With help from other helpful nonpatched bikers, bound only by their love of the freedom of the road, he works his way across the western states, doing heavy equipment work, winding up in the little town of Stigler, Oklahoma. There he meets various characters who make his life interesting. He befriends an old rancher with a secret and eventually goes to a bike rally near Wilburton, Oklahoma, where he meets and falls in love with a redhead who also has a biker-related past. Together, they forge a life involving motorcycles, a local bar and its denizens, fellow construction workers, the local law, run-ins with a former gang member, and help to make an old mans dreams come true.