I had a customer in my store the other day, husky clean-cut guy with a goatee, carrying a cell phone,and wearing a t-shirt that read Sonny Barger's Desert Cycle Shop. I asked about Sonny, since I knew that he had been prez of the Angels back in The Day, and this guy explained that yes, Sonny still was active as leader of the club, and that my customer was Membership Director. He told me that the new Denver Chapter was preparing to "patch out" 400 new members in the middle of March. My customer said that Sonny has a biography out now that is very interesting, and that it explains the "trumped-up charges" that landed him in prison in the 70s. He also confessed that Sonny had confided to him that he was a little sick of Harleys and had expressed an interest in buying a Honda Goldwing for comfortable touring with his wife, but suspected that the act would be akin to the Pope becoming a Methodist. I told him that I suspected the Hells Angel demographic had changed somewhat since their hay day in the late 60s, especially now that Harleys cost 14 to 30 k, and inquired as to whether the new inductees were composed of a disproportionate number of doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents. He replied that there weren't "too many".

At any rate, the official newly initiated Hells Angel Denver Chapter will make a rally-ride past my shop soon on a jaunt into the mountains. I suspect that the mountain bars had better lay in additional stocks of Perrier water and Dom Perignon and make sure that they have a working fax machine on premisis....the Angels are coming!