Thunder in the Glens – Harley Davidson weekend

The rather fearsome looking giant of a man with a tattooed bald head and grey beard extending down to the place his belly starts to protrude, which now  extends so far out as to keep the lower half of his body in perpetual shade, is the epitome of a Harley rider. He’s sporting a denim ‘cut off’ top containing a multitude of sewn on badges and his muscular bare arms are actually ‘sleeves’ of coloured tattoos. This is obviously not a man to be trifled with, but appearances can deceive,  and we should be careful of making assumptions. Nevertheless, ‘people watching’ at TITG (Thunder in the Glens) brings great amusement to Ray and me. 

Buying into the Harley Davidson brand isn’t a sensible pastime for the financially challenged. Hence, a substantial number of Harley owners may well fall into the category of merchant bankers, or whatever that term conjures up in your mind? 

So despite the Devil’s Disciples/Satan’s Slaves, chicken head biting, skull image of the various ‘chapters’ of the Harley Davidson family, the reality is that the majority of riders are of either pensionable age or in the twilight years of some professional occupation.

The ‘Ladies of Harley’ also play their part, tattoos are commonplace, and dress code is in keeping with their male counterparts. Some even supplementing the standard attire with fishnet stockings, a rare sight you may think for a seventy something?

Ray and I sit there with a beer in hand playing a game of ‘guess the occupation’ of the occasional knuckle-dragging Neanderthal stumbling past in a drunken or drugged stupor. “That’s the local vicar I reckon”, “No, he’s more like hair dresser, or maybe a special constable in his spare time when not designing children’s board games”? If such a job even exists these days?

No disrespect to these professions, but you get the gist of our entertainment. Obviously we’re also not immune from being ‘people watched’, as others possibly spy the two tall dark (?) handsome (?) men dressed in identical Harley jackets, and draw their own conclusions?

But it is with much entertainment that we observe, as if we are not actually part of it, which we obviously are! The overall impression of a Harley Davidson motorcycle weekend seems to have an ambience of everything we, and these people were, forty or fifty years ago.

The septuagenarians head-banging to Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the water’, blasting out from behind the numerous beer tents, makes me smile inwardly, that here are thousands of people just like us, young in mind. 

They may dress differently, they may give an outwardly impression of being something they certainly aren’t, but there’s no disguising the fact that they are lovely people, or at least the ones were we met. 

That should come as no surprise, because in fact, most people are.