Engage Your Brain Before You Open Your Mouth

Many years ago, 1975 to be exact, I was an 18 year old Biker wanna be. I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up and I began by hanging around every Biker I met. I quickly learned the art of engaging my brain before opening my mouth, and I learned that lesson the hard way.

As a kid growing up in the Washington, DC suburb of Arlington, Va I saw a lot of neat things. I was within miles of the hub of the universe as far as I was concerned. Along the way I learned many little tricks to get by in life and one of the most important was taught to me by a Biker named Squirrel. Squirrel demonstrated to me the possible result of running your mouth at the most inopportune of occasions.

I was living with my fellow Biker wanna be buddy, Truckin' George. Among the many associates and visitors at the pad were members of the Pagans Motorcycle Club. Perhaps they were "ex" members at that particular moment, but suffice to say these were some bad Muthas. One day I was sitting around chillin' and I made a rather stupid offhand remark.

One of the neatest things I'd ever seen was a guy who rode a Full Dresser and had a monkey riding on his shoulder. It was one of those little Organ Grinder monkeys. I saw this dude and his monkey dozens of times in the late '60's and early '70's. This individual and his monkey were well known in the area at the time. One day when Squirrel was at my apartment I made the stupidly ill advised remark "That dude with the monkey is the baddest thing I ever seen," or something to that effect. I was merely expressing my admiration for the dude, his motorsickle and his riding around with the monkey on his shoulder or sitting on his gas tank. A poorer choice of words could hardly have been chosen by my big mouth.

Sometime later that day came a knock on the door. I answered it and lo and behold my acquittance Squirrel was there. I opened the door and he walked in. No sooner than I closed the door behind him he reached under his long winter coat and out popped a .410 double-barrel shotgun, the barrels sawed off so that they were no more than 10 or so inches long. The back of the stock had been sawed off and the whole gun was no more than 16 inches long, thus easily concealable.