Two Sides of the Same Face

Like many other people who have chosen to live outside the customary norms of society I had a difficult time growing up.  My father was an alcoholic who was not afraid to slap me around drunk or sober.  I remember some of those beatings when I was very young.  Some were for very minor things and some were for things I had never done.  On the other hand, there were those few occasions my father would take me fishing with him.  He had a good side that I rarely saw, but I always loved my father.  My mother was always there for me and often stood her ground between my father and I especially when he was in one of his stupid drunken rages.

My father was in the Army and we traveled allot.  He had lied about his age and joined when he was 17 years old.  He wanted to go overseas and fight in the war but doctors found out he was flat footed.  I guess that meant he could not march or walk long distances like other soldiers.  So they gave him a job working in a switchboard to help with incoming and outgoing phone calls.  He was posted to a place called Petawawa which seemed to me at the time was in the middle of nowhere.  It is actually located in northern Canada close to Pembroke Ontario.

One day when I was about 9 years old a classmate was bullying me outside of our home.  I was scared and did not want to fight back.  My father saw what was going and shouted out from the window, “you either fight him or I will tan your ass.”  I punched the kid in the face and he started crying and ran home.   From that time on, I never backed down from a fight.  That was both a blessing and a curse.

My Dad was tough on me but there were those times I felt very close to him.  It was not all bad.  And, my mother was always there for me. Throughout my life my mother never judged me even in my darkest days. 

My father’s abusive behaviour towards my mother and I came to a head when I was around 17 years old.  He would often come home drunk and push my mother around.  On one occasion, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a pair of scissors and stood up to him.  He cursed at me saying “I’ll kick you face in with my boots!”  He had big double soled army boots and I was not looking forward to having them in my face.  I was lucky; he backed down and went upstairs to sleep off his drunken stupor. 

From that day my father left my mother alone.  We never talked about it. I was growing up fast and my father had taught me not to take any shit.  I had a weight lifting set in our basement and I trained regularly.  I played allot of football in my high school days and even played for Alberta College.

On a trip later to the USA and Westbrook, Main following my father's roots I found out what may have contributed to my father's outbursts.  My cousin in the US told me the story of my grandfather.  My grandfather was gassed in WW1 and he was never the same when he returned home.  He traveled with my father and grandmother from the USA to Montreal, Canada.  When my father was 5 years old he watched his father cut his own throat on the kitchen floor.   I am sure that this had a huge impact on my father and tormented him all his life.  My Dad never told me about his father committing suicide and I never brought it up.  I felt that he had reasons for not telling me so I just let it alone.

This book is not really about my childhood.  It’s about how a 1% biker who became a Parole Officer in the Canadian Correctional System.  It’s about my life as a % biker and living on the streets as a professional criminal and drug dealer.  Changing my lifestyle and ending up as a Federal Parole Officer and later a Provincial Parole Officer.  This book is about an ex “Outlaw Biker” who wrote pre-sentence reports for Judges and supervised countless clients and had access to Top Secret information in the Criminal Justice System!  In addition, as Parole Officer I had privy to every Prison in Canada!  All I had to do was show my badge and I was granted access to the institution.

Most of all, this book is about a dysfunctional Criminal Justice System in Canada and how it is setup to fail!

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Chap 1

Kingston Satan’s Choice

I had friends that I knew who belonged to the Kingston Chapter of the Satan’s Choice.  Two in particular were Charles (Chuck Grey) and Wally High.  One night Chuck picked me up and we went to a field meet close to Kingston in some farmer’s field.  We got pretty wasted at the field meet.  I recall there were some Paradise Riders and Vagabonds from Toronto there.  Of significance was the appearance of the Montreal Chapter.  And their President who happened to be black.

There were two Ontario Police Officers sitting in one car watching everything we did.  It was a hot day and I recall one of the Choice going over to their car and offering the officers cold cokes.  About ½ later I remember seeing those police officers with their sirens roaring and doing donuts in the field.  Apparently there was hit of acid in each coke.  We were hysterical watching them carry on.

The Kingston Chapter was relatively small with around 15 members.  But they were solid.  I remember, Carl Whitmore, Chuck Grey, Wally High and others.

Later that summer I traveled to Windsor with the hopes of landing a job at Chrysler’s on the production line.  I was able to do that in the summer of 1968. 

 Looking back it seemed to me that it was very hot that summer.  Morrison’s song “Come on Baby Light My Fire...Going to set the Night on Fire” was ringing in my ears as I watched Detroit city go up in flames.  I had a front seat row view of Detroit from a park bench in Windsor.  The Detroit River separates Windsor and Detroit it is not that wide.  In the night, you could hear gun shots echo through the smoke from the fires.  Both the bridge and the tunnel to Detroit were closed to the public.  Tanks were clanking up and down Woodward and Brush Avenue as the National Guard had been called to help crack down on the rioting.

That summer was especially exiting because I bought a sweet customized BSA.  It was painted candy apple tangerine orange and “Hippy” written on the gas tank.  It was chopped and decked with lots of chrome.    I wasn’t a Harley but it was the next best thing in my opinion.  I wanted to join the Satan’s Choice in Windsor and had them call Chuck Grey who was the President of the Choice in Kingston at that time.  Chuck gave me a good recommendation.  Now for the hard part.  I had to strike for the club until they voted me in as a full patched member.

Striking was likely the most difficult thing I have gone through.  The problem with striking is that it demoralizes you.  It breaks you down.  There is really no “you” anymore.  It was like the basic training I took in the Air Force but worse.  One time I was in Jackson Park in downtown Windsor with my girlfriend.  An Outlaw I knew from Detroit whos name was Walt, saw my bike and swung by calling me over.  He told me to get on his bike and said he was following a Queensmen.  The Queensmen in Windsor were a rival of the Choice.  He turned around and handed me a gun telling me to shoot the Queensmen when we caught up to him.  It was my lucky day because we never did catch up to him.  The Outlaws from Detroit were given free rein to treat any Choice striker pretty much any way they wanted.  And, remember one an Outlaw poured gas on my jeans and lit them on fire while I was sleeping!

I often wondered exactly what some of these rituals were meant to achieve.  Once I became a member I had a better idea.  Although I never fully understood some of the stupid things I had to do.  One time they nailed my boots to the floor and I had to stand in them for hours.  I recall one time when I became a member we were making a striker get us beer.  We were making a point as he had showed us some attitude.   He was a body builder and he was huge.  He was trying to intimidate us.  Making him do menial things in the club house was our way of showing him we were a brotherhood.  Intimidating members was not the way of being voted in as a fully patched member no matter how big or dangerous you were.

The Satan’s Choice in Windsor had a close relationship with the Outlaws in Detroit.  In fact in 1968 there were three Detroit Outlaws living in the Windsor area.  And all of them spent most of their time at our clubhouse.  Yankee Tom, Scotty and Walter Lysinki (sp) were all Detroit Outlaws and they were all Canadian and living in Windsor.   The Choice in Windsor patched over from the Heathens in 1966.  The Heathens wore 1% patches.  There were about 25 Satan's Choice members when I joined and they were a tight knit group.  Although there were some bikers that remained who were not really 1%rs.   These bikers would soon be weaned out as the club moved into 1% mode.

Here is a photo of 2 Satan's Choice, 1 Heathen and 1 Outlaw on the Harley Sportster.  (1967)

The President of the Windsor Choice in 1967 was Rick Mitchel.  He quit and was replaced the Ron Dupute.  Ron was different than most Choice.  He had a good steady white collar job working for the Windsor Star. He was tall and muscular but not the kind of muscle you get from lifting weights.  He had a great smile and won people over easily.

The club house was an old pool hall located in the Westminster area of Windsor.  There were a number of regulation sized pool tables in there and I slept on one that had a mattress laid out on its top.  I quit my job at Chryslers and stayed in the club house 24/7.  I had come up with the idea of selling drugs to make ends meet and not being tied down to a regular job.  I would drive to Detroit and buy kilos of weed and LSD.  I sold these drugs in Windsor but most of them I took to the Village in Toronto.

The Village in Toronto in the Yorkville area was going strong with hippies everywhere.  It was full of life and exciting.  On the weekends it seemed as though everyone in Toronto was there.  They were not just Hippies and Bikers there but many people from all walks of life.  The go to place for bikers in that area was a restaurant called Webster’s which was located on Webster Avenue and Avenue Road.  Mostly the bikers who went there were Satan’s Choice, ParaDice Riders, Vagabonds and the Black Diamond Riders.

I loved that restaurant and its vibe.  I got to meet lots of other bikers there and strike up real friendships.  The food was pretty good to.  I used to go there every morning for breakfast when I was in Toronto. I had a special relationship with the cook there who happened to be a recovering alcoholic.  I used to go in the kitchen and greet him personally.  I would always give him some extra money to help him out. 

The Village in Toronto was my Holy Grail.  I would either bring my product myself to Toronto or have it flown in from Detroit.  If it was weed I would clean it up and bag it.  I would distribute it to my people on the street which were mostly all hippies.  I gave them a good commission for selling my stuff and I protected them.  I would go around the next day and collect my money and give them more drugs.  They were happy and so was I.

There were no other bikers doing this on a scale like I was.  I treated everyone with respect and always had people coming to me for work (distribution).  If anyone gave one of my dealers a hard time I was swift to use my type of justice on them.  One of my trips to Toronto I bought a beautiful chopped Harley Davidson from a BDR.    It was a 74 pan head with a suicide shift.  It was flush with chrome with lots of metal flake.  It was painted a soft purple metal flake that sparkled in the sunlight.

I had girlfriend who used to pull tricks for me in Detroit.  I took her to Toronto one time to see how she would do there.  While she was there she started acting up.  A BDR took interest in her.  He offered me a bike and some cash for her.  I left Toronto with an amazing custom built pan head, $500 cash and no girlfriend.  I was happy riding my Harley Chopper back to Windsor.

Things were moving at a fast pace for me.  I was travelling between Detroit, Windsor and Toronto.  And, I was partying every day.  My drug of choice was LSD.  As strange as it sounds I enjoyed tripping out and even doing business when I was peeking on the drug.  I carried a bottle of vitamin C around and took 2 or 3 days off before doing acid again.  We believed that the vitamin C would cleanse my liver and I would get maximum effect of the LSD on my next trip.  Right or not this is what I believed. My best friend Weasel also love LSD and smoking weed.  But, he also loved sitting down with a few members and drinking a huge amount of beer.  

In 1969 I had made enough money from selling drugs to buy a brand new Harley.  I remember walking into Robinson’s Harley Davidson dealership in Weatley Ontario with two of my Choice brothers: Weasel and Eddie.   We all looked the part of a hard core biker.  He asked me what I wanted and kind of looked me up and down like he really wanted to get rid of me.  I pointed to a nice Harley Sportster in his show room.  A nice FLH with an electric start.  He grinned and asked me how I was going to pay for it.  I dug into my pocket and pulled out a huge role of money.

It took him by surprise when his eyes saw all that cash.  My two friends worked at Chryslers and he was happy to arrange financing for them.  That day he sold three Harleys to some of the scruffiest clients he had ever seen.   

My drug dealing trips to Detroit were both exciting and dangerous.  In those days you could get 6 months in jail for a single joint.  I used to bring kilos of weed across the border.  I would often stuff them in the door panels or in a spare tire.  I would deflate the tire and load it up with weed and add air.  One time when I was loading weed into the door panels of my car two police officers passed by me in their cruiser.  They had their heads turned the other way and didn’t see me.   I was lucky that day.

I remember going into a huge mansion in Detroit that had been taken over by Hippies.   I would go there and find out what was on the menu for that day.  I would make my order and wait a few hours for the delivery.  They had a place on the top floor that was made into a special waiting room.  Lots of Christmas tree lights attached to the ceiling and tapestries covering them.  All kinds of mattresses on the floor and 8 bunk beds where you could sleep, get high or have sex.  They had huge speakers on the walls and they played all kinds of Hendrix, Cream, Morrison, Zappa and Joplin music and other songs that were popular at that time.

More to follow!