Anarchist to Abolitionist: A Bad Quaker's Journey

Of Shepherds, Dime Store Cowboys, Bikers, and Wrist Pins

We lived in the management compound on the Southdown Land Company’s farm for a little over three years, but proportionately it had a much more lasting impression on me. As mentioned above, I was afforded the opportunity at night to slip away from home and hang out in the local beer bars and play pool, but the experience was far more valuable than just playing a game and winning the occasional dollar or two.

Most of the people I interacted with in those bars and pool halls could loosely be associated with one of two opposing groups. They were either redneck dime store cowboys or they were bikers, often Hell's Angels. There were a few Hispanics that would drift through from time to time, but they were few and far between. There were other bars around that were more suited to Hispanics, or, at the time, they preferred to be called Chicanos to distinguish themselves from the large population of immigrant and often undocumented Mexican farm workers in the valley. But the Chicano bars were farther away and I would have to take a chance driving on a road to get to them. Remember, for most of the three years at Southdown, I wasn't old enough to legally drive, and my Jeep wasn't registered nor licensed.

Referring to the local whites as redneck dime store cowboys was not something that would have offended them. They were very proud of who they were and went to great lengths to costume themselves in all the proper attire to fit their part. They always arrived at the bar with an oversized cowboy hat, cowboy boots, unfaded blue jeans, a cowboy shirt, and a ridiculous oversized belt buckle. They drove pickup trucks, often modified with a flat bed, and they often owned an Australian Shepherd dog that wore a cowboy-styled neckerchief around its neck. Some were so extreme with their image that they would only listen to music that was either produced in Bakersfield or was broadcast from a Bakersfield radio station. Also they tried their best to sound like they were from Texas. To my knowledge, I never met one who owned a horse or had ever worked cattle, which is funny because, by that time, I had owned several horses and had worked cattle, but they considered me a surfer because of my long blond hair.

The rednecks tolerated me and didn't really give me any problems, and, in return, I tolerated their ridiculous attire and silly habits. I would play pool with them anytime because the money I won from them looked exactly like the money I won from the bikers.

You could say the bikers wore their own uniform, and you could mock them for all dressing in a similar way as other bikers, but it was different with them. Their attire was utilitarian. Any leather they wore was to keep them warm and dry in the winter, and protect their flesh in case they hit the pavement. Their colors, if they were in a club, identified them and let everyone know if it was okay to be there or if they were specifically looking for trouble. If they wore jeans, then those jeans were likely dirty and faded because the bikers lived and worked in them. The bikers weren't trying to achieve a look, they were who they were and they put on no false show to be someone else.

Years later, living in Ohio, I saw lots of "bikers" who wore "biker" uniforms on the weekend, but were bankers, lawyers, office managers, or accountants during the week. This was in the late 1990s when owning a Harley became fashionable. I viewed those Ohio "bikers" the same way I viewed the dime store cowboys back in the 1970s.

The Kettelman City bar bikers mostly didn't notice the rednecks, so long as the rednecks behaved themselves. And the rednecks knew the basic rules; don't look at any biker women, don't look directly at the eyes of a biker, and move out of the way when a biker is walking. Other than that, observe basic bar civility and no one will get hurt.

I learned a lot from both the bikers and the rednecks. Mostly what I learned from the rednecks was that tribal rituals and customs, including having an over expressed accent, are silly, but a large percentage of people are sheep and can't or won't think for themselves. They have a need to follow someone or something. They also have a need to fit in to their tribe, and be identified as a member of that tribe. Be they rednecks, Lakers fans, Republicans, Democrats, or a member of any other tribe, the point is to be in the tribe, and it doesn't matter what that tribe is so long as they are faithful to that tribe.

The bikers, on the other hand, sort of took me under their wing. I would sit with them and ask questions, and they would explain things to me in a way that made sense to me. They would tell me about rides that they had gone on and events that shaped their lives, and some would even tell me about their childhood. Most were Vietnam veterans, and I knew not to bring that topic up because even among the same bike club, opinions and experiences varied widely and anger and pain still burned fresh in many of their hearts.

One day, there was some tension between some of the local Hell's Angels and some Angels from a club up in the Sacramento Valley that had stopped in the bar for refreshments. I was about to slip behind the bar and out the back door, when I noticed one of the local Angels holding something in his fist under his table, so I paused to see what he had. The Angels worked their way through the tension without it getting bad, so I walked over and sat by the guy holding the thing under the table. He slid it into his pocket and picked back up his glass of beer. He was a regular that I knew well, so I asked him about the object. He handed it to me and said that it was a wrist pin out of a diesel engine. He told me what specific engine, but I can't remember.

Wikipedia

A wrist pin is an engine part that connects the piston to the piston rod. The one he handed me was a little larger than a roll of quarters, heavy, and very smooth and shiny. The shiny surface is hardened steel, as it's actually an oversized roller bearing. I had seen many wrist pins, but never one this big. He could tell I was impressed by it so he told me why he carried it.

He explained that it allows him to punch harder, without risking broken hand bones, because it adds weight and structure to his fist. By having it in his hand, the force of the strike is transferred through the pin into his palm, rather than being fully absorbed by the small fragile bones in the back of the hand. This amazed me because I was, at that very moment, wearing a cast on my right hand from breaking a hand bone on the eye socket of one Wayne Ferguson (Fergy) a few weeks earlier.

I told him about the fight with Fergy and we both had a laugh. I started to hand the wrist pin back, but he said for me to just keep it. He could get another. I bought him a beer and we sat and talked until the bar closed.

The next day I went through my junk drawer and found an old knife sheath, and the wrist pin fit it perfectly. I trimmed one edge of the sheath down just slightly so I could remove the wrist pin easier and faster, then I put it on my belt where it stayed until after I got married five years later. Once wed, I thought I wouldn't need it anymore because I was putting the violent phase of my life behind me. Boy, was I wrong.

In the title of this section, I mentioned shepherds. The beer bars were mostly in Kettelman City, about two miles north of the Southdown farm, and the pool hall was in Avenel about ten miles away to the north west. Usually I didn't go as far as Avenel at night. Usually I would cut class from school and hang out at the pool hall for a couple hours, then go back to school. But I became pretty good friends with the pool hall owner. He was a very nice older gentleman named Ander, and we often spoke as we played pool. I never played for money in his hall, as he frowned on the idea of a young kid gambling.

One time Ander and I were talking about the desert around Avenel and the hills west of town. I told him I loved to roam all over the area either in my old Jeep or on my ATV. Ander asked if I ever saw the shepherds with their flocks on the hills, and I said that I often saw them. I never road or drove near them because I didn't want to bother them or their sheep. Ander encouraged me to go and meet the shepherds. He explained that most, if not all of them, were Basques and he also was Basque. He told me that when he first came to America he worked those hills as a shepherd until he was able to learn enough English to get his citizenship. He further explained how incredibly boring it is to be alone every day and every night. A man would come out with supplies about once a month, but he couldn't stay and talk because he had other shepherds to resupply.

I promised him that the next time I went out to roam, I would try to find a shepherd and have some conversation. He said, "If you do that, stop by here first and I'll send a bottle of wine with you for the shepherd. Remember, I always say, a man's gift makes room for him."

It was about a week later that I took my Jeep out to roam on a nice sunny day. I stopped by the pool hall and Ander gave me one of those gallon jugs of cheap red wine. It didn't take long to find a flock, so I parked the jeep and walked over to the shepherd. I told him I had a gift from my friend Ander and the shepherd was thrilled. He invited me to his camp to sit down.

His English was not bad but we did struggle a little to communicate. However, it was still nice to sit and talk as the sheep wandered around us. The dogs kept them all nearby and he only occasionally stood up and looked around to make sure they were doing fine.

At one point he went into his little trailer and brought out a big loaf of sourdough bread, a tub of butter, and two coffee mugs. We sat together eating bread and drinking wine as we talked. I knew he had to be careful with his supplies, so I ate and drank very little. After a few hours I thanked him for his time and said my farewells, then I went back to Avenel to tell Ander about it.

After that, I tried to go out and find a shepherd as often as I could get away from work and school. Ander always insisted on sending a jug of wine with me, and I would buy a loaf of sourdough bread and some butter to take along. I don't know any specific things I learned from doing that, but I enjoyed it and it made me feel very good to just spend time listening to the shepherds. I can only hope I made them feel half as good as they made me feel. Listening to old people rambling on about their lives has more value than most people understand these days. For tens of thousands of years, wisdom was passed down through the generations like this. Now, that no longer takes place. Information is gained through an Internet search, but wisdom dies with the elderly.

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