The 1951 photograph hanging on the wall of Eddie Williams’ garage shows the original members of the San Francisco Rockets.
Ten young black men are lined up next to their Harley Davidson‘s and Indians, big fat road bikes with windscreens. The guys are wearing leather jackets and caps like Marlon Brando wore in “The Wild One.” Today’s motorcycle skull buckets are great for safety, but when bikers stopped wearing those caps, they gave up a lot in terms of style.
The club logo is a cartoon man sitting astride a rocket ship equipped with motorcycle handlebars. “He’s riding it to the moon,” says Eddie, one of the club’s two founders. All those original Rockets are gone now, dead or long since retired from riding. Except for Eddie Williams, age 78, the last of the old Rockets.
He’s still as crazy about bikes as he was the day he saw a postage stamp with a painting of a motorcycle, and he asked his mother what the stamp meant.
“It means they deliver that mail fast,” she told him.
Eddie fell in love. He was born to ride. THE ROCKETS faded away, but they’re making a comeback, over at Eddie’s place in Bayview.
It was a very active club for years, about 30 members doing good deeds and having fun. But membership dwindled. In 1960, the club became the Bayview Rockets, and in recent years it all but faded away.
But about a year ago, Williams, Rockets’ president Willie Eason and a few others decided they weren’t ready to let the club die. The eight or so members began holding regular meetings and talking about building the club back up.
It all happens in Eddie’s garage, behind his house in Bayview. Remember when you were a kid and you and your pals built a clubhouse? Eddie’s still got his.
His double garage is a combination Rockets’ headquarters and war veterans’ lounge. Williams painted the sign: “The O’timers. World War II veteran’s do-drop-inn-club, 3rd Army HQ,” with a likeness of General Patton.
The clubhouse’s eclectic decorations include a Giants’ ’94 team poster, snapshots of Rockets outings, a shelf of motorcycle rally trophies and a large oil painting of country singer Kenny Rogers. Williams is well known for entertaining at cycle rallies with his country singing. He is the black biker version of Hank Williams.
The garage is equipped with folding chairs, a fridge, a couple of TVs, a nice stereo. Every day, a handful of guys stop by. Mostly WWII vets, but occasionally a Vietnam vets and some vet widows.
“They come here and drink beer or Cokes, and I play the music,” Eddie says. “This is their second home.” WILLIAMS SERVED in Patton’s 3rd Army in southern France. He drove a semi delivering food, fuel and ammo to the front lines. When German planes buzzed the highway, Eddie and his co-driver had to jump out of the cab and hide in the weeds.
They would unload the supplies at the front lines and take on a return load of either dead American soldiers or live German prisoners.
“We’d pack 110 prisoners in there, like sardines,” Williams says. “They did not want to get in, so the MPs would stick ‘em in the butt with bayonets. When they started to bleed, they were glad to get in.”
After the surrender, Eddie got his first motorcycle, abandoned by the Nazis.
“My friend told me not to ride it, it might be booby-trapped,” Williams says. “I didn’t care. If it kills me, I don’t mind, I wanted a motorcycle.” WILLIAMS LATER served in the Philippines, Korea and Japan. When he finally got back to the States he went to work at Letterman Hospital and bought himself a big Indian motorcycle. His mom was fine, but his father said, “Son, why you had to go and buy this thing?”
Because.
“You know, it’s going to kill you or make you walk like Chester (the gimpy character in ‘Gunsmoke’),” Williams says. “But it gets in your blood. You gotta do it.”
Eddie’s wife rode with him until they had two kids; then they decided, as Eddie says, “Somebody got to stay alive.”
Williams says he’s been down three times, but no broken bones. For several years his wife has been ill and lives in a care home, and the two clubs that meet in his garage are family to Eddie.
The Bayview Rockets are small but proud.
“It’s hard to beat the Rockets,” says Eason, club president for the last 24 years. “It’s a bunch of good people.”
The Rockets brag that they are the only Bay Area motorcycle club to accord full membership and riding status to women. Willie’s wife, Ellie, and Tina Daniels both ride three-wheeler Hondas, and both are club officers. Ellie is from biker blood: Her father rode with the now-defunct Rattlers.
It must be in the blood. Eddie’s son and his wife ride motorcycles cross-country. Eddie’s daughter used to ride.
Outside the garage/clubhouse is a 20-foot-high flagpole with a tattered American flag. On the sidewalk is Eddie’s 1975 full-dress Harley, shining like new.
“That’s something I really love,” Eddie says. “I love a motorcycle.”
Source: By Scott Ostler
July 13, 2011
Categories: Uncategorized . . Author: goldie1779 . Comments: 2 Comments
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