The Loss of a Real Biker

I lost a friend of mine this week. I call him a friend even though I haven't talked with him in 10 or 15 years. His name was Watson Edwards. He was a guy that found me several years ago after I purchased my first Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He was told by a mutual friend that I had purchased the bike and stopped by my house un-announced to introduce himself. That particular Saturday like most for me, I was at work. My wife Marty answered the door to find a scraggly looking biker dude on the front porch. Her first impression was...WTF? Who is this? What kind of people was her husband going to be hanging out with now that he thinks he's a biker? A long story short, I began spending my Sundays exploring Eastern NC on my Harley with Watson leading the way. One of his favorite things to do was ride from one roadside country bar to another....and he knew them all. Sometimes it was just us two, other times it was a whole "gang" of us. The more guys we had on the trip, the louder he was and the more crap he talked. Just to give you another idea of what kind of guy he was, he had a jacket with a heading on the back that said "Heros and Legends" and a list of names. I don't know if I remember all of the names but to give a few they were, John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray, and Jesse James. He never told me which ones were the "Heros" and which were the "Legends". Watson was definitly one of a kind. Even though my description of him sounds pretty rough, he was really a good guy. He was my only "real" biker friend and it didn't seem to bother him that I was just a regular "drug store biker". He just liked anyone that shared his passion for riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. His death was not only very sudden, it was also very untimely...he was only 69. I have gone several years without a Harley. Since my daughter was born in 1998 I have taken those types of risks out of my life. So that means that it has been 11 plus years since I rode with Watson. I've thought many times that I would call him or drive over to his house and see him....I wish I had. I'll never look at a Harley again without thinking about Watson. He was as I said, one of a kind and will be truly missed.