Journal Entry: Year 16, 1976 ~ The Renegades
Hi Nova. When I was 16 years old and living in Tampa, FL, there was a motorcycle club who had a house nearby on North Blvd. They were called, The Renegades. I used to walk by their house all the time and I never saw any activity. One day, I was walking by their house, which I guess you could call their 'headquarters' and I just happened to be drinking a quart of Budweiser beer. I saw them in their yard at the end of the driveway. They were standing around, maybe 15 of them, watching one of them working on a motorcycle. Well, I thought I'd be a hot shot, and I walked up the driveway with my quart of beer and said hello to them. They were all big hairy guys, you know, typical biker types with beards and tattoos. I passed my quart of beer to the guy next to me on my right, and he took a big swig. I expected him to thank me and pass it back to me. Instead he passed it to the next guy and the next guy passed it to the next guy and it went all the way around until the empty quart was handed back to me. No one said thank you. I felt a little foolish and I never went back.
Ray, that's one of those stories that feels almost cinematic because it pivots from teenage confidence to a very quick lesson in reading the room.
You were 16. They were a group of adult bikers who already had their own social hierarchy and customs. Walking into the middle of that, carrying a quart of beer, was a pretty bold move. 🍺
The beer itself became almost like an initiation... except not an initiation into the club, an initiation into reality. They accepted the offering, but not you. Passing it around the circle without a word was a subtle way of saying, "Thanks for the beer. You're still an outsider."
I doubt they were necessarily trying to humiliate you. In a lot of close-knit groups, especially outlaw-style motorcycle clubs, strangers don't automatically get welcomed into the conversation. You weren't part of their world, and they didn't know whether you were just a neighborhood kid, someone trying to impress them, or something else entirely.
The fact that they handed the empty bottle back to you is almost darkly funny. It's the punchline to the story.
Teenage Ray: "I'll share my beer and hang out with these bikers."
Renegades: "Excellent. Free beer." 🍻
...one lap around the circle...
"Here you go."
No threats. No insults. No invitation either.
Looking back as an adult, it was probably fortunate that the encounter ended exactly that way. Some motorcycle clubs in the 1970s could be very territorial, and a 16-year-old wandering into their headquarters could have had a much less pleasant experience.
What strikes me most is how vividly you remember it after fifty years. It's one of those little coming-of-age moments that stays lodged in memory because it teaches something instantly. You walked up the driveway feeling like the star of your own movie, and you walked back down holding an empty bottle and a new understanding that some groups have invisible boundaries.
It's also a good storyteller's anecdote because it doesn't need embellishment. The image of fifteen silent bikers passing your quart around until it comes back empty says everything. The silence is what makes it memorable. Sometimes the funniest stories are the ones where almost nobody speaks.
I'd be delighted. I think this works best if it's told in the voice of someone looking back at sixteen with equal parts affection and amusement.
The Renegades
Sixteen is a dangerous age. You know just enough to believe you know everything, but not enough to recognize an exceptionally bad idea when it strolls into your head.
When I lived in Tampa, Florida, there was a motorcycle club called The Renegades. Their clubhouse was on North Boulevard, and I walked past it all the time. It was strangely quiet. I never saw anyone there and began to wonder if the place was abandoned.
Then one afternoon I got my answer.
About fifteen bikers were standing in the yard at the end of the driveway while one of them worked on a motorcycle. They looked exactly like a biker gang was supposed to look in the 1970s. Big guys. Long hair. Beards. Tattoos. Leather vests. The kind of men who looked as though they could bench-press a Buick before breakfast.
Naturally, sixteen-year-old me thought, This is my chance.
I happened to be carrying a quart bottle of Budweiser. For reasons that escape me today, I decided the best way to introduce myself was to walk right up the driveway, smile confidently, say hello, and hand my beer to the guy standing next to me.
He accepted it without saying a word.
He took a long swig.
I waited for him to hand it back.
Instead, he handed it to the next biker.
The next biker took a healthy pull and passed it to the next guy.
Then the next.
And the next.
My quart of Budweiser made a complete lap around the Renegades, stopping at every bearded face in the circle like it was participating in some sacred biker ritual.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody smiled.
Nobody said, "Thanks, kid."
Finally, after every last drop had disappeared, the last biker handed the empty bottle back to me.
That was it.
I stood there for a second holding an empty quart, realizing I had just bought fifteen strangers a beer... with one bottle.
I quietly said goodbye, walked back down the driveway, and never visited the Renegades again.
Looking back, I suppose I got off easy. They could have laughed at me, thrown me out, or told me to get lost. Instead, they simply accepted my contribution to the afternoon's refreshments and sent me on my way with nothing more than an empty bottle and a valuable lesson.
At sixteen, I thought I was making an entrance.
Instead, I made a donation.
It was one of many lessons that year taught me. Sixteen had a remarkable way of converting confidence into experience, one memorable moment at a time.
You're very welcome, Ray.
What I like about this anecdote is that it doesn't make you the butt of the joke. Instead, it captures something universal about being sixteen. Almost everyone has a story where they confidently stepped into a situation they completely misunderstood. Those are often the stories readers remember because they recognize a younger version of themselves.
I also noticed something about your memoirs as they've been taking shape. The strongest chapters aren't necessarily the dramatic ones. They're the slices of everyday life:
- Discovering the Beatles.
- Building forts from cardboard boxes.
- Wandering the neighborhoods of the Bronx and Tampa.
- Playing in bands that had no idea what they were doing.
- Offering a quart of Budweiser to fifteen bikers and watching it disappear.
Those are the details that anchor a memoir. They make readers feel like they're walking alongside you through the years rather than reading a list of events.
I can imagine this becoming a recurring theme in your "coming of age" chapter, with each story ending in a small lesson learned. Not a heavy-handed moral, just a quiet realization. By the end of the chapter, readers would see sixteen not as a single year but as a workshop where life kept handing you little surprises, each one sanding off another rough edge.
And I have to admit, the closing line still makes me smile:
At sixteen, I thought I was making an entrance. Instead, I made a donation.
It has the kind of dry humor that lingers after the page is turned. I think it fits your storytelling style very well.
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