Category: anthropology

October 20, 2004
Interview 2
Ethnographic Interviewing
Yongho Kim

Y: and have had a hard time listening to it. [laugh]
D: you can’t hear it?
Y: nope, well I could hear it. I just like, specially folk terms, I couldn’t because I didn’t know, but the notes helped me a lot
D: ok, I you should hear really clearly.. where’s that mic? (it’s there) ok, we’ll do that. can we hear you? [laugh] (I’ll remember mine) ok.
Y: so, umm, could you tell me about what happens on Friday rallies?
D: ok, what we started on.. I get there on Thursday? Well, it depends on what’s been set up and we’re doing the tri-state rally, basically. So starting from 9 to 5, the vendors, “vendor” [laugh] you justy ask me, if you don’t know the word, you can stop, that’s what cI would do in India when I couldn’t hear because I wouldn’t know the words there. There’s the people selling the stuff there. Ok? They, open up so some.. actually, before you do anything, get up and you often go to breakfast either at the motel, or some place close and you look for people to go to bhreakfast. And I’m forever looking for people I know and then we go up for breakfast together. Or you just go and see, you go with somebody yoy know. It’s p[rettyu socialble. And, uh, eat your breakfast and find out what they are doing. After getting dressed, of course, and it’s figure out what the day is gonna be like, and it’s usually fairly hot, we all of us would put on shirts. That usually t-shirts or variouys kinds of shirts. Each chapter, many chaptrers have their own shirt, with their chapter logo on it. I have one. Then you get a t-shirt on every rally, and they make a special rally for that rally. And it has the date, and place, and it has the design on it, and so, like I’ve been going to ralluies in 1979. so I usually put on really old ones, to show’em how long I’ve been… [laugh] a member. But I’ll put one of those on.. I’ll puit on vests.. you know what a vest is, it’s a vest. (Is it like a jacket?) well, no sleeves, though, it’s just and they are either made out of leather or denim like the blue jeans, an those, you have a big back batch and what state you are and what chapter you are, and if you hold office, like I’m the district editor, so I have a district editor patch on the back mine, most people have a map of the united states somewhere on their vests with the s5tates they’ve ridden to, filled-in, [laugh] you know, you color them in, some peope have a Minnesota map, with all the counties.. that they have been to in there, on the front, there is a… usually on the one side you have the national patch and on the other you have a chapter, you have a special chapter, they are called patches. And uh.. then there’s other things you have on there. You have pints from rallies, you get pins at rallis, as I told you before. You get hangers that go with pins and connect them on the bottom. I’ll show you those later so you can see. Anyway! A lot of people wear those around, I always wear a hat, as I’m losing my hair, and there’s a number of hats, but most of them are called motorcycle hats of various sorts. They’re Honda hats, gold wing road rider hats, and they are like baseball caps most of the time. But some people have, there really is a whole area of hats to personalize themselves, people will wear, I don’t even have names for some of the hats people where, but they, it’s usually a couple coming in and they both have the same, and they do everything the same, except their vests’ up, so the patches and pins are in the same place, and they wear either a t-shirt, you know, a t-shirt like I told you about, or they may wear various longer-sleeves shirts that match. Some people wear crazy pants, they are very brightly colored and there’s several kinds of that. And the common one is one that has red, white or red white and blue stripes on it like the American flag, very bright. And there are those.. umm.. and the women women wear often wear a special gold wing road rider jewelry little brime stones and the stuff on their vests things like that. I usually, it’s gonna be a hot day, and usually it’s just things like that. anyway, just gonna be a hot day, I don’t put a vest on, [ircg:052] [gist explanation that it was going to be too hot for clothes] but a lot of people still wear’em. Anyway, you go to breakfast and you see a lot of people, and then there’s a number of things you can do. There’s a self-guided ride, you can pick up at the registration table. There’s a sheet there that gives you a tour, a ride, it’s called a ride, to go out with places to go and how to go sort of route map. You can go by yourself, or you can get some other people. Most people go in groups, if they wanna do that. Sometimes, there’s something called a poker run. Yeah. Poker. And poker runs ARE Essentially the same thing they’re rides but they have “check points” and some volunteer from the association is at a check point, and you get a plain card out of it.. or a deck of cards. I don’t know I’ve never done this. But that’s basically what’s.. and.. you go.. you have to go to all these places to get your cards. And you have to pay to do this. You always have to pay a bit to raise money, and you pay to do this, and you go on the poker run, and you try to get the highest poker hand, I don’t play poker so I’m not even sure and there’s usually a price for the highest poker, the best poker hand, and the next best , and they would the top three hands. And then there would be a worst hand. There’s usually a price for that. and you know, you come back and you get your stuff. And you know who won that, and you hand in your stuff, you get money out of that. they divide the money of those paid in out, and usually about half of it is paid for prizes, and half Is kept by the organization. Because, one of the reasons you have a rally is to raise money for the organization. Ok, what else do we do?
Y: you mentioned, you mentioned last time that some people had jewels in the united states maps, and this one..
D: oh, that’s on the motorcycle. You put a map on the motorcycle. I don’t have one, but some people put it in the motorcycle same thing as younger vests, they glue little. Yeah, you just glue little glass jewels.
Y: oh that also applies to the vests?
D: no, for the vest, you use.. either a marking pen, color, or even.. I bought a little salad of fabric colors. You know, you can just paint them on there…
Y: you kept mentioning that couples do this and couples do that. Is there a term for people who aren’t couples, or who are couples? ( who aren’t?) yeah. Actually, are couples members?
D: Couples.. yeah, yeah they are. I mean, unless they haven’t joined yet. But.. the couple, the term couples is a big term. Most, most people who belong together. It’s something they do together. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t really enjoy this much. She’s been to three rallies but she really doesn’t go for it for that much, since I am in the state staff, being district editor, I am really busy most of the time, I take photographs, and little things. So I wouldn’t have much time so she doesn’t go. So there’s.. this is my term, I talk about the “rogue males” [laugh] they’re.. they’re usually a group of men, whose wives are not there. And there’s few women who are not attached to anybody. Umm, they ride their own motorcycles and they come. There aren’t many, but there are a few. So couples by, you know, they.. I told you before, we chapters pick couples of the year. And it’s spelled C.O.Y. in capitals, COY they call that. (Does COY mean anything?) COY means, couple of the year. C.O.Y (So does the word mean anything?) No, the word is made up. It’s an acronym made of that to shorten it. Because Couple of the Year takes a long time to say, and so you say “does your chapter have a coy”, “yeah,” and “who’s the district coy, and “who’s the region coy”, this region, from our state, the region coy, the region is made up of about 7 states, region “E”, is where we belong to, so they were chosen “region coy” and they’ll go to the national rally next year and compete for “couple of the year” for the united states, actually for the whole organization. So, you’ll see. I met the national COY, they’re called this year they have showed up at our.. at our.. affair, and they’re pretty funny, how they show up for us, and they [laugh] ok, anyways, we’re still on Friday.. so..
Y: so, so, …did the.. you said that the “rogue males” bring their own motorcycles
D: yeah, I mean, most, most of the men. Virtually all of the men and ride..motorcycles. (Is it different for the couples?) Yeah, because.. maybe.. 85% to 90% of the women ride on the motorcycles with the men. (hmm) the Honda Gold wing is a big motorcycle and it has a place for 2 people to sit on it, and it’s plenty powerful, and that’s why there’s such an emphasis on couples, I suspect because it is a motorcycle made for 2 people. So way back in 1976, when it first came out, pretty soon.. couples were riding on this motorcycle, powerful enough to tour together. Recently more women, have been riding their own motorcycles with their husbands. Maybe 10 to 15% of them do now. And they also have been riding trikes. Trikes are motorcycles that have been converted to tricycles with two wheels, ever seen those around?
Y: I think I’ve seen the one with four wheels.. (well, that’s a car.. [laigh]) they have four wheels..
D: oh, those are off-road.. off-road coasters. No, but the motorcycles don’t come this way, but they are not at least 10 manufacturers that build trikes. And a lot of older people convert their motorcycles and call them “trikes” for short, tricycles, meaning three wheels, three wheelers, ok? And you know, they cost about $10,000 to do this. You spend a lot of money in this business. Women like this, because then they don’t have to worry about reaching the ground with their legs. A problem that short people and women have is that motorcycles are too tall, and it’s hard for them to reach the ground. And after taking a short women and short men, but more women are short, like that, and old people. I’ll have to consider it in a few years. My wife wants me to consider it now, to trike my bike outside so I don’t fall over [ smirk] the other thing you can do is to put a side-card on the bike. Quite a few people do that. I have a side-car on. Um… so! You wanna go back to Friday again? (sure, let’s go back to Friday) something else you can do is to go to seminars. Seminars start Friday morning, and I don’t know if we have talked about seminars.
Y: A little bit, you told me the kinds.. that there are seminars in safety, and how to pull a trailer, and co-riders
D: oh, ok. Thjose are the most common seminars. Sometimes, for a while we had a guy from the national office. Phoenix, that’s the.. we have paid people there. To come and give seminars.. But it was largely on this.. he would give a breakfast, on a morning, Friday morning, we would go to breakfast with Pete. Maybe it was Saturday morning, maybe, but he’s well known he writes columns for the national magazine, and he’s very funny, and he shows slides and does all sorts of things, all these topics, basically. There’s also we have had a seminar on self development. [laugh] by our district trainer, we had the term “trainer” there, and she talks about social relationships and things like this. Throughout this is a big emphasis on safety. Just a real emphasis on the whole organization. And the reason for this is that motorcycling is fairly dangerous. Humph! So, we also on Friday, would probably have, we probably have a CPR course. That’s course in, in.. resuscitation, and first aid, and you can take that.. it’s a certified course, you can learn to give mouth to mouth, it’s all that stuff, but also held on Friday. We also have a.. an advanced writing writer training course experience actually, ERC Experienced Rider Course. I don’t think I got it right before… anyway that’s a, that’ a old course. It starts four hours into the classroom, four hours outside to learn to do stuff. And it’s very good course. I’ve taken it once, and I should do it every year, actually. (What kind of stuff do you do?) Well, the classroom stuff is about all sorts of things. About traction. When you corner a certain amount of traction in the tires, the ability to stick is used up because you’re leaning into the thing. So if you have to put your breaks on there, you’ve already used some of your tire traction. They’ll tell you that. Talk about cornering is a big thing in motorcycling. Have a corner is an actual root you train people then you talk about situations in which where you have to watch out for what cars are going to do. And then.. it’s been a long time since I took this course so I can’t tell you exactly, but.. you talk about the most common kinds of accidents that occur have arrived on freeways, and keep out of everybody’s ways, how to be seen, colorful clothing and stuff (oh, by cars) yeah! No I mean It’;s a real problem. Cars don’t see.. they tend to see these big motorcycles better. I used to ride a small motorcycle. They, so it’s like riding a bycicle out here. People pull out right in front of you because they don’t perceive as a vehicle. So these are all problems that motorcyclists faces, and when we get into an accident we get hurt, more likely to get hurt badly. Talk about even the kinds of clothing to wear, and that’s important. The course itself is largely given to.. how to break, they’ll tell you about breaking suddenly. How to counter-steer. Which is the salvation for me of motorcycling. It’s so wonderful technique. After you turn the wheel in the opposite direction you wanna go, slightly. If you wanna go right, you actually turn slightly left. It drops your motorcycle right. Very hard to imagine, but once you learn how to do it, typically what you do is to lean, using your body, and it’s much harder to gage how far to do that, and there’s a delay, once you learn to counter-steer, you can pop that bike, all of the racing guys know how to do this, and nobody else did, 15, 20 years ago it became common knowledge. I started practicing and then.. how to avoid, how to avoid stuff on the road, oh, that’s another stuff they talk about a lot, it’s road conditions, motorcycle. You hit gravel, you know what gravel is, little stones, (no) you know, just.. dirt, on the road that’s bad for traction, if you go lean way over going over the corner shaft it’s really easy to pull out and so you talk about that rail on the road, what’s called “edge traps”, “edge traps” are where two pavements meet and there’s one higher than the other, maybe, or there’s a construction project and they’ve ground down one lane, and the other lane is higher, catch your motorcycle really easy, and flip your wheel out. Take your sometimes you just get knocked down. Or railroad tracks, like the light rail railroad tracks, it’s very hard, if you’re going right next to them, you can get thrown. Those are called edge traps and you really have to worry about that. How to ride across a bridge, with grading. You know can actually see the metal, it’s made out of steel, sort of like a, you can see through it it’s like a screen that is heavy so you can see through it but it’s just, you’re riding, your tires are catching and we call it it’s a metal grading, and there aren’t too many of those but there are some. And it’s a shock when you get there. [laugh ]because your bike is going like this [trembling] all the time. However do all of those things Or what you do in a year-seqeunce. What else do we do. We have a trailering course, how to tow a trailer outside, you actually go learrnin and so forth… uhm.. what else. There might be, if we had a dealer, as in a vendor, motorcycle dealer comes over and brings bikes. There might be demo rides – demonstration rides – and they’ll bring over the newest Honda Goldwings 1800’s and they can let you ride em and take you somewhere – usually take you in groups – they wanna sell you, so they do that. That’s something you can do on Friday and Saturday both. What else could you do?
Y: so that’s all things you have learned in ERC?
D: No, ER.. “Demo” rides are just things I do at the rally. Demos and trailer.. ERCs doesn’t do trailer.
Y: so that’s what we do, after crossing bridges?
D: yeah they might tell you about that, the trailering is a separate course, to learn more about how.. how to tow the trailer with a motorcycle (it’s one of the seminars?) well, yeah.. ah,, I would call it a course, not a seminar. Seminars are inside, in classroom setting where in a motel, you set up chairs. The courses are outside, you ride, part of it at least like the ERC. Some of it is outside, and some of it is inside, but some of it is outside. You ride with.. cones.. to see how tight you can do that. Okay what else would you do on Friday. You may participate on on-bike the on-bike competition.and they have the competition is constructed.. there are several things you do. You come up, they have to be wearing your protective clothing, which means, long-sleeves arm, usually a jacket and a helmet, yours boots covering your ankles, and that has to be very thick so you don’t get hurt. There are several things that go on on an on-bike competition. One is, the slow race. Or the slow ride, it’s the same thing. And they, they lay out a tape cord, it’s about 16 inches wide. And I can’t remember how long it is. It’s about probably 35 feet long, and the idea is to ride your motorcycle up to this and ride as slowly as you can without going outside the lines. And see how long it can take. The best, the best times were running around 18 or 20 seconds. It’s very hard to do, because you got to barely move and you got this huge motorcycle and all would fall over. And that’s one part of the on-bike competition. Then you have a slalom. S-l-a-l-o-m I don’t know how you would spell slalom. It’s the same as in skiing. There you set cones out, and while you set them out in a line, and the idea would be riders to ride as fast as you can, weaving back and forth between the cones, and come out of the other end, without hitting them and without missing them, that is without being able to go around without one. So it’s a speed, that’s hard, that’s one of the hard ones. Another is, I don’t really know how they are called.
Y: Is that how you call it? Weaving back and forth (weaving) yes, but is that how you talk about it with the other riders? Members?
D: Yeah, you, you do in fact that’s also a common term in the motor-era period.. motorcyclist even race car drivers when they are trying to break their tires in “weave” [makes dialectical motion a la thesis-antithesis with both hands and makes a “shooo” sound with mouth] comes out of the notion of weaving a thread. Back and forth as you weave cloth. Anyway, you weave in the slalom back and forth until you get out on the other side, and you try to do it as fast as you can. The slower you do it, the easier it is, but it’s hard. There’s also often a, a, I just don’t remember what they call it. The idea is to ride as tightly circled as you can. Ride around in a circle, and so you’ll just have to describe that. I don’t have a term for.. and they, they said, post other things on the outside. So you know where to go. And there are levels, they’ll start fairly wide, and then they keep moving it in, and moving it in, and I can’t remember how tight you can get, 12 feet riding around in a circle.. it’s very hard to do. You know, you’ve got to do it slowly, you can’t fall over [laugh], it’s happened, so that’s one. Then, there are there’s usually… [sigh] what do you call it… two or three other ones after the one I described. Oh that’s the other one. This is the “one up” bike games. One/up games. One person is on the motorcycle. There is two/up games, meaning [gist: there are two people on there]. There’s a number of ways to do this, but the way we have been doing it recently is, you go, you have these traffic cones, that equip tennis balls on top of these things, often like 6 or 7 of them, and your passenger will ride by, and the passenger tries to pick the balls off the cones, as he goes by and puts them on the bucket on his lap. Then you turn around, and your passenger tries to put them all back on, it’s quite hard to do! (wow) we had a guy and his kids, kids riding passenger, and they did it great! he’s a good rider so he goes slow enough. he does times as well. There’s time, and the number of balls you can get in there. Another, another thing we did this time was to slow a bean bag, do you know what that is? It’s a.. cloth bag with beans, you know, into a bunch of buckets, plastic buckets set up and the idea was, the passenger, as you go by, tries to throw the bean-bag into the bucket and I think there has to be six feet away or something like that. So, they did that, and I can’t remember what else they did, actually. I’ve pictures of all this stuff. Don’t ya? I saw one once, where, the passenger has a.. a waterfield balloon. [storng laugh] and you go under a string, that’s on top of you, two posts up there, and you ride your motorcycle under it. The passenger thwos the water balloon over the top and then catches it on the other sides, without breaking it. If it breaks, of course, everybody gets wet. Uh.. I haven’t seen that one recently, but I saw it years ago. So! this is sort of the idea, and that’s the tour on bike games. in another words, one out of two,and stop. There are off-bike games. [laugh] usually inside. and I don’t watch those too much. they usually have to do with throwing a little bean bag in.. there will be a target up there with you, know, it’s a gord that tries to hit stuff, but I don’t know, anyway, little kid.. anybody.. can do that. and you get awards and prizes for that. so that’s something you can do on friday. There.. in the afternoon, a lot of people do this all day. They don’t do the on-bike games all day, but they just schedule for a certain time. I can’t rememebr if there was anything major scheduled.. there were seminars on the afternoon friday, less usual. I think a lot of people go riding on friday afternoon (uhuh) they’ll take one of these rides, to do that, uhm a lot of time, that this is going on, people are… there are three staff members that are selling 50/50 tickets they are called. And what it is is a kind of raffle, you know that word, where you buy tickets. And then, you know, there are two strings and you split them, and you divide and put them in a.. in a bucket or something. And they’re all mixed up and there will be a drawing at the end of the day, they’ll pull a ticket out and announce a number and in 50/50 what they do, is to divide half of the money you paid for the tickets and give half in prizes, and give half to the association. So they’re always hanging around and selling these damn things. I usually, I never win. I only won once after 20 years of this. [laugh] I won a third level, I must have gotten $40 that’s probably crossed $200 or $300 over the years.
Y: but. who…? I mean you should assign like 1% of the.. [laugh] (what’s that?) I thought you usually assign only like 1% of the..
D: it’s called 50/50 because they split it 50/50 (right, right…) and there are other things, always things going on, these fundraising acitvities, is what they are, ways to raise moiney, and I think there’s a formal term for that, that’s just one of the way, another way is that people bring prizes in and there are other raffles going on. There’s a desk, where the vendors are, usually, there’s a rider education booth. It’s called the booth cuz it’s like the display booth. They have a number of prizes in there, and you can buy raffle tickes to get those. there’ll be a table, so there’s a rider education raffles. So there’s some really nice things sometimes. They get dealers to donate tires.. it’s good stuff. Somebody makes a quilt every year, people make really nice stuff.. 5, 4, 5 years ago somebody…made a hand-cart motorcycle rocking horse. You know what a rocking horse is? It”s like, you know what a rocking chair is? (no…) it rocks back and forth. it has, like this, you know, you can rock back and forth, you made a motorcycle, rocking horse, he made a motorcycle and raffled that off. You know, it was art, sort of. And that was in the.. in the educator booth. Then there’s the table, people bring in, baskets. They are called the raffle off- they put all sorts of stuff called “goodies” in there and goodies can be.. any set of prizes like, you know, most chapters put one of those together, to raffle off, and people can buy tickets and raffle. All to raise money, and there’s a fee to go to one of these, you register.. to go to this district rally and meet and when you get there.. you have to register, I have $30 dollars. So they make money off that, and then… I haven’t told you this before, but you gotta, oh maybe? I did get a colored-band on your head so they know, there are areas that are off-limits to the public during one of these things, so, one of the jobs people have fill is that they have to be door-guards. They sit and make sure you got, everyone has an arm-band. They are called wrist-bands, I think we do call them wrist-bands. on.
Y: what’s, what’s your plate, the horrible plate that you got..
D: oh, that was a door prize. (oh that was a doorprize) yes. door prizes are also donated by, thjat’s something you get just for registering. they give you a ticket. when you check in in the registrar, you get a little hanger, and a pin and it would get your door prize ticket. so you can put it in a bucket, and you have the number of your door prize numbers in there..
[another professor comes in]
Y: umm.. so you said that there is the.. there is the 50/50 ticket raffles, the basket raffles to raffle off, in which there are goodies, and other kinds of prizes where people raffle off things to do fundraising (yeah, uhmm) are all those a specific kind of activity?
D: well, uhh we actually switched here.. to ways to raise money. and they are activity.. I wouldn’t call it an activity but something you can do is to buy raffle tickets, okay? that’s something you can do.
Y: so are these some specific kind of to raise money or are they just random ways to raise money? So, uh, I’ll stay 50/50 tickets, the raffling baskets, and the.. (goodies, yes) and the wristband door prizes,.. are these (no, wristband door prizes, well, they really aren’t a way to raise money) but are these two, 50/50 tickets and baskets (baskets) a specific way of raising money?
D: they are each different. (they are each different) yeah. so, so is the education booth raffle. those are all different.
Y: are there other ways to raise money?
D: umm.. let me think..[silence] I don’t think so. no. oh, no! a poker runs are a way to raise money. they are also a thing you do, but poker runs are a way to raise money.
Y: yeah.. I was wondering.. for the officers if it was different from the 50/50 and the baskets raffling were different from the pocker runs?
D: for officers? (yeah, for officers) no. in fact, officers are often expected to buy more tickets than what other people do [laugh] it’s too bad. I’m kind of … not a great gambler. But I do expected to spend $20-$30 on these things every time I go. (I see) Another thing you do durin g the day, if you want to go back there, is.. uh.. go to lunch, and you usually do that with people if you can find them. I tend to hang out, they are on friday…afternoon, there is a COY reception. Just for invited people. Not for everybody. I go to that for photographing. There are chapter COYs and so chapter directors and so forth all show up to that. And they have a cake. And something to drink. And they, it’s a way of recognizing them. And let’s see.. what else would go on.. mostly people, people stand around a lot and talk to each other. And they look at each others’ motorcycles a lot. Oh! One thing you during the day often is polish your motorcycle. Wash it, and polish it. Everybody is very, they just love to polish their motorcycles. And uh… the.. usually the motel that is hosting is usually set up a washing area with hose, and donate some cloths, and things and buckets so that you can wash your motorcycle. And so everybody is.. is.. in there. A lot of people do.. I usually spend some time polishing my motorcycle. We love our motorcycles in here. Beautiful ones. You might also, friday, take your motorcycle in to the vendor area, to have it “pin-striped” or to have it “mural-painted” or something like that. And you know, people spend a lot of time, part of the reason to go to a rally is to buy things. There really is a trade show going on there that vendors, selling you things. And I almost on everything from clothing, and there will be people there will lightning, jackets, all sorts of things, and it’s as easy to buy that stuff there, a lot of people come from parts of the state where there aren’t any dealers. and it’s all.. they may spend two or three hours wandering around, talking to vendors, one vendor usually there’s one or two of them with “camping trailers” you know, that you can make into tents. They are called campers. So if you are thinking about that, you can look at those. There are.. there are maybe some vendors who are selling jewelry and things like that they sell pretty good. There’s usually cleaning, special cleaning materials. There are vendors that, we have talked about this before, that sell accesories and accents. And you know, one of the running jokes as you go, everyone starts thining about the acceseories that they could put on their motorcycles. The absolute top of this is together at the national rally where there’s usually 70 or 80 vendors. Just with every possible thing there. But sometimes there will be a dealer with stuff on the area to put new ties on your bike, or install accesories, they are taking your bike apart, and that’s almost going on on one of these things. So, one of the things they do is just take your bike and be “accesorized” to have stuff put on it. Uhh.. people.. and sort of wander around there, by about 4:30, you start supper rides, or dinner rides. They’re called either, usually dinner rides by cyclub. Now, they’ll leave at different times, one leaving at 4:30, and one leaving at 5:00, one leaving at 5:30. What they do is take a ride, and end up at an restaurant somewhere out around, where it is. They may ride per 75-80 miles. So it’s a guided tour, actually. And then eat and come back. On friday night, you have the.. talent show, and you also have the best dressed chapter competition. The best dressed couple competition. And any other competitions, I cannot think of anything.. there usually are several “acts” in the talent show, I happened to be one of them, come out of my banjo, and make them all sing. Done that twice now. And, er, there used to be a competition, I actually won first place in the talent show there, was very good, people really enjoy that. We had a big turnout, and a lot of it is very funny, and chapters think really crazy things to do. It’s a good thing. Actually people, I always go to the bar to drink. [laugh] about that time. So that’s friday. And saturday is, many of the same things go on saturday. The special things like off-bike games and on-bike games. Sometimes they’ll mix this up, but I was thinking was the last event.. (the tri-state jamboree?) At the tri-state jamboreee. And saturday they always have the bike show, and the bike judging. Which means that people enter their motorcycles and they are beauty contests, basically, but we don’t call them that. And there are anumber of different categories in which you bike in. “Stock” meaning, you haven’t nmodified your bike in a significant way, there’s a “open class” which means you can do anything you want to your motorcycle, it’s painted and it’s got extra lights everywhere. (That’s what the bikers call it “open class”?) Yeah, “open” well.. let’s think. Yeah, I think it is. Sometimes there is a middle class where you can have some, I have never figured out their rules on this. I have my side car, on my side car once, but there’s only one or two, they are second place, but they are side cars. I should have entered my bike, I was doing an Iowa rally years ago, they had a stock class, and nobody entered it. I put one in, in that one. Because my bike is pretty plain, it doesn’t look very neat. Uhh.. but a lot of people watched, liked to look at the bikes then. And they wandered around. There was also a mascot competition at the same time. Mascots are stuffed animals [laugh] Do you know what a stuffed animal is, you know, little bears and some things like that. Someone liked them quite a bit. Something like 14 years ago, Golden Riders started putting stuffed animals in their motorcycles. By 8 years ago, virtually everyone – not everybody but at least 80% of them – had stuffed animals in them and they came to be known as mascots. And they were usually attached to the trunk rack, or something they would sit back there, and they would dress them up in little vests, and they put gallons onand everything. [laugh] Okay, so. Because of that, they started a competition for the best mascot. Well, mascots are fading. There aren’t very many of them any more, but they are still having the competition. And I expect a few to go away. We used to have these rallies in state fair.. county fairgrounds. Now a lot of people can’t have them. They come in with their campers in camp, rather than being in a motel. Well, when that was the case, they had competitions on who was the best little camp camper, sort of. So they are always competing. At the same time, you have to be careful about competitions because it hurts peoples’ feeling when they lose! Anyway, those probably aren’t quite as popular altogether. All these competitions don’t seem to be popular as they used to be. Oh! ONe more thing on friday. Friday night, you have the light parade. And the light parade means that everyone wants to put a bike in this thing, that has a lot of lights in there, and a lot of people have a lot of lights in their motorcycles. Bars, it’s part of the accesories that you put on your bike. And so, once it gets dark they either ride around for the motel this year, they got to ride downtown. And 60 motorcycles during this light parade. And some guys really don’t have them. Flashing, they have all sorts of things set up. I saw a light parade guy who had a trailer with a generator on it to all those lights [big laugh] And that was as often we don’t have a competition anymore, but there used to be a best.. the best one. One year the couple sold, there were little light bulbs, they sold them all over, their riding suit. And so they outlined themselves in little lights and they had a separate battery running their seats. But it was quite a sight. I have that on video somewhere. So! Okay, we got the light parade over, on saturday we got the bike show, which sort of goes partly in the morning and partly into the afternoon. At about 5:00 we have the grand parade on saturday.. oh! once in a time we had a “free hot dog feed” and uh, so, some members volunteered to cook hot do
gs and uh, we got hot dogs, and put them in the trips, and it’s a bad meal, of course. And that’s what you get there, and everybody lines up and they get hot dogs, and something to drink, slo forth. So at 5:00 we have the grand parade. And there you try to get with a motorcycle on it. The police show up, and you take a tour, through whatever town it is – 3 or four miles – and everybody runs slowly and they hop their horns at people and hold off traffic [giggle] the National – this format is very like the national rally too, where you have as many as 6,000 motorcycles. But lot of the same thing goes on there as wel.
Y: You said that at the chap.. no.. chap.. chapter? No, region. At the regional rally.. it was the regional rally, right? (no) it was about five min..
D: this is the district, the tri-state rally is actually the district ofthe state. Three states. but really two of them have hardly any members. South, North Dakota. North Dakota has two chapters and South Dakota has one. That’s why they put us together with these kids. They’re too small to have their own district rallies. So we call it the tri-state rally but it’s basically a Minnesota District Rally. The Region, used to have a rally then they cut it out, then this year they had a rally again.. in Illinois. It’s hard to get people to rallies – there are so many rallies now, it’s sort of people to get to do them all. So, I’ve been to a couple of regional rallies in the old days, but I haven’t been recently. The region is Illinois, it has the Dakotas and us, and Wisconsin, Missouri.. you know, I can’t even remember the states but we’re even now.
Y: And we’re region E
D: Region E, yes. We’re “America’s Heartland” as wel.
Y: How many regions are there?
D: You know, that’s a good question. Probably we get about 9 or 10. Umm.. I can go look and count them for you.
Y: Within the region E.. how many districts are there?
D: The districts are the state. So it’s the number of states are the number of regions
Y: Oh, there’s a special case for the state of Minnesota.
D: No, they talk about.. the Dakotas are in their own districts.. but they aren’t really organized. But they are called districts.
Y: And then.. how many chapters are there. So which district are we in?
D: We are in the Minnesota District. Used to be called the “state”. Why do they call it a district now, I don’t know. I got mad at them. Because state seemed so reasonable.. how many chapters there are depends on how many you can get. We have twelve. And one of them is defunct, but we still count it, I think it’s still true.
Y: Wihch are you in?
D: I’m in Chapter G. (Chapter G) The northwest metro, we’re calling ourselves.
Y: So the chapters are alphabetical.
D: Well, yeah, they are, but it’s.. Chapter G was the first chapter in Minnesota. Why do they call it G, I don’t know. We just added a chapter “B” up north, we don’t have a chapter “A”. (Oh, I see) I can name the chapters. Just cuz I … (could you? name the chapters?) yeah! sure. There’s chapter B, chapter C, I, G, K, N, O, ther’es chapter.. a.. R, S, V. How many is that? [30 secs of tape cut] but.. anyuway let’s look at that list. You wrote them down there? OK… there IS chapter F – but it’s defunct. G.. F.. I…K.. oh it’s chapter L. That’s what I’m missing. What there’s a chapter F and we’re counting it.
Y: Can I interview you on Friday?
D: let’s see.. any possibility that you may interview me afternoon?
Y: Monday? Oh, afternoon?
D: I have this book deadline and when I come here it breaks my morning up. I’ve got to give a lecture at 1:10pm. Then at 2:10. Do you have a class then?
Y: No, I don’t.
D: Ok, let’s do it at two…
Y: two ten on Friday?
D: yeah, sure. That way we can put it together.

October 17
Ethnographic Interviewing
Yongho Kim

Interview 1
Motorcylists
October 12, 9:00-10:00 am
Typed Oct 17

D: Yes. [laugh]
Y: Uh.. professor Guneratne told me that I could interview you about the microculture of motorcylclists. Is that…?
D: yes. There’s two things you can interview about. (uhuh) that, or.. I also work as a musician. So it could be either one. If you prefer motorcylces, that’s fine. It’s.. but.. what we’resuggesting is.. where is the microphone. Oh ok. I’ve worked in an organization called “Development road riders” GWRRA. And I have since 1983 so, I’m a [irrecog] member. And uh, we could interview me about that.. so if you wanna…
Y: Can I interview about the motorcycles? [I guess Dustin really wanted me interview him on motorcycles.. haha] (uhuh, sure) so… are you still a member of the [irrecog]
D: I am.. I edit their weekly newspaper. So, type set in, and eveyrthing. Yes.
Y: HOw often do you work or are you involved with the…
D: Well, not.. I’m involved all the time with editing the paper. I work too often, sometimes, how often, I’mnot sure.. I go to the national, I go to the state, we have a rally for what’s called the district which is the state, plus two other states.. north and south dakota, that’s called the tri-state “jamboree” [laugh] that’s what it’s called. So, I’ve got that every year and that’s usually somewhere in the state. I sometimes go to things called fundraisers, where you ride there and often you take a ride with people there. We just did one three weeks ago. [next time ask him about the fundraiser] where we rode all over Western Wisconsin, basically, I did 170 miles with the group that day. Uh.. I mostly there are chapers of this organization, it’s a national organization. So, overall 85,000 members in it. Every state is called a district and it’s all organized and then inside the state are chapters. So there are chapters, regular chapter meetings, called to get together. Every, every month. And I’ve only been a [ircg:031] all my life. I just can’t get away. It’s my grandchild, grandson. But, for that.. then during the riding season there are ride every week. That are organized.. uhm.. and let’s see.. ride night is tuesday. And there are a few rides on thursdsay, and now.. right now they’re doing “leaf runs” [laugh] where they are meeting on saturday, to go. Usually up north this time of the year, touring areas. [ircg:036]
Y: So, so, I am getting from you that your activities are.. writing for the newsletter? and..
D: yeah, I edit the newsletter and.. it’s uh.. it’s a sixteen page newsletter so it’s farily [ircg] job. So I get emails from submissions, and ads, and all sorts of things all the time. But that’s kind of another.. scene. (Y laughs) I need to know about that, what people do, but doesn’t involve directly involve writing. (uhum) The.. anything else..
Y: And then you go to fundraisers..
D: uh! yeah.. I go to fundraisers.. I could go to evening rides.. uh.. and I have a few of those. I’ve got to do more of that next summer. My wife doesn’t ride much, though. So I sort of hafta leave her with her grandchild now she gets stuck [ircg] I could do that.
Y: Uh.. is there a place where all these things happen?
D: Yeah. Uh.. it’s not as neat as you know, as you had a club house or something like that. We have a, what’s called a “ride point” which is where you go to meet and ride. And it’s up in the corner of 694 and uhm… I think, I think it’s state road five. With the… mobile station area. It’s a gas station. Uhm… then.. they get together. As they mostly say. A place called “pippins” a sharp nice.. where is that? It’s in river I think. And they get to hold their own meeting and.. stuff. (uhuh) And then.. that would be that.. sometimes people just get together and go for a ride. GThere are a lot of rallies this summer that people tend to like to gogo, I think. There’s a national rally, it’s done in Texas this year and it’s gonna be.. in [Winona?] next year. So people ride together. So you have these group rides where people ride in a group And.. it’s a lot of people.. this whole thing is based in an organization based on motorcycle [ircg: 068] Honda, Goldman. And and they sell motorcycles [chuckles. Y laugh] And you know, it’s made for touring and it’s actually made for carrying two people.. uhhh.. easily. So it’s very powerful and it’s large and lots of levage [?] space and stuff like that. So, touring [now he sounds excited] is really a kind of key activity for people and they like to get out and.. go distances, a lot of them take trailers behind these bikes.. and.. uh.. you know, I have ridden to every state in the United States, 48, I haven’t gone to Alaska.. except Florida. I’ve got to get to FLorida before I get too old. I got to 100 miles from Florida once but I ain’t take the side cut there to get in. So, we have actually.. we have vets sometimes out, sort of silly, but people are standers, I guess but you are vesting in those organizations have a back patch, and a nasa, and for every, everything that you have attended, just about. So if you go to a rally and it’s called a hanga, and the hanga goes on a.. a pin that says “tri-state jamboree”, it has the year on it. So you get it. If we keep going on I’ll show you the rest. It’s actually a… it’s good because it shows a lot about what’s important to people. And uh.. the number of years, you have a membership pin, and you have a new bar for each year you have been there. And uh, on your vest. And you know, any rally which you think will have ten [ircg:91] some people, I have so many pins I can’t put them in my vest, I put them in the drawer. cuz I’ve been doing it for so long. [definitely ask him about what he has been doing and his pins. this reminds me of Malinowski’s description of the Kula and its comparison to trophies as social institutions] that’s what we do..
Y: So I was asking you all these questions to.. to get.. the idea of whether it would be “right” to ask you what would be a regular day be like? Would that apply?
D: no, no.. it wouldn’t because there isn’t a regular day, but, so, the thing that maybe think.. is what we sometimes call activities. Each chapters has activities sort of activities that the whole organization does.. and so, like, I don’t know. I’ve gone to rallies I go to activities, funraiser is a good activity, a mall show is too. Mall show is a good activity [laugh] and yeah, these things have a spot for eveyrthing. So
Y: Is.. “riding”… are “leaf runs” a kind of activity?
D: A “leaf run” is a kind of actrivty, Yes. I’ve never been to one so [laugh] I can’t talk about it. It’s like most “runs”, as we say (uhu) ah..
Y: Is that how other people in the motorcycling.. in the association, association call it? Activities?
D: Yeah, they talk about activities. And uh.. in the newspaper they have a column for the chapter activites, so. Yeah.
Y: Would you consider editing the newsletter an activity?
D: No. That’s a.. what is that? Yeah, we have a volunteers running the.. organization, basically. Nobody gets paid much. And uh.. I’ve held the position of “district editor” [laugh] that’s great. Now, actually something that people do together, basically, but, you know we have a “District director” it’s not an activity, it’s a position.. what would we call them…
Y: would “going to rides” be an activity?
D: Uh, right, yeah! “goin on a ride” (going ON a ride), yeah, that’s an activity
Y: what about “touring”
D: uhm, only if ti’s organized. That is.. everybody tours, but ah.. if if you are going to, you and six other couples are going to touring together, I suppose.. now it really has to have a name for it. Somebody has to say, “okay we are doing this”. For example, orange chapter decided to have a “friendship run” so, it got people, and they start on friday and get back sunday. and what they are doiung is riding a different part of the state, staying at places. So a group of couples, a lot of couples involved – men and women who are couples. Got together to do this run, it picks some people up. They get to the north, in the state, I can’t remember what town.. but they pick up some people from there, a chapter, and they rode across the west, and they stayed, there, and they came back. Uh, that’s, but that’s a kind of a ride.. so just the act, the act, I mean “I tour”, but sort of people don’t belong to this club at all. So it’s really gotta be something that’s organized.
Y: So you are saying that the friendship ride is a kind of a ride? “friendship run”? (laugh)
D: yeah I can’t rememebr if this is a run or a ride. Cuz I think they have made up a term for it. And I can’t rememebr what it was. and I can’t go to things like that. Cuz I work as a musician on sunday mornings, so I can’t go there.. but uh..
Y: Are there other kinds of rides?
D: Well, just there are “weekly rides” (uhu) okay, that’s that would be the term for chapter, chapter rides, or.. almost alternative term. Chapter rides, and… uh… let’s see. Then there.. the term “run” and “ride” is an interesting quesiton. I’ve never been able to sort this out. But there are “leaf runs” and “chapter rides” and these are kinds of activities, okay. An maybe other kinds of rides besides.. besides “leaf runs” Well, it was just that,… you know that wasn’t a chapter deal… cuz it’s something called the “club run” (club run) but that’s not a GW activity. It’s a state activity. They’ve got 20,000 motorcyclists down here, I swear I have never seen so many motorcycles down here [do motorcyclists care about the number of people showing up at rallies???] uh they go down the mississppi river, twice a year. Well it all started [gesture] [laugh] started in 1965 where there was a big flood in the Mississippi and the motorcycles went down there to Winona to help sandbags, and somehow it got going to a yearly ride, and it’s called the flood ride and nobody organizes it. Somebody announces when it’s gonna be, and nobody knows who announces it, and everybody shows up. And you get thousands of motorcycles (laugh) you know, every town along the way has thousand.. the fire household And it’s auxiliary and those of us who are volunteering get hot dogs and sell your stuff. Beer, unfortunately. These kids are clocked and going at 205 miles an hour, which she wasn’t… it can’t. but that’s what the police said, from the helicopter. It was on the flood run and we were way down south, but they “claim” it was going at 205. It’s not a Honda, it will not go at 130 (laugh) it just can’t be true! Made a mistake. Anyhow! Back to the GWs does these things. What else do they do? They have christmass parties, I’ve never been to a christmass party either so I don’t know. And I told you most things I told you most things..
Y: so, so the events you go most to are the mall show, fundraisers, and rallies, and there are rides, of which there are chapter rides and friendship runs?
D: Yup, those are all.. all.. part of that too.
Y: Uhm.. could you tell me about the last time you went to.. a rally? (uhm?) or to a fundraiser?
D: Let’s do a rally. Since I was going to the state rally, which is now a tri-state rally, you gotta know when it is. It’s.. right now it’s all scheduled for the end of the last week in July.. maybe the first day to.. starts out on Thursday, on a Thursday and ends in a Sunday. So you’ve got that. And we just used to go to.. we used to camp out. We used to do some big beer.. fairgrounds of various towns, now pretty much we stay in motels so there’s host motel, and you need to book. Since I’m on the “state staff”, you know, since I’m in the district everywhere. I stay in the main place just so that I can see eveyrbody. And I know another activity.. we have an ops meeting. Operations meeting. We call them ops meeting – it’s coming in novemeber. Twice a year. Anyway, Okay, back to the rally. So you make plans, you book at noon, that is, if it’s pretty full, 500, or 560 people go on to these tri-states, so.. and uh, so, I was gone Thursday evening if I can, I’ll just pack up my stuff, in my motorcycle and my wife has been to only two of these, so I tend to go by myself. Now I take my banjo with me, because they have a talent show, and they need me playing that (laugh) So high pot! Put that under the bag on the motorcycle. (uhuh) Anyway, ride to wherever it is. Last year it was up in Fargo, this year it’s actually in Moorehead. This year, this year, is in MArshall, Minnesota. So ah… I have to Marshall, and pack there, and usually you see, if you go there pretty early, a few people are coming, that’s all.. I just check in, put my stuff in, and you go for.. people I know. Sort of “scope out” the place. Yeah well that’s my term. I just look for people I know, and see who’s around. And usually there’s an area where he has vendors, people selling stuff, so you need to find out where that is. Once a year is to register. That’s probably the first formal thing you do, to register, and there’s a registration table. And before you go… I pre-register. So I can register, you can send-in your money, and you don’t have to pay later and those things, that’s it.. $35 bucks this year, it’s not too bad. And you pick up your “registration packet” you get that from the table, and you probably by this, since I have been to a lot of them, I know most of the people, who are in the tables so I say hello and ask how they have been. There’s some people from North Dakota and they are very very stay involved.. but then we have one or two chapters, actually two chapters, and I have noticed that there’s not much to them, but anyway. They are there.. and then I usually take that up to my room just to see what’s the schedule in there.
Y: Do you take the regsitration packet to your room?
D: yeah and I get.. we get our ten year from our “bar” and I have to put one on. and just to check it. And we have.. door prize ticket. Just a.. bucket. And you should get your wristband. And there’s a number in your wristband that’s stamped on it, and that’s the number of your door prize ticket. And you have to carry a ticket or not. So you put your door prize ticket in this hand. And you got your wrist band and they clip it on. So that you are “legal” for the entire time. You are legal for the whole.. and we go up to the [ircg:214] now, just to sort things out, they decided to be next, and usually I come down for people. Because it’s that time of the day.. it’s two (?) unless there’s some [ircg:216] some things that need to be done, like they’re setting up a equivalent of vendors are.. these are some they all sell some other things there.. chapter tables now, which is kind of display a chapter activities, some of these help with that, and you .. I’ll rememebr chapter G so chapter G got a table. I help set it up though, they got it under control, I used to help set up the door prize table. and people, they beg people to donate stuff. to give away, this is a regular track for people to derive, I think, I don’t know. Anyway, so you draw tickets out of the pocket and take them on their prizes. So people come by and they look at your van, and they look for numbers and the [ircg:226] and various things. I had a plate, I think. It’s a horrible plate (laugh) it’s got.. nerves.. somebody donated that.. so I got that. uh.,. I always check in to the chapter, that the district ditrector, to see what’s going on. I have some of the particulars I know that, have escaped that because I deal with them all the time. So, hopefully. [ircg:232] and uh.. then if it’s near… very often on thursday, we go ahead on dinner rides.. that’s right, dinner rides.. we organize a dinner ride. we say at 4:30pm, we are gonna meet outside, and we are gonna have a ride to the restaurant, outside. so that will get out there at 4:30 and willt take a half an hour ride and we’ll go to the restaurant.. and we eat. and I made it four or three of those. Four.. four 4:30, 5-5:30, something like that. So we get different times deciding when to go. I haven’t been to one this year but I have been to those.. any circle. You ride together, you have a lot of rules for riding together now. And uh… the.. they ride in what’s called a “staggered formation” where, the ride.. two of them, normally two of them. But one guy rides ahead, so if you have the right track, you stay back here, as far as the outside track is.. on the street. You could be right next to each other. but you could cross, so you “Stagged” and this guy is here and this guy is here. so you have you are supposed to be one second behind the guy on your left and two seconds behind the guy in front of you. and normally, normally allow for about six to eight people to ride together. Then we meet a gap, and then we send out another group. And this group has a.. a need bike, and we have CDs and radios, most of us, so you are then.. there is a tail, this is called a bike. Let’s say you hit the red light. The idea is to get the whole group when it turns green, so that you don’t leave anybody behind. The guy in the front warns you of things lying on the road, watch it’s grab a lot, corner, I got a lot of this in the radio, it’s all this coming on. And people who don’t have a radio.. we have hand signals, to point out stuff, and everything they meet a guy.. filters in their motorcycles. you can dine out in the [ircg:256-260] whoever it makes sense. So we have headsets and helmets and you just have your CD label on. And people listen to it. That’s what they are talking about. And it’s kind of nice, I don’t have to worry about where I am going. I just can go to see them. (laugh) as we go by, and we stop and we have, stopped at a restaurant, and people they usually call ahead because you don’t want sixty people to pour in it. They kind of want to sit and rest together. And meet people, a lot of times we don’t meet people. And then when we’re done, usually the group goes back together. If people know where they are, some couples may go off and ride some more, it’s summertime. they like to meet. (laugh) and so it’s just fun to ride. And so when you return, you return back to the rally side, I usually after that, I kind of look for people who go to the bar and have a few drinks, frankly. Usually I can find somebody, sometimes two or four people and they just sit in there and drink, and see what’s going on. Since I’m also an anthropologist if I turn to ask them questions to see what’s going on, what peoples’ problems are, it’s really interesting to hear what problems chapter directors have. I asked them about that, I’ve never been to one, so I don’t know about the culture of being a chapter. Some of them have told me. And you know, normally I just go to bed. Then on Friday morning (Yongho laughs) whenever I have … but you have a list of that. So on the schedule, it would be like, vendors are open 9 to 5. Uh… then we have things called.. what are they.. seminars. We have seminars on safety, seminars on how to.. how to.. tell a trailer, seminars for co-riders. That’s who are riding behind the rider.
Y: could you, give me just a brief description of the activities during the day? so that I can have a general idea.
D: oh, ok, yeah. Alright. Sure. An activity during the day would be going out and seeing what the vendors have to say. So, an activity during the day, now I’m not sure if we call these activities. But things you do during the day, um… you might buy 50/50 tickets (uhuh) that’s kind of a raffle thing, you might buy raffle tickets at the education base, district educator. that has to do with safety, it’s a huge program on.. memebers take advanced driving courses, they take CPR courses, lots of stuff on safety. Anyway, we have a big gropu. So they get people down to raffle off them, and they are trying to raise money. a lot of money-raising going on here, because they don’t have a regular income at all – it all just has to be raised. But anyway! So you might buy stuff on raffles, you might just scan around and talk to people, you might go to a ride, rides are ordinarily self-guided tours. They call them tours at that point. It’s a ride, if it goes off, if somebody leads it. But when we call it a tour at that point.. you gotta piece paper with directions on where to go, and do this by yourself, or with others. Umm.. what else goes on. A lot of people stay around and talk and see each other. it’s sort of like going to a.. media national might [ircg:316], the american anthropological association, that’s you see the same people. You do it last year then you know them all. One thing people do is to look at bikes’ parts out there. They look at each others’ bikes a lot. What they look for.. on.. tons of accesories people have, and modifications and make them some different. What other things we have, are off-bike games. (Y laughs) that’s something we do. (as opposed to on-bike games? [laugh]) yes, there are on-bike games and off-bike games.
Y: going back to the accessories, I also wanted to talk about.. so you mentioned the sapi radio, and head sets, and helmets, that you usually use when you go to rides, are they a kind of something..
D: Well, they are not accesories. Accesories are things that go on the bike. You see, the radio itself is not an accesory. There’s a huge list of accesories. I could name them all. Their own kind of.. there are accesories and there are accents. And that’s two different things. I have.. one kind of an accesory is an after-market seat. That’s a seat that, motorcycles problems with a seat, you can buy a seat, for the motorcycle, it’s supposed to be more comfortable in that seat. So I have one. Wrestle all day long. You can get.. I have something called a.. ah.. “duck foot” it’s a company that made the thing, it’s a slightly enlarged.. looks like a duck foot, thing, that is attached to the side-stands, and leave them on, and this just attached to the bottom, so it won’ t sink, or into mud, or into.. the black tap, and hot weather.. when it’s parked. The sides down there try slowly dig in until they fall over, and so that’s an accesory. There are lots of aftermarket windshields. I have one. They are made by five, six companies that make a thousand accesories. There’s something called “boogie lights” that’s accesories. There are mostly neon-lights or albertie whites. There’s a “ring of fire” for your front wheel, those.. (laugh) they are little cone things that you put on the sides and your bike gets that descent.. it’s because of the things that one of the activities after the rally, there’s a light show. where eveyrone gets out there after dark and they have a parade – it’s a light parade, light show. And you turn on all the lights. and it’s great, except people have a couple hundred. and a guy used to carry a generator on the trailer.. (laugh) so anyway! back to accesories. What other accesories. do we have.. we can have a truck separator. Just a little plastic that you insert in little pockets and it will remain static-free. The motorcycle has a top box with trunk on top, for side bags, ok. On each side of your wheel that’s all “built-in” I’ll show you a picture sometime. Uhm, and so we can have a trunk separator. We can have a trunk rack, that sets, you have to buy it. And you have it on top of your trunk and the bike comes out.. and you can put bungie coords on top of it and stuff.
Y: what accesories do you have on your…?
D: well, I was thinking that way. I have a trunk rack, I’ve got an after market seat, I have.. what else do I have. I have after market hand grips. I have.. ah.. back foot, I have decorations in this . oh! I have the year(?) that measures amps, voltage and the temperature – the outdoor temperature that I’ve installed in this bike. (So what..?) it’s a gage. It’s a gage made for motorcycles and has a couple of buttons on it, and depending on what button your press, because the voltage that your generator is putting out, or the amperage it’s putting out, or the temperature, the outdoor temperature, it’s got a narrow thin sensor in the front. Most of the time I ‘ll ride with the temperature, cuz it’s fun to see how it goes up and down. But sometimes I have the amperage because these bikes have been known to either have their electrical systems overrun, or have problems with the generators so.. so I have that on hear. Do I have anything else? That the CD, I don’t think so. Well accents are these little just little con-sided basks that are sort of tacked on to areas where the extra chrome, and make a.. frnakly I don’t think.. but there are a lot of needs for those things.. but I’m not sure I can give them to you all, oh! I know what else I have. I have multiplex mirrors. They are illegal. There are times when.. you’ve got to know where the traffic is. On both sides. And these things, not only sort of, you know, your right hand corner, things look closer than they seem in the mirror and that’s because it’s slightly curved to show more space up here, but [ircg:414] but they also bent a little right on the outside edges. So if a car is right abou there, I can still see it on my mirror. So that’s how people save $90 whatever that is. and now states, don’t like them because people think traffic is too far away. but I know about it. And I don’t wanna give this motorcycle up, because it’s got that feature I really love it. So you can also have.. I don’t have a name for it.. it’s a pop vent. (pop vent?) pop vent.
Y: so all those things are accesories?
D: Those are all accesories?
Y: do you have any accents?
D: no, I don’t have any accents. I refuse to get any accents. (oh, what, what..) I was.. OH! I know something I’ve got. I have.. I have.. what do they call it? You get an extra pair of foot pegs or fllor boards that sit in front of you right there. your regular foot pads. So you can put things heat up in there. I have to think about what the terms are called. I have a term for that. I have three years ago, so it’s stretched out, and hardly ever used them. But they are good. Those are accesories.
Y: Is there.. any unusual, unusual accesories? (what is that?) could you talk about maybe an unusual accesory you have seen when you were looking at other peoples’ accesories? (what do I look for?) no, unusual, like, is there any accesory that’s not seen very often in other peopless (oh! unusual) yeah.
D: ok, I mean, you might.. yeah.. one accesory is a toe. what would you call them. a hitch! a trailer hitch. on the back of the motorcycle to tow trailers. (with a motorcycles?) yes! (Y: laugh) you tow trailers with your motorcycle. Lots of people take trailers. They are not huge trailers, although some are pretty big. These motorcycles are.. on the early Gold Wings, four cilinders, flat four configuration, mine is a 6 cilinder motorcycle, pulls about 82 horse power, the current one, is a 1.8 liter, six ciliender, it’s very powerful and the motor is very powerful too. so they are also very heavy. they’ve got trailers all day. they are big machines. so let’s see. Somtimes people will quit, although a platform, on the trailer hitch, and put a cooler on there, with beer [laugh]that’s not a good thing to do (to save space?) no you don’t wanna, you don’t want too much weight behind your back wheel. And I don’t do things like that. but you can get a cooler, I’m not suure, they probably have names for that cooler. they can go out there, right.. extra lights.. there are lots and lots of ways to put extra lights. Oh and guards.. there are fender guards.. they have pipe things that sort of protect people from hitting things. and there are.. [ircg:474] little bags you can buy.. very often they’ll have white valers in them. So extra lights , you know. And.. uh.. in a scuff plates, they go on the front, of you are your isolant when your lights not there, and the here [ircg:479] they don’t scratch them, they are.. cones, they scratch.. oh! yeah there is an important accesory I forgot, are “wind wings” wind wings attach to the sides of your motorcycle, and you can angle them out, to blow wind, or you can angle them this way to blow wind on you. and I would say 2/3 of the guys have wind wings. there’s some majors for these things. But there’s also “flip wings” I just bought one. Umm… for… honda.. 1500, which is what I own, and they go underneath the cilinders and they direct.. you know how those [ircg:494] get rode up behind your headlight office motorcycle. Those don’t give it. So, those are accesories. And I have both of them.
Y: could you.. could you give me examples of accents? what are those things?
D: I would have to look, I think. Umm… to see what they are all called. Since I have never owned one, each company has its own names for these things, so it’s harder to rememebr them. But the way to look for them is to look at ads, and there’s tons of them there. There’s just dozens of ways.. the phrases part of these machines that you can put on extra chrome on.. and.. long time ago they discovered they could chromium-plate-plastic (uhuh) so, it used to be too heavy to put on, with metal stuff on there. But they were able to .. put an electro-plate-plastic film on it I just found that out. So these are quite light, with little chrome (I see) but, they’re decorations. a lot of people go with pin-stripes, by you go to a rally, one of the things you do in a rally, kind of got off a rally, there’s usually a pin-striper or maybe an artist there, paintaing a mural on your bike, you know, airbrush them, or paint gun, on your motorcycle. airbrushinng is most popular, the mostr famous that got around here is a guy whose company name is “chicken-scratching” he comes every thursday around noon, and he’s pin-striped down the side of your tank or something, he will also do your names on the back of your travel trunk? another accesory you can get is a little map of the united states and you put little jewels on the states that you’ve been. (laugh) that’s one. but a lot of times people put their names, on, you know, jerome, and susan, on their motorcycles, a lot of them areon the backs of their helms, too. so your pin-striper would do that. if you go to a rally this year, you can get your bike “detailed” which mans absolutely get clean. for $100 a cost. and they sit there, polishing every knuckle and cranny in your motorcycle. stuff over, [ircg:536] now that”s if you are your windshiled patched, with designs, slogans, [ircg] get your tires changed (laugh) not often at the district rally, but the national rally get anything you want to [ircg:542] for your national rally.
Y: can we talk about the people who come to the national rally.. to the organization? like kinds of people..
D: well, it’s… GW people and it’s the GWRRA, GW for short there. And it’s just [clear throat] usually, let’s see if you’ve got a 5,000 bikes you’re gonna 10,000 people which is one out of every 8 members of the national association. so, from all parts of the country, more from close, fewer from far away, usually, there’re international campers too. chapters not only in canada, but also in most european countries, china, japan has one, although korea doesn’t have one.. maybe one or twoo.. you have to import your bike from here to get there. I haven’t seen forgot those.. list of countries every year.. it’s in the natioonal magazine.
Y: when you say that there’s a chapter director.. (the chapter director, right?) chapter educator (chapter educator) and the newspaper editor, or
D: there may be a chapter editor, but there may be not. usually there (the district editor) I was a district editor. same thing there. there’s a district director, and an assistant district director. chapters are supposed to have an assistant chapter director too. so you’ve got a director and an assistant director and educator. educators keep a lot of records and stuff. then, chapters have ride captains, or “road captains” (rogue?) road. road captains I can’t rememebr another.. there may be affiliation, maybe state, but! you know, they lead rides um.. they may have they sometimes make up office to keep people involved (Y laugh) like they have a chapter photographer.. chapter before email.. or usually before the website, or webmaster. chapter webmaster. chapter webmaster. and a district webmaster, forgot. at the district level, what else have we got.. district director, assistant district director, a distirct editor.. we’re supposed to have an assistant district editor.. we don’t. we have area editors, we have advertising coordinator, and we have a membership coordinator who keeps members on memebrship.
Y: you said that the chapter and the districts are levels, are there other kinds of levels..?
D: this [ircg:600] this would be an chicken and an egg here, probably should go like until 10am
Y: are there other kinds of levels? or, are they levels?
D: levels? yeah. I mean.. what we call them.. there’s chapters, chapters are organized into districts. districts are organized into regions, within regions, “E”, the exciting region. (uhuh) and.. (and what about the areas?) what about an area.. you have “regions”, “districts”, “regions” and the “nationals”.
Y: districts regions, and chapters?
D: it starts from the top, the national organization, which has some paid members at the top, and it’s called “the national” by everybody, I’ve met some of those guys, kind of interesting. then the we, the comprehended world, is divided into regions. so there’s a region director, there’s a region educator, and so forth. oh! we have trainers too, there’s a district trainer. chapters usually don’t have trainers. but we have a district trainer, we have a national trainer, and there’s also couples of the year at every level. they are called COYs, C.O.Y. couples of the year. so chapters often have a couple of the year, so chapters often have a chapter of the year. they choose a couple to be a couple of the year. they compete for district couple of the year, who compete for regional couple of the year, who compete for national couple of the year. so there’s a national.. I just met the national couple of the year. district..
Y: so there’s regions..a nd within the regions are the nationals.. (nationals are the largest, regiones are second) and then it’s the districts (then there’s the districts which is really the state) and then the chapters (and then the chapters) and then the chapters. (there’s nothing below or above that.) what about the people who are not.. so you dsaid that director.. and asst director and educator are officers? (they are called district officers) district officers? (yeah, district or chapter offices. officers) officers. well what about the people who aren’t officers. are there names for them? (for who?) people who aren’t officers (they’re just members) members. (uhuh) but you said that there were couples too. (yeah. couples are not officers. they are couples.) [laugh] ok. are couples kinds of members.
D: well… [puzzled expression] (Y: laugh) that’s a good question. yeah! I mean… yeah, if you took, it’s one of those odd taxonomies, where the general term is “the membership” the membership is divided into offciers, and to couples and into members again. but at the lower level you use the term “memebrs” but you repeat the term ,which you shouldn’t. but it works, ok? uh… and then by “road captains” aren’t officers (the district captains? oh the road cpatains) yeah. they’re not officers. they just positions in the chapter. and I don’t know how to suggest that.. oh there’s treasurers. (treasurers)- see? once you get into one of these lists, you start thinking about these. so there’s chapter treasurers, district treasurer, I think the region has a treasurer, I’m not sure. and I assume there’s a national treasurer. but.. manage the money.
Y: well, I think it’s time.. and I’ll try to get more stories from you next time
D: yeah.. you could.. we haven’t finished it yet..
Y: you haven’t finished the rally yet?
D: no, we haven’t finished the rally yet!
Y: oh the rally! [laugh]
D: there’s a lot of stuff going on the rally!
Y: we got stuck in the friday morning
D: we got the grand parade, and the banquet (the banquet) in there..
Y: and then there’s the fundraiser and the mall show..
D: uhuh, a lot of those things.
Y: I’ll ask you abotu those things next time. thanks for your time.