My wife and I returned from Ohio to Missouri yesterday after a visit with my 80 year old mother, my 5 sisters, and my niece and nephews. We were there 3 days, and I took only kilts (4) for my daily attire, since that's what I wear daily. I had not been home in two years because of successive spinal surgeries, and it was the first time they had seen me kilted other than in photo's. They all thought the kilts were great and my sisters told me I looked very handsome in them.

To the main point of the story: On our way back we stopped for gas in eastern Illinois at a large gas station that was linked with a fast food place and several other stores. I noticed that there were several heavily packed, Harley-Davidson motorcycles with New York plates parked up close to the gas station. I went in to use the men's room, and as I exited the front door of the station, I hear man's voice from behind me, "It's a great Scottish day." As I started to turn, the man had caught up beside me. His left and right arms were covered in tatoos. He did not have a left hand, but a large silver hook. He wore a leather vest, and on the back, surrounding the Deathshead insignia, were the words HELLS ANGELS NEW YORK.

He asked me if there was a Scottish event taking place and I told him no, that I wore kilts as my daily attire. He thought that was great, and looked over my outfit including the sgian dubh. We introduced each other and shook hands. I told him that I had ridden motorcycles on and off for many years and now had a Suzuki 650 Burgam scooter because I could no longer shift with my right foot. He said, That's no scooter, it's a 650cc motorcycle with an automatic transmission." By now the other Hells Angels had come out to their bikes, and Marty, the one I had been talking with, told them not to call my kilt a skirt unless they wanted to find out what a sgian dudh was. Marty asked one of them to take a picture of the both of us together (wish I had asked if they could e-mail it to me). I looked over there bikes for a bit. Marty had over 72,000 miles on his and said he was carrying over 130 pounds of gear. We shook hands again, and they all rolled off like thunder down the highway - on their way to Arkansas.

I hadn't noticed the people that had accumulated standing off in the distance. They had looks of almost disbelief on their faces - the Hells Angles are here, and there's a guy in a kilt out in the middle of them talking to them and shaking hands - well, it's the power of the kilt don't you know?

Darrell