While I was at my wife Barbara’s funeral, someone vandalized my Harley in the church parking lot. It wasn’t random. They spray-painted “BIKER TRASH GET OUT” on it—because I didn’t fit the image of our upscale community, Cedar Hills.
We’d moved here six months earlier, after Barbara’s cancer returned. Our daughter found us a one-story home in this “respectable” neighborhood. From day one, my Harley was a problem for the HOA president, Howard Parkman, who made it clear motorcycles didn’t belong. Barbara, even while fighting cancer, stood by me. “My husband’s bike isn’t going anywhere,” she told Howard. And it didn’t. But the complaints never stopped—noise, oil stains, “concerned” neighbors. Barbara found it ironic. “They think your bike is the worst thing here?”