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You Know When It’s Real

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Chris Callen, October 2011 Issue

Did you ever meet another man for the first time and know from that first handshake that he was a 100 percent real man? I don’t mean a person that comes across as a tough guy , but one that looks you in the eye and has that straight forward attitude about what and who he is. Or did you ever get to a place you were heading and feel, just from the energy in the air, that it was the real deal? So many times these days we see people trying to emulate that real characteristic, in themselves or the place or the business they represent, but how many of them are really real?

I started to think about this halfway through the Sturgis Rally this year as I saw a division split our little scene right in half. On one side were the businesses, who were trying harder than ever to make that all mighty dollar. On the other side were the caretakers of our culture who wanted little more than they always have from Sturgis: a good time in the majestic beauty of the Black Hills. These are the cats that have been coming to the same sleepy little town in South Dakota for some thirty or forty years. They have weathered the storms, the changes in politics and all the ups and downs of the official rally. Many of them were here long before the super rally spots were established with the killer line-ups of entertainment and celebrity appearances.

This was a rough year for me. In spite of a great location, a lot of my brothers being around, and having more resources than any other trip out here before, Sturgis was getting me down. The man was heavy, the crowds were light, making the vendors and businesses grumpy, and there was an all around sense of disharmony. I don’t want to make it out that all of the large venues are fake in any way, in fact a few of them are owned by real individuals. What I can tell you about is a cat that I ran into on Lazelle Street named “Puppy,” and a place that the Lakota call Mata Paho; they set things right for me this year. You can read about the man later in this issue, but for the place, I can speak right now.

I tried my damndest to work my way through the negative aspects of the rally this year to no avail. Then, early one morning, a good brother of mine took me up the foot path to the summit of Bear Butte Mountain. The Butte is one of the most significant spiritual places of the Lakota people and I’m not sure if it was that, the hour long hike over rugged terrain, or the feeling half way up that I might have died, but along the way I picked my mojo back up. As we climbed, the aggressive natural makeup took its toll on me. Being out of shape and unable to ride to the top, I quickly found myself more concerned with breathing than talking. This left the remainder of the time up and back open to free and quiet thought; exactly what I needed. I went over all the gory little details of what was bringing me down, whose fault it was and how I could spring into action to change it, but once I found myself at the top, looking over the prairie floor below, my Dakota brother Buck’s words echoed in my head: “It’s not them, it’s you.” Well I’ll be damned, I thought, I see what he means. At this elevated position, I was given a moment of clarity. From that height I couldn’t see any of the drama or the faces that I blamed for causing it, all I was left with was the epic majesty that is the reason we come to Sturgis.

There was no big revelation, as a matter of fact, I think my thoughts were simply expressed with “Humph” and I began the descent. From that point on however, my perspective changed and I let the people do as they had always done and did my own thing in a better way. In the end, it reminded me that this was how I had always done things in Sturgis, I’d find the stories that showed the value of who we are, capture them and bring them back to the readers a s if it were a great treasure, as they are truly memories of a moment in time, to be treasured.

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