My personality has been all over the place as I grew up and became a man. From wanting to take on the world to a haunted man with no life left in him. One that the light only shown in them again when he found his true love for a few short years. The darkness ascending on me once again after that. I was rebellious and free-spirited. I hated being tied down to once place. Through it all I believed in the love of god as well becoming a preacher man. Only one time did I sway to the way of the devil and that was the vengeance I took for my beloved June, and our wee son who never got to live a life. Life took its toll on me but I found my way back to my faith, and embracing god once again. As well as life as much as I can. Still I drown my sorrows in the bottle now and then.

[smear:#197de6]Positive Traits:[/smear:#a219e6:0]
1)Inspirational: Encouraging others, through one's example, to strive for change and fulfillment.
2)Humble: Not haughty, arrogant, or superior.
3)Spiritual: Focusing on one's higher self; being interested in religious or sacred matters.
4)Patriotic: Having love for or loyalty to one's country.
5)Spontaneous: Enjoying what naturally occurs; given to acting on healthy impulses.
6)Protective: Inclined to safeguard, shield, or carefully supervise the persons or items in one's charge.

[smear:#a219e6]Negative Traits:[/smear:#197de6:0]
1)Vindictive: Disposed toward seeking revenge.
2)Perfectionist: Perceiving anything less than perfection as failure.
3)Verbose: Wordy; inclined to say more than is needed.
4)Rebellious: Flouting the law or resisting authority.
5)Mischievous: Maliciously or impishly troublesome.
6)Impulsive: Acting on desires, whims, or inclination without forethought.

As the county seat of Blaine County, Watonga is located at the intersection of State Highways 8 and 33 and U.S. Highway 270. The county lies within the former Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation, opened for non-Indian settlement in the land run on April 19, 1892. Developed at that time from a tent city, the town was named for Arapaho Chief Wa-ton-gha, whose name meant Black Coyote. A post office was established in 1892. In 1901–02 the Enid and Anadarko Railway (later the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway) built a line from Guthrie sixty miles west through Watonga. Constructed in 1906, the Blaine County Courthouse is one of several that predate statehood.

My grandfather was a little boy when his parents joined the land run on April 19, 1892. The winters were hard on them, and the wheat crops were barely bringing in any money. His mother withered up dying at a young age, and his father joined her soon after. At seventeen he took up the farmstead with his two younger brothers. Both of his brothers took off for parts unknown when they were of age. Ebanezer, my grandfather started his own family having my father Elijah with his wife Maureen.

My father took on the farm after his father died. I was born on the farm, and later my sister Patricia. As for me I wanted to be free, not take over the farm. Patricia was more suited to that life than I was, and I told them to leave the farm to her. Growing up in Watonga was fun though. My dad had a 1936 Knucklehead that I loved. Now that was my inheritance I told my dad who would just laugh. Him giving me rides on it was the highlight of my youth.

Back in my teenage years I was a hellion. Taking the world by storm. My mother said trouble was my middle name. I’d just give her my trademark smirk, and go on. Enlisting in the service when I turned eighteen with my best friends I was sent to war. The Vietnam War. It changed me. I saw things I wish I had never seen that still haunt me to this day. I went from a young carefree boy to one that was a shell of himself by the time I came home. I got shot and almost died. Now that changes a person. Wakes them up to reality. I had things I still wanted to achieve in life, and dying wasn't one of them.

Came home to the stark reality of trying to live a life. Nobody was hiring even in Watonga Oklahoma. I tried my hand at farming with dad, but it just wasn’t in me. In the summer of 1972 my friends and I decided to take a ride to California. Riding my 1950 Panhead that was my pride and joy we visited friends we had met in Vietnam in a town called Charming California. Our old friends John Teller and Piney Winston, who we had been in our unit in Vietnam, had started a Motorcycle club in 1968. We thought why not and prospected into the club there. A year later we were fully patched in as members of the Sons of Anarchy. I found a new sense of purpose. Even if it was an outlaw life. I was loving it. I was free and loving life again. More rebellious than ever. The brotherhood of the club brought back a light inside of me that had died off during the war.

In the spring of 74 we decided to head back home to Watonga. Our fathers wanted us back to help on the ranches back there. So we got permission from John and Piney to start our own Sons of Anarchy charter back in Watonga. On the way home we stopped and visited old friends Sloan Fox and Malec Shane who had been in Vietnam with us. They had founded the Reno Charter the year before. It was Sloan who introduced me to my wife. His cousin June. It was love at first sight, and brought back the light to shining inside of me. We were married within a week. I felt larger than life, and like that teenage boy again. Sure I was still haunted by the horrors of the war, but the light she created would shine over it for me.

I took her home to meet the parents, and my sister. The other guys settled down starting families of their own. I helped on the farm till I felt like I was going stir-crazy. I wanted, and needed that wide open road in front of me. Exploring new places and meeting new people. After talking with June who had introduced me back into the life of the lord I decided to become a preacher man. She supported me wholeheartedly as I did. So we started attending church every sunday and joining in church functions with me becoming ordained as a minister. I also took some classes in the nearby town at the college there studying the biblical sense stuff.

It opened something inside of me that I hadn’t known existed, and I loved what I was doing, but that open road was still calling my name. Four years later June and I were on the road with me becoming a traveling preacher. Riding my 1950 Panhead. June had her own 1949 Panhead that she'd had when we got married. I was living life and loving it. Spreading the love of the lord and my own love that I shared with my beloved wife. I was living the life that I felt I was meant to be. High on love.

For five years we were more than happy spreading that happiness and love. We made a trip to Reno when my wife was due to have our baby. A few days before she was due we were on a picnic with the Reno Charter. A club that was in war with the Reno charter showed up and a fight ensued. Ending in gunshots. June had been shot. Making a mental image of the man who had shot her I went with her to the hospital where our son Elijah was born with injuries from the gunshot. June died holding our son with a picture being taken of us that was given to me later. I still carry it in my wallet to this day. While they tried to bring her back I was holding my son as he took his last breath. They were unable to get either of them back. With a vengeance in me I hunted down the man that had murdered my wife. When I found him I actually saved a woman from him that he was attacking, but I shot him emptying my gun into him. When the cops showed up I was still standing over him with a smoking gun.

I was tried and sentenced to prison. Which was an unfair trial, because the woman I had saved was still in the hospital and didn’t get to take the stand. Come to find out I hadn’t only saved her, but her toddler and unborn child she had been carrying. I didn’t find out till later that she was the Governor of Nevada’s wife. When he found out what I had done he got to work on trying to get my sentence reduced.

A year later when it was all said and done the sentence was reduced to self defense. Since I had saved the life of a woman and her children. Reason I had emptied my gun into the man was that he had kept coming, and I had got in front of the woman and just kept shooting. I had been about to turn to her when the cops showed up. She tried to tell them then that I was saving her, but they hadn’t listened. Instead they slammed me up against the hood of the squad car putting cuffs on me, arresting me.

Killing the man I had watched him die, but unlike the song that Johnny Cash sang I didn’t kill him just for that. I’d been after him to take vengeance on my beloved wife and son that I barely got to hold before life drained out of him. I had been devastated, and after they took my son from me I had lost it going after the man. I had no idea I’d be about to save the lives of another woman and her children after I had been unable to save mine.

Taking his life hadn’t made me feel any better though. Instead I felt a guilt for taking the life of another even after what he had done. I did my penance that year serving. When I was released I met the woman, her children, and husband. He was more than grateful to me. Meeting her baby boy that was the same age as my son would be was bittersweet for me. Almost more than I could handle. Elijah would have been a year old.

Starting the trip back home I stopped in Reno visiting where my wife and child had died. I cried like a baby as I fell to my knees where the ground was still stained by the blood of my wife and others that had lost their lives that day. That night at Anarchy Bar I buried my sorrows in a bottle of whiskey. I was in a stupor of grief for the next few days. Ice cold water thrown over me I came to with a helluva hangover cursing. It was my best friends from Watonga who had been called in by Sloan knowing I needed something to wake me up.

They dragged me back home to Watonga Oklahoma the next day. I was riding my 1950 Panhead once again. Sloan had put my bike and June’s in storage keeping them covered till I was able to reclaim them. Junes was still there as if it were encased in a tomb. Where it would remain as I couldn’t even look at it.

Arriving back in Watonga I was there for the birth of my nephew Axl. I couldn’t hold him, as the last baby I had held a year before had been my son. I did hold my niece Helen in my arms and shower her with love and gifts while I was there. Children were a gift from god, that could be taken back just like that. So I realized I needed to cherish my niece and nephew as much as I could. I had no plans to have another wife or children after losing my own.

I stayed in Watonga for a few months. I still shied away from Axl till one day when Patricia hadn’t been feeling good and had laid down to take a nap. My brother in law was out working in the field, and Helen had fallen asleep too. When Axl had started crying I forced myself up to take care of him not wanting to bother Patricia.

Tears came as I stood above his crib. I had no idea that my sister had gotten up and was watching from the door. Finally I changed Axl’s diaper only to get squirted as he peed again. With a groan I finished up. I thought about going to get a bottle, but he started to cry again. So I had no choice but to pick him up. When I did pick him up it was as if a sense of peace came over me. His little hand coming up and finding a piece of my long hair that I had let grow out when I was in prison. Instead of pulling it though he just ran his tiny little fingers through it and smiled at me.

I sat down in the rocker and cried as I rocked my nephew forming a bond with him that I didn’t think I could have with any baby after my son died in my arms. I made a vow right then and there that I would be there as much as I could for Helen and for Axl. Patricia had come in a few minutes later with her own tears, and asked me if I wanted her to take him. I shook my head as I just sat there staring into Axl’s eyes listening to him coo and watch him smile. She headed back to bed then for a while.

I don’t know how much time passed as I sat there with Axl for the first time. Helen had come in at some time and started playing with her toys. Some of my pain lifted that day, but not all of it. Some of it will always be there I knew. It felt like a part of me was waking up from the grief that I had been going through.

A couple of months later the open road was calling for me again. With tears I said goodbye to my family and friends. Thanking them for helping me through my grief and bringing me back to the land of the living again. Off into the sunset I rode on my steel horse. Leaving behind my 1950 Panhead I was riding my father’s 1936 Knucklehead to honor him. My panhead only reminded me of what I had lost.

Years passed and I traveled the United States becoming known as the Traveling preacher within the Sons of Anarchy. I’d be sure to stay at any clubhouse I came across. When I had first set out with my wife becoming a traveling preacher I had become a Nomad and still wore the Son of Anarchy kutte. I had been an officer when we formed our charter in Watonga as the secretary, but I had given up being an officer when I became a nomad.

If a son needed to marry his old lady I would officiate for them getting them married. I knew June was smiling down on me as I lived my life as best as I could. I always made more than one trip to Watonga to visit my sister and her family. Always bringing gifts for my niece and nephew. When I got the word that Patricia had passed away I cried all the way back home. I was there for a few weeks, before the open road called me back again.

More trips to Watanga than just the usual visits happened over the years as Sons died, and my niece Helen. And others within the Club life. Times that are hard to think of, but I still keep my head up and in the game. Trying to do good for June and my long lost son. There may be a woman in my bed once in a while, but none of them would ever replace my beloved June. I am a man after all.

I’ve been on the road for way too long, and I’m starting to grow weary. Unlike my knucklehead that I keep in pristine condition. Heading back to Watonga I knew my time was waning. Seeing a doctor once in Watonga I found out I had prostate cancer. I refused treatment that could keep me alive for a few more years. It was already stage three and progressing into my other organs.

Sitting down and telling my lifelong best friends was hard, and I still had James Lane to tell. As I was told what had happened back here in Watonga that hadn’t reached my ears. His grandson was my great nephew Con who I had come to see when he had been born, and different milestones in his life. Sure I had known Bruno through passing, and if he hadn’t been killed already I might have just hunted him down and killed him myself. That vengeance settled in once again. Which settled when I heard he had been taken out.

I was telling Old Man Stapleton and Daddy Church I needed to head to Washington to say my goodbyes to my nephew and great nephew, and to my surprise they said they would ride with me. They wanted to give James hell in person like they always had. I had a feeling this would be the last long ride I would take with my old friends. When we walked out of the new clubhouse to head out to our surprise James Lane was sitting there on his bike grinning at us. I had tears in my eyes as I greeted him wondering how he had gotten there. He said a little birdie had told him this was where he needed to be. We set out on the long ride just as we had when we were twenty-four years old and headed to California after saying goodbye to the Watonga Sons.

Fifty long years ago. It didn’t seem like it could have been that long ago. Where had the time gone I wondered as we rode. Maybe the Nomads getting disbanded this summer was a warning to me that my time was coming to an end too. Instead of just my nomad ways. I had been given six months to a year. We would see. As we stopped for a meal I brought up our trip to California fifty years ago. We had gone to the Pacific Ocean. I told them that’s where I wanted my journey to end with the three of them and my family that I had left. That I wanted one last ride with all three of my best friends with the family that I had left.