Mike Winter was four or five years old, standing on the side of a gravel road in Bruce when his cousin Lennon Ray White roared up the road on an old motorcycle.
“He stopped and asked if I wanted to ride,” Winter said with a smile. “They put me up in front of him. It had a hand shift on it. And off we went down that gravel road. That impressed me.”
That moment was the birth of a lifelong passion for motorcycles. Winter would ride small Honda mini-bikes and various other motorcycles throughout his youth. Then when he returned home in 1974 from serving his country in Vietnam, he purchased a Yamaha 750.
“It would fly,” Winter said emphatically. “It would do 130 miles per hour easy.”
He kept it for a few years and then marriage and family changed his priorities and he went more than 20 years without a bike. Then his kids grew up, life changed, and so did Winter. He was ready to get back into motorcycles.
“I was talking to my friend Brenda Ruth one day and she asked me, ‘What are you going to do?’ Pierce my ear, grow a pony tail and join a motorcycle club,” Winter answered. “I don’t think she believed me, but I got me another bike and entered the motorcycle world.”
“I wanted a different lifestyle. I just wanted to change my life,” he said. “I wanted to live a completely free life.”
Winter had previously gotten to know several members of the Boozefighters motorcycle group that have a clubhouse on the backwaters of Grenada Lake in what is commonly referred to as “The Badlands.”
“Everything about it just appealed to me,” he said, so he set out with some help from friends to find his way in that world of bikers. The opportunity came through a friend to go and prospect with a Vietnam Veterans motorcycle club based out of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
“That was an interesting time,” Winter said with a wry smile. “I was going back and forth to the Coast a lot doing all I could to earn my patch.”
The “patch” is the club symbol which is most coveted and taken very seriously.
“Dedication is expected of you. It’s demanded if you’re going to be a part of this,” Winter said. “If something is given to you, it doesn’t mean much to you, but if you work for something and earn it, you don’t give it up easily. That’s why there is very little turnover. Very few people give up a patch because they are so hard to get.”
Winter earned his patch and his ascension in the motorcycle world steadily grew to the point that he served a decade as state president.
He was also instrumental in founding another chapter of the organization in North Mississippi called Legacy Vets.
“We’re a dying breed,” Winter said of Vietnam Veterans. “They’re not making any more of us, so we needed to expand that to include all our younger veterans coming back from Afghanistan, Iraq and all over.”
Legacy Vets, in which Winter remains an active member, now also has a clubhouse in “The Badlands” on seven acres of property that adjoins the Boozefighters’ property.
“It’s really a good place for us all to get together,” Winter said. “We have a big sign on the gate that says all veterans and bikers welcome.”
Winter’s leadership role these days is related to his beginning in that he and his “brothers” are always grooming prospects.
“We have a few right now going through it and several more wanting to,” he said.
Winter described the prospecting process as one where you prove your dedication, because nothing is more important in the motorcycle world than dedication to your “brothers.”
“We don’t expect a prospect to do anything we wouldn’t do. We’re not going to ask you to do anything against your moral character or your beliefs, but we do expect you to demonstrate your dedication to the club,” Winter said. “Once a prospect always a prospect. You never lose that attitude. If one of your brothers needs you, you drop everything and go. It doesn’t matter whether you like him personally or not. You have respect for the fact he earned that patch too.”
That camaraderie and the sense of service to one another is one of the primary aspects of the motorcycle club life that appealed to Winter so much in the beginning.
“Television shows have done a lot of damage to the reputation of motorcycle clubs. A lot of people are intimidated by people wearing a patch,” he said. “You’ll see it real quick if you sew one on. And it’s just from things they’ve been told, but it’s not that way.”
Winter’s Legacy Veterans Club focuses on doing work for veterans through numerous service projects, especially the veterans’ homes around the state.
“We cook for them, ride in and let them see the bikes and just visit with them. It seems to mean a lot to them,” Winter said.
“Being around other veterans and motorcycles is therapy for me. Veterans really don’t say that much about their experiences with people who have never experienced it because they’ll look at you like you lost your mind. ‘You did what?’ But if you’re sitting with a group of combat veterans and you say we did this, they say, ‘Yep. I know.’ There’s an acceptance to it.”
The other aspect of the club that is so appealing for Winter is the motorcycles themselves. It’s a connection they all share.
“It doesn’t matter what club you’re in, we all have a common bond with our love for motorcycles.”
Winter’s love for two wheels hasn’t even been shaken by a number of very bad wrecks involving several broken bones.
“I’ve been airlifted away from a motorcycle wreck,” he said matter-of-factly. “They say I hit a deer, but actually the deer hit me. It was dusky dark and I didn’t see it until it was right there.”
“It still doesn’t lessen my feelings for the motorcycles. The freedom it provides, the people you meet. A lot of people like to be totally safe in their life. Others don’t. They like to be a little on the edge.”
Winter’s black Harley-Davidson motorcycle has all the markings of his passion for veterans from the military windshield to the Vietnam Veteran stickers.
His first Harley he acquired through unique circumstances nearly 20 years ago.
“I bought a Volkswagen trike in Memphis and rode it to a motorcycle rally at the casinos in Tunica. I was approached by a guy asking to trade his 2002 Harley Softail, less than a year old, wanting to trade with me straight up.”
“I thought it was crazy, but he was serious and we both had titles. I swapped him. That was the first Harley Davidson I ever owned.”
He’s been riding Harleys ever since.
“You don’t really feel different when you ride a Harley, but you do get treated different,” Winter explained. “When you pull up on a different bike people glance over. When you pull up on a Harley people look at it. People are interested in what you’ve done to a Harley to make it your bike. Everyone customs their Harley in their own way from pipes to foot pegs to everything. When people look at a Harley they see a lot of your personality.”
Winter’s personality comes through his Harley, his long ponytail and his contentment in this life he chose.
“I don’t ride as much as I used to,” said the 67-year-old Winter, noting a number of health issues, especially with his legs, “but the feeling is still the same.”
“It’s hard to say what puts it in you. I think for vets there’s a lot of adrenaline when you serve. You miss that when you get out,” Winter said. “I think motorcycles provide that adrenaline rush. If you dig into the roots of all motorcycle clubs I bet you find veterans.”
“I still love it as much as the first time hopping on with Lennon Ray. That feeling never goes away. I still love to ride the curves and drag a floorboard.”