Today, we take photos with our cellphones, tablets and digital cameras. We post them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and dozens of other places. And yet, we forget to print them out, store high-resolution versions on our back-up drives and backup the backups. Because of digital, many of our memories are merely moments that will be soon forgotten and lost after posting. And, no, things do not live on the internet forever, just the immediate future.
Several articles I have written previously, covered our kinky history. But recently I learned of another old club, soon to be folding, handing some of their club memorabilia and historical artifacts to former members. So instead of preserving it for a museum or archives, when that person dies, our kinky history dies also. No one will be left to tell the story for future generations.
So when a former member of a recently defunct motorcycle club recently brought oversized prints of photos with post-it notes for guests at another club’s anniversary party to help identify people in the photos; that made me smile. The club member decided to do what they could to preserve part of their history the best they could.
A recent story buried deep in the news pages, jumped at me regarding some history of the on-going problems with the Imperial Valley’s Salton Sea with the smell, rotting fish, poor image and concerns of what to do with the water resources of the Colorado River and the Valley. The sea was created as a result of poor engineering and management at the turn of the 20th century to divert the Colorado River water to sunny Imperial Valley. But by the 50s, the Valley created a tourist resort town out of a local disaster. It was the hot place to be for hot sun bathing and recreational water sports through the 60s. But by the 1970’s the stench from the alkaline and evaporation turned the Salton Sea into a wasteland.
Imagine my delight, when I ran across club pictures of my club brothers from the early 60s at the Salton Sea being kinky and horny at member’s shack in the resort town. The current news story about the Salton Sea problems and it being a former resort town that I read online along with old club pictures, now completed my understanding of the hot sexy leather biker men playing at the Salton Sea. A result of having our archives with the names of the men, the location and the date. The only part missing was the relevant story of the location during the 60s.
It is important that these memories and archives exist not for the current generation but for the future generations. All clubs whether new or old should follow this rule of thumb: store your hot pictures of your club’s kinky men in some defined method on your drives, then back them up and back those back-ups somewhere else again or more; and print an analog copy of it as safety. Write on the back of the photo, the people, date, location and any details and file with digital files.
Remember, the clubs and organizations that formed in the 50s to the 80s never thought about their future, their history, archives or about any historical preservation. The best way to celebrate our enjoyment of being kinky in our boots is to leave footprints behind that doesn’t make that mistake with digital capturing devices.
The Long Road Forward - The Satyrs Motorcycle Club and our Leather Community 