A Biker Brawl & My Birth Story

When my dad was in town a couple of weeks ago he told me a story about the day I was born. It was only vaguely familiar. But such an outlandish tale I was surprised I hadn’t heard more about it in the course of my life.

On November 8,1968—the night I was to be born at St. Alexis Hospital in Cleveland Ohio—there was a massive biker-gang fight nearby between the Hells Angels and a group called The Breed (what a name!). Apparently these two cycle gangs had been at war all year and it came to a head that evening at a Motorcycle Trade Show in the Hall of the Association of Polish Women. 

The NY Times said it was “a long-smoldering grudge.” The melee began just after 10pm when the hall was filled with over 800 people. Someone yelled, “Now!” And the brutality began. Knives, chains and clubs were the weapons of choice. The police were quick to the scene with tear gas and rifles, but not before hundreds were injured and many killed. 

A few miles away, while my mom’s OB was getting ready to deliver me in the maternity ward upstairs at St. Alexis, hundreds of badly sliced bikers were being carted in the doors below. My dad said it was a brutal scene. All these big, burly men with massive wounds filling the space. Every room occupied. Hallways filled and overflowing. Many died that night. The headline in the Cleveland Plain Dealer described it as the  “worst gang battle in US, say police.” 

I can’t help but think about my dad in that situation. Can you imagine? Your baby girl is about to be born any minute upstairs and that kind of craziness is taking place down below? 

Did he keep that information from my mom as she was in the throes of childbirth? I suppose that wasn't difficult as men in the 1960s didn't step foot in a delivery room. But I think of how today we set the stage for childbirth and make elaborate plans focusing on calm lighting and soft music and meditative breathing and support people. And it makes me almost chuckle thinking about that night in the late 60's when I was to be born. No one decides to give birth in the middle of a biker bloodbath.

The scene was so bad it demanded all hands on deck. Needless to say, the obstetrician had to leave my birth and go stitch up the sliced and slaughtered bikers in the hallways below. I guess some lowly assistant was left to deliver me. I wonder how my deliverer felt. Perhaps thankful they were called only to welcome into the world a newborn baby instead of being forced to tend to the war wounds of highly aggravated gang members. Or maybe not. Maybe they were disappointed to be tasked with something so mundane as a baby born. Maybe they would have preferred the action downstairs. Who really can say? 

Reading through the articles, I found many choice pieces of writing. One of my favorites was a comment made by a character named "Sex." That's what the motorcycle world knew him as, his real name being Arthur Zaccone. Sex, well--perhaps we should call him by his given name, Arthur--told the reporter covering the story, "I knew something was going to happen when we saw some Breed from New York and New Jersey and none of them had their old ladies with them." The newspaperman went on to explain that "Motorcycle outlaws always call their wives or girlfriends "old ladies." 

Another paragraph offered this description of a couple of neighborhood bystanders, "Two old men came out of their houses, and stood in shirtsleeves in the falling snow, staring at the Cleveland Pneumatic Tool & Co parking lot at E. 77th Street and Marble Avenue." Can't you just imagine those men standing out on their driveways (in shirtsleeves) with snow falling gently around them and a gang fight heating up violently before them. "Old Men Shake Heads Sadly," was the article's poignant title. 

After hearing my dad tell this unbelievable story, I continued to think a lot about it. Coincidentally, the following week I was scheduled to share my life’s story in my Bible study group. In the desire to know each other better, we have been taking time to do so this month. My dad's telling of this crazy birth tale seemed perfect timing. It would be a tremendous opening to what I was planning share with my group. So jotting down a few notes, I decided to research it a bit further. It took no time to pull up the article from a digital copy of The Cleveland Plain Dealer. There it was in black and white and plain as day … the gang war did happen just as my dad said. All the gory details were included in these digital pages and, mesmerized, I poured over them in disbelief. 

But the most amazing thing I learned in my research was that it wasn’t actually my story. 

As much as I wanted it to be, it wasn’t my start to life. When I finally looked closer at the article, the date jumped off the page ... March 8, 1971. That was the day after my younger sister, Jess, was born. Oh my gosh, it was HER story!  

That dramatic entrance to the world didn’t belong to me, it belonged to my younger sister. Of course it did! I was at first disappointed and then couldn't stop laughing. As parents are so apt to do, my dad had gotten our stories confused. The event had happened. And it had happened to my parents, but it was my sister being born on that chaos-filled night, not me. 

And though I do love a good story, I must, unfortunately, relinquish this one to her. 

But doesn’t that fact make this good story even a little bit better? I feel like the mistake of it makes it in someways even more interesting. Maybe it's because that is so often how life works. Our stories blend and combine and, sometimes, get confused.  

Has that ever happened to you? It happens to me all the time. I’ll be trying to remember something and I can’t quite get all the details correct. I can’t quite picture who was there or where we were or what exactly happened. I have to be careful of embellishment. I have to be careful to correctly report. I have to be careful of the narrative I am allowing myself to believe. In full disclosure here, I sometimes can be prone to making bad things worse and good things even better. 

It could have something to do with growing up in a good size family. We all blended together. We knew to answer to any sibling name when our parents called for us. “You know who I mean!” We knew we had to speak up to be heard. We knew we had to forge our own way and make our own plans and take charge of our own stories. There can be a lot of good in that kind of growing up. 

I'm pretty sure my kids kind of feel the same way. I’ve heard them too many times say, “No, mom. It didn’t happen quite like that.”  And then they have to remind me of the correct details. I don’t always have a digital newspaper article to pull up, but I do have kids who help keep me on track. 

Kind of like that Progressive Insurance "replay” commercial that’s been airing on television so often. So funny, by the way.

This "old lady" can tell you that the 55 years of my life have been filled with stories. Stories which I do own and can confidently claim. I might not have a dramatic birth story which includes a biker-gang brawl, but I have a story which God is clearly writing. And as I sit here this morning after my birthday, I am overwhelmed with the many, many sweet pages God has written all over my life. Yes, there have been some painful ones as well, and I don’t know exactly what the next chapter brings, but I know my God is the Perfect Author and He uses my story (and your stories too) to tell the much greater story of His. 

And for that I am thankful.