Revived local motorcycle club is still going strong
George Villegas, a member of the local chapter of the motorcycle
club the Top Hatters, always wanted to ride.
”
I can even remember the date I bought my first Harley
Davidson,
”
Villegas said.
”
It was June 17, 1979. I remember driving off the showroom floor.
I grabbed a handful of throttle and man, it just took off.
”
Revived local motorcycle club is still going strong
George Villegas, a member of the local chapter of the motorcycle club the Top Hatters, always wanted to ride.
“I can even remember the date I bought my first Harley Davidson,” Villegas said. “It was June 17, 1979. I remember driving off the showroom floor. I grabbed a handful of throttle and man, it just took off.”
He has been hooked ever since.
A conversation with Villegas yields a closer look at the inner workings of the Top Hatters.
A large, powerfully built man with a long black ponytail, Villegas looks like a biker. At 52, he has been riding for nearly 30 years.
“It’s almost like therapy to me,” Villegas said. “When I’m out on the road and I’m rumbling down the highway, and I’m surrounded by the best friends I have on earth, or in this world, and we’re moving as one, it’s just a feeling you have to experience to understand.”
Biking is his release, Villegas said.
“I mean, rumbling down the freeway and we’re passing vehicles and nobody gets in our way, it’s like, freedom,” Villegas said. “Problems – work, bills, issues – everything goes away, and you’re just on the road and feeling free. Almost like a modern-day cowboy.”
It becomes a lifestyle, Villegas said.
“Other people, they like golf,” Villegas said. “For us motorcycle enthusiasts, it’s just biking it.”
Villegas is divorced with a 27-year-old son and 24-year-old daughter.
“Both my son and my daughter made me a grandfather,” Villegas said. “I really enjoy grandfatherhood.”
Before she settled down, his daughter used to attend motorcycle events with him.
“She has her own leather vest and boots and chaps and everything, but she’s a young mother, and besides she lives out of state,” Villegas said. “My son, he rides on occasion too.”
His son rides Villegas’ old bike, a 1983 Harley-Davidson Super Glide.
“What you usually see me on these days is my 2002 Road King,” Villegas said.
It is a Harley, of course.
The Top Hatters are a brotherhood, Villegas said.
“It’s like we’re all made out of the same mold,” Villegas said. “The camaraderie that exists amongst all my club brothers. This is just the enjoyment of being with an organization that you truly love in your heart.”
The club is also about pride, Villegas said.
“As the Top Hatters, we display who we are by the colors we wear, the patches on our back,” Villegas said. “We wear those colors with a lot of pride.”
It is a men-only club, Villegas said.
“We’re not trying to be chauvinistic or something,” Villegas said. “It’s just, there’s women’s clubs, and we can’t join them. Then there are other clubs that are co-ed, that allow males and females to be in the club.”
There are six positions in the Top Hatters hierarchy, president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, sergeant at arms and road captain, Villegas said.
The sergeant at arms is in charge of club decor and can hand out disciplinary actions, Villegas said.
The road captain is responsible for navigation and is heavily involved in organizing events, Villegas said. On rides, the road captain usually rides next to the president, Villegas said.
Villegas was one of the founding members of the revived chapter of the Top Hatters.
“Originally, the Top Hatters here in Hollister formed in the late ’40s, maybe the early ’50s.”
They formed for similar reasons as the current group, Villegas said.
“There was just a group of independent riders from this area that would band together and go on runs or events,” Villegas said. “From what I understand, back in the late ’40s, that era, they used to go to dances a lot. I believe after the ’47 event, they decided to form a motorcycle club.”
The name Top Hatters came from those dances.
“We have two honorary members that wear our colors, Jess Bravo and Joe Bravo,” Villegas said.
When they went to dances in the ’40s, Jess Bravo wore a top hat.
“And that’s where the name originated from,” Villegas said.
The group disbanded in the mid 1950s, Villegas said.
Some member of the current generation of Top Hatters rode together for years.
“Back in the late ’70s, all through the ’80s, we were a group of independent riders,” Villegas said. “We were known as the Hollister crew, the Hollister dudes, the Hollister crowd,”
In the early 1990s, they started talking about forming a motorcycle club.
“At the time, there wasn’t any,” Villegas said.
Everybody had a different idea about what to call it.
“Finally, somebody’s light went off in their head,” Villegas said.
Reviving the Top Hatters appealed to everyone, Villegas said.
“We gathered as many Top Hatters as we could, of the original ones,” Villegas said. “These are gentlemen in, maybe, their late 70s, early 80s.”
They found 17 original members, Villegas said.
“There we asked them about what they felt about us [reviving] their name,” Villegas said. “Their faces lit up and they started telling old stories, how it was back in the day.”
That was in November 1995.
“But, since then, this club has grown,” Villegas said.
Today, there are Top Hatter chapters in the Central Valley, Imperial Valley, the Sierra Nevada and South Santa Clara Valley.
“And, of course, we have the Hollister chapter, which we refer to as the mother chapter,” Villegas said.
They do not like to tell people exactly how many Top Hatters there are, Villegas said.
There are around 20 members in the Hollister Chapter, Villegas said. In all chapters, there are more than 100 members.
There is a protocol to starting a new chapter, Villegas said.
“You basically need to start off with all your officers’ positions,” Villegas said.
In the Hollister chapter, a prospective member must go through a hang around period, Villegas said.
They perform tasks, such as organizing events, Villegas said.
“We wouldn’t ask them to do anything that we wouldn’t do ourselves,” Villegas said. “In our club, to become a full patch member you need 100 percent of the membership in any standing general meeting to be voted in.”
The time to become a new member varies, Villegas said.
“It depends on the individual and how much he puts forth of himself,” Villegas said.
Top Hatters have rules they live by.
“There’s a couple of, what do you call them, creeds,” Villegas said. “Something that’s important to the Top Hatters.”
Getting along with the other motorcycle clubs, independent riders, and the community in general is very important to the Top Hatters.
Having a good rapport with the community was just as important to the members when they were known only as the Hollister bikers, Villegas said.
Another value is something that a lot of the members’ parents instilled to them when they were young, Villegas said.
“What we like to say is, ‘There is no greater deed than when he who is great and strong stoops down and help he who is weak or in need,'” Villegas said. “That’s something that just exists among us. We don’t really talk about it.”
That is why the Top Hatters organize and participate in charitable events, such as their annual canned food drive and the scholarship program for local high school seniors, Villegas said.
“There’s three groups that we like to target in this community – youth, the elderly, and the disabled,” Villegas said. “We don’t do it for the notoriety. I feel like, it’s good for the soul, when you can extend yourself.”
Every year they provide two $500 scholarships for seniors at San Benito High School, Villegas said.
“We used to be able to provide a scholarship for Anzar, San Benito High School and San Andreas,” Villegas said. “That was always our goal, to provide scholarship money for all the high schools in San Benito County.”
To raise money, they held an annual poker run, which is like poker on a motorcycle.
“You pay your entry fee and have an opportunity to win a high hand or a low hand,” Villegas said. “You have designated stops where you draw a card.”
The concept is not unique to motorcycles, Villegas said.
“Other groups to do it too, bicycle clubs and car clubs,” Villegas said “In the past, we’ve had law enforcement close down our 4th of July event. That’s taken away our ability to provide scholarships for San Andreas and Anzar.”
The Top Hatters will be ready for the Hollister Motorcycle Rally.
They have a Top Hatters merchandise booth at Fifth and San Benito Streets and are organizing a poker run, Villegas said.
“It’s more of a working weekend for us,” Villegas said. “It’ll help us build up our funds.”
Villegas is looking forward to the Hollister Motorcycle Rally.
“I look forward to it every year,” Villegas said. “I think the motorcycle rally is a good, positive event for Hollister.”
Although the Top Hatters have big hearts, they are not just a bunch of do-gooders, Villegas said.
“A lot of us are still that type that will enjoy a nice cold refreshment on a hot summer day,” Villegas said. “The things that we do, we enjoy doing them on two wheels.”
Villegas hopes his club will continue into the next generation.
“I like to think it will,” Villegas said. “I’d like to see the Top Hatters exist forever, to continue long after I’m gone.”
