Bob Poelker is a Save Mart pharmacist by day and also a key member of Hollister’s Top Hatters Motorcycle Club.
At 64, Poelker became a biker for the comradeship of others who enjoy long rides on Harley-Davidsons. He grew up in a small town 50 miles south of St. Louis and was introduced to motorcycles at 16 when he bought his first bike, a Honda 125. After graduating high school in 1969, he attended the University of Illinois Medical School in Chicago to become a pharmacist and graduated in 1974.
“My second bike during my first year out of college was a Honda 350, which I had for about three years,” he said. “When I graduated, I bought a Honda 750, and had a custom paint job put on it. I got married a month after graduating. Me and my wife got on the bike and headed down to Florida. We spent a month on the bike.”
As he worked as a pharmacist over the next 22 years, riding took a back seat for at least 12 of them. Then the divorce came and he packed up and headed west, but not before buying a year-old Harley-Davidson Softail Classic—and a Rolls Royce.
The Harley was for fun; the Rolls was business.
It was 1992, and Poelker wanted something unique. He was looking at a yellow 86 Corvette convertible. He was almost sold when he spotted an ad in the paper for a Rolls Royce. He looked at a dozen or so. Then he found The Rolls. But not just any Rolls.
“It belonged to Steve Carlton, an ex-pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals,” Poelker said. “It had been in storage for 12 years, and needless to say, I was a little ignorant about buying cars, especially an old one. I ended up paying $12,000. Two months later, I put $25,000 into that car. It was a horror story.”
Poelker made do and started up a new business venture, AA Rock ‘n Rolls, providing limo services primarily for weddings.
“That $25,000 included a $5,000 sound system,” Poelker said.
After a divorce, he moved to Sacramento where his brother and sister-in-law lived. He had already taken the board exams in order to work as a pharmacist in California. He had been at work for just three months when the regional pharmacy manager asked him if he would be interested in working in Hollister.
The first thing he asked was, “Where the heck is Hollister?”
“I drove down here and being from a small town in southern Illinois, I looked at it and thought it was a nice town,” he said.
It wasn’t too long before he spotted some bikers with an interesting name.
“That’s when I met some Top Hatters, who were having a canned food drive in front of Johnny’s,” he said. “I stopped and talked to one of the guys, Marcelo Orta, and asked what it took to be a Top Hatter.”
Poelker told the story of how the Top Hatters came to be, mentioning how it formed in 1947 as a motorcycle and car club and they ran in Hollister. About 22 years ago, some guys decided to bring the club back and got permission from the original Top Hatters to use the name.
He said he wanted to join because he didn’t know anyone else in town.
“I had a bike. I thought a motorcycle club—they all ride. My joy back then was to go out riding, and that’s what I still enjoy doing. There’s nothing better. I’ve been to Sturgis 13 times. We’re so lucky to live in this area. The weather is perfect for riding.”
When he rides, Poelker’s nickname is “Sideshow.”
“The first time I rode to Sturgis I rode with Orta,” he said. “We rode there in ‘97 in August. There were three days of rain. I thought it was the worst ride in my life.”
Thirteen trips to Sturgis later and being a Top Hatter for 18 years, he believes he’s ridden more miles than anyone else now in the club, with more than 160,000.
Having served as road captain for a number of years, Poelker is now the nonprofit club’s treasurer.
“There are lots of responsibilities, taxes and all that stuff,” he said, and explained the club’s main purpose was to promote comradeship and service. “Our mission is to help the community. We always try to support the people of the community. We give away two scholarships each year. We support the food pantry’s food drive every year. We’ll help families in bad situations. We do a bike blessing every year for the bikers and the community.”
He describes his fellow Top Hatters as “brothers” and “family.” Last year, he expanded his family by getting married to Lisa, “the little woman I’ve been with for 17 years.” Lisa has ridden with him far and wide, sometimes behind him on a 2003 Harley-Davidson and others on his on a 1995 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic with a sidecar.
“She won’t ride in the sidecar,” Poelker laughed. “She rode in it one time and doesn’t like it.”
Poelker took one of his really long rides in 2003, from Hollister to New York via Sturgis, along with two friends, Little Jeff and Mike Bishop, with side excursions in both directions to every other Hollister in the country.
“There are supposed to be 11 Hollisters in the U.S. We found out that there are actually only nine,” Poelker said. “The first one we always go to is Hollister, Idaho.”
From there, they traveled to Oklahoma’s Hollister. There are also Hollisters in states such as Kansas, Texas and Florida.
“There’s one in South Carolina and one in Pennsylvania and Missouri, which is the second largest Hollister with 2,800 people,” he said. “The Hollister in Florida has a post office and a volunteer fire station and the town has maybe 20 people.”
Around Gettysburg Little Jeff and Bishop stayed to visit Civil War battle monuments and Poelker drove up to Washington D.C., where Lisa flew in to continue with the ride to New York, where he proposed to his wife. After New York, they headed for Milwaukee to join the Harley-Davidson 100th Anniversary celebration. On the way there, they stopped in a bar in Ohio. “Some people come up to us and said they saw us on television on a program we did called ‘Road Rebels’ way back in 1998,” he said.
They stayed in Milwaukee for three days of parties and even ran into a few riders from Hollister, Calif.
“It was amazing because I think we ran into four people from Hollister who knew us,” he said. “When you go on these runs some people who are out there riding a lot come up to you because they recognize you. They always recognize the Top Hatters. We get a lot of compliments on our patch.”
The entire five-week ride added up to 34 states and 11,000 miles.
“I enjoy riding and when I retire in December 2016, from Save Mart, I want to take off for six weeks or so and hit every state (in the lower 48),” Poelker said.
When asked about his views on the Freedom Rally, Poelker said it has to leave people with remembering what they saw.
“I think Mark (the previous rally promoter) did a good job for the last two years. He got the ball rolling. I think he would have improved on it this year if they had renewed the contract, but, hey, change is good sometimes. I think the rally is a good thing for the community. When people say they don’t make any money, well, you know what, if you’re not making any money you must be doing something wrong.”
Poelker knows very well how many people perceive bikers, especially after the incident in Waco, Texas. “There’s nothing like that around here,” he said. “This thing in Waco, people ask me about it and I say I have no idea. All that stuff that happens brings a negative aspect to the rally here. As far as I’m concerned, you have to do what they feel is right (about closing bars at midnight). If they don’t do it and something happens, everyone is going to say ‘I told you so.’ They’ve got to do what they’ve got to do. They’re law enforcement and they have to protect the community. Is something going to happen? I have no more idea than anyone else.
“I hope everything works out with the rally this year. That’s my prayer. I’ll be down there. Usually I go down at 5th and San Benito Street with my bike and sidecar. I give people rides from 4 to 6 p.m. in the sidecar. I tell a lot of my older customers from Save Mart to come. I take a lot of people up and down the street. Some kids will come down there and I’ll give them rides.”
Poelker admits being one of the older bikers has its limitations, and advantages.
“It’s easier driving a Rolls Royce than a bike,” he said. “I started the service a little over two years ago, called Vintage Dreams Rolls-Royce Service, which mostly caters to weddings.”
With his 1965 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud Poelker dresses up in a tuxedo, rolls out the red carpet for the brides and offers cut flowers and champagne.
“When I pick up the bride there are signs that say ‘Getting Married,’ and afterwards I flip them over and they say, ‘Just Married,’” he said. “As I’m driving her to the church I play the song, Going to the Chapel. I try to make it really special.”
While he intends to retire next year, he will always be a Top Hatter. He admits, though, he and most of the club members are not as young as they used to be.
“There are a lot of guys in their 60s.
A lot of guys are going to the trikes, so we don’t have to worry about falling off,” he joked.
