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From a babbling brook and a birthplace to amber waves of grain
Paul D. Hastings Reporting from the Daughery Compound
The Camp Daughery Rolling Rally returned to its base camp yesterday. But the ride was more than just a trip to Spokane.
After spending the previous night in Leavenworth, the Bad Boys had the opportunity to tour the town prior to an early afternoon departure for the Daughery home about 200 miles away.
And how appropriate that the second time the Fred Davis-led Hill Gang choir performed “God Bless America” it was beside a babbling brook, a location mentioned in Napoleon Hill’s writings as an important place to gather one’s thoughts and inner feelings.
It was the favorite fishing spot of Jack Daughery and his dad that caused Jack and the Hill Gang to sit, listen and reflect while the water flowed over and around the rocks of Icicle River.
Then the ILD leader took his Bad Boys to the now famous shack of his birthplace. The smallness of the building humbled those riders seeing it for the first time.
Both stops had an emotional effect on the group.
“It was good to see where Jack started,” Diamond Tom Ashlock said. “It just shows that it doesn’t matter where you started, what matters is where you’re headed.”
Ashlock, one of the three qualifiers who don’t have a motorcycle endorsement, jokingly did admit that he suffered some from the near 100-degree heat while riding in his BMW. “We turned the air conditioning up about 4 degrees,” he said with a smile.
“We went through some awesome country,” Ashlock said of the Leavenworth to Spokane ride.
That country included a return back to the Columbia River before an easterly turn through the heart of central Washington. And once the Hill Gang left the river gorge, it climbed up to the high plains desert that provided a special scenery.
“The whole trip’s been real special,” Diamond Frank Sorrels said. “But the part of the trip that tuned me in the most was from Waterville on in. That was special to me.”
He specifically was talking about hundreds of acres of grain, some of which was in the process of being harvested. “The amber waves of grain,” Sorrels said, “and actually seeing them while the song is playing in my head. That’s freedom for me.”
After returning to the Daughery Compound, the three new qualifiers officially became members of the Hill Gang Freedom Fighters in a short ceremony on the Daughery lawn.
Glen Dickenson, Pete Paine and Stu Shelton received their Hill Gang berets and T-shirts and the Bad Boys baseball caps from their upline diamonds.
“I’m proud of them, like all of us are,” Ashlock said of the three newest members, who didn’t hesitate in putting on the new black shirts even in the hot temperature. “And I’m excited about where we’re headed.”
The evening concluded with six pizzas quickly devoured, and much story telling and laughter around the Daughery Boardroom conference table.
Today, the motorcyclists begin their two-day Montana loop with a ride heading north out of Spokane then east into Idaho and Big Sky country. Stops include Sandpoint, ID., and Thompson Falls and Flathead Lake, MT., before spending the night in Columbia Falls, located just outside Glacier National Park.
Quote of the Day: “I’m not going to be able to stop smiling for a couple of weeks. The judge will be yelling at me, and I’ll still be smiling.”
-New Hill Gang Member (and attorney) Stu Shelton
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