John Britz, a gentle man from Pennsylvania with a white beard and glasses, was outnumbered under a blazing sun Monday during Laconia’s Motorcycle Week.
Everywhere he turned, the 71-year-old former factory worker saw posters and people and places that ran counter to his message. A message he brings with him to events like this one on a regular basis.
While his bike, a Honda Goldwing, showed colorful, airbrushed scenes of the Last Supper and Moses parting the Red Sea, restaurants served beer for breakfast. Posters invited you to wet T-shirt and hot leg contests later in the day. Tattoos showing skulls and knives were on arms, legs, thighs, upper thighs. T-shirts told you to go f— yourself.
“There’s bad stuff, satanic stuff, all over the place,” Britz told me. “But I don’t want to go where people are healthy. You go where people are unhealthy, to a place like this to get people spiritually healthy and get them back on the right track.”
This happened in the teeth of Bike Week, along Weirs Beach, near the famous drive-in sign. With a heavy police presence and a crackdown on camping free-for-alls, it’s not as edgy as it once was, meaning the days of women removing their tops and street brawls are mostly over.
But an edge does, indeed, remain. And if you’re a regular there, perhaps you’ve seen Britz and his mobile church of free mini Bibles and free literature.
For the most part, he’s been parking in the same place, spot No. 22, each year for the past 25 years. It’s right in front of a store that features lambskin leather corsets, a delicious dichotomy if there ever was one.
“People come back looking for me year after year,” Britz said. “You make friends and kick the tires a little, and it’s the same thing when I go to Daytona. I’ve been there for 27 years and in the same spot down there and people look for you.”
He’s more than willing to tell his story. Once, while working in a tool-and-die factory 30 miles outside Pittsburgh, he grew disenchanted and embarrassed over his behavior and that of others around him.
“I had an apprentice, and I used to tell this guy dirty jokes and give him porno, and I used to make fun of him,” Britz said. “All these guys were heading down a bad road. That guy had three wives, that one does drugs, that one is an alcoholic. Anytime there was something bad going on, I was always around. It was a rough crowd, stuff you just shouldn’t tamper with.
“I started to go to church.”
He found Jesus in 1977 and says it saved his marriage. Now he’s got two identical motorcycles, each black, each showing artwork that Michelangelo might have liked.
It’s the work of a Native American friend. There’s the crucifixion, the resurrection, Noah’s Ark, Adam and Eve, the path to heaven, the path to hell. There are angels and rainbows and clouds and dragons. There are people falling into the fiery pit of hell. None were on motorcycles, but Britz said the crowd at Bike Week would be wise to read some of his literature.
He doesn’t preach or push. Oftentimes he socializes, leaving his bike unattended, a “free” sign posted near the Bibles and homemade stories of inspiration.
“Hopefully, a guy will take it, go home and read it when he’s sober,” Britz said.
He’s not sure how many people he’s touched during his travels to various bike rallies, which include those in Lake George, N.Y.; Daytona Beach, Fla.; Sturgis, S.D.; and the one here. He says he’s driven about 600,000 miles over 50 years. Texas and Oklahoma are the lone states he’s yet to ride through.
Newspaper articles have been written about Britz in Daytona Beach and elsewhere over the past 25 years. Like here, he grabs the same parking spot in other states, making sure his presence is known on an annual basis.
He’s proud of his bike and says, “I don’t mean to brag, but it’s probably the most photographed bike in the world. People are still taking pictures of this, and it just keeps on going. I’m going to do this for quite a few more years.”
People regularly stopped to admire the artwork on Britz’s bike. One man even took a Bible and piece of literature. The cool blue and pink shades and fluffy clouds and rainbows stood out, offering relief on a day when sun-baked roads and thousands of people jammed closely together made for oven-like conditions.
I asked Britz to sum up the state of the world. Is God a big part of the landscape, like the paintings on his bike? Are we heading in the right direction? Is he optimistic?
“It’s not good, with all the problems with terrorism going on,” Britz told me. “Some people say God will be back in two or five years, but I think it will be a long time. He’s going to wait until things get really, really bad. It’s going to get a lot worse.”
Lord, have mercy.