Lovebirds in the best sense of the breed, Helo and Kimmy live life as bold eagles flying together and defending their nest.

Don’t mess with eagles.

Even peaceful hunters know how to use their talons.

But one-percenter bikers like Helo can be sensitive too. Ask any brother in his motorcycle club and he’ll tell you Helo’s one righteous brother from his burly, bearded, chain-tattooed presence to his background as a 20-year Marine and elite survival training instructor. By the way, there’s no such thing as a retired or former Marine. You’re either a Marine or you’re not a Marine. Helo’s a Marine.

I never met the man in person.

I never met Kimmy, either.

Helo, who embraced his nickname from the helicopters he knows from top to bottom, was close to my late boyhood friend Sonny Drake. We connected online after Sonny’s funeral at the Indiantown Gap National Cemetery when Helo and about 75 other brothers from their club paid deep respect to a fallen leader in their tribal nation. Helo and I share an Appalachian mountain spiritual streak as well as a Germanic bloodline that makes us partial to pickled red beet eggs, Pennsylvania Dutch wet bottom shoofly pie and oompah band music.

A few weeks ago when I was recording a segment for an internet radio oldies music show as a favor for a friend I asked Helo if he had a song he wanted to hear. When he told me the name of the tune I taped the Saturday night episode and sent out the song as an old-fashioned dedication from Helo to Kimmy with love. I compared the relationship described in the 1971 song “Cotton Jenny” by Gordon Lightfoot to Helo’s relationship with Kimmy.

I drew poetic parallels between the warm lyrics and warm feelings Helo carries for Kimmy that fire his heart the way a wood stove heats a snug Perry County cabin on a snowy February night. I had sensed his powerful sentiment from words he regularly posts on Facebook about his personal blessings and good fortune. I got a little softie in me too.  Just don’t push your luck once you recognize my moonstruck side.

The on-air radio segment was a hit. But because of technical difficulties I had to delete from this website the nice little column I wrote about Helo and Kimmy and the song Helo dedicated to her. I felt bad and told him I’d rewrite the original column.

Then I lost my notes.

I was going to blame corrupt government cops for hacking my computer, stealing my work and trampling my First Amendment rights, but I’ll let that alone for now and face off against the government goons another day. Instead, I’ll stress the importance of loyalty, fighting for what you believe in, living a life loaded with love and appreciating what we have.

Wisdom comes with age if you’re lucky. We’re getting older, Helo and I. We’re lucky. We appreciate the down-home goodness we cradle in our lives brought about because of strong women guides much wiser than we are. A guy once told me I’d be living in a drainage ditch without Stephanie. Forty-five years later he’s still right.

Helo knows the feeling. We can still drink more moonshine than Stephanie and Kimmy, but because of these two sensible women we’re now smart enough to realize our past primitive “accomplishments,” as barbarically noble as they once seemed, only shorten our sweet time together on this sick, chaotic planet.

So together we fly, Helo and I. Close to our partners we glide more gently and slowly than we once did. Don’t mistake our tenderness for weakness, though. We still wing it.

Because that’s what eagles do.