This weekend I called my mother and told her I loved her.
I wasn’t drunk or in need of money, I was about to attend my first biker rally.
I’ve lived in Starkville for many years now, and before last weekend I had avoided the Sturgis Bike Rally like it was manual labor. But here in the twilight of my youth, I decided it’s an experience worth having. Plus for a humor columnist, any event with that many freaks in one spot is like shooting fish in a barrel.
But a biker rally is not something to tackle alone, especially when you’re slow and sarcastic like me. So I set out thusly to – as the young folks say – “rustle up my homeboys” for a trip into the biker netherworld.
The homeboys I found weren’t boys at all, but rather full-grown men. Men who had seen the world and could protect a fragile youngster like myself, should things get out of hand. In order to protect the guilty, I’ll refer to them only by their aliases: Doc, Scout, and Ty Adair.
We started off the evening with some ritualistic male bonding at Scout’s apartment. We watched a couple westerns, compared shoe sizes, and bemoaned the struggles of the day.
The testosterone, she was a flowing.
When the time was right we headed out toward the county line, following the trail of exhaust fumes and crushed beer cans. Part of me thinks such littering is wrong, but another part thinks if that’s what it takes for visiting bikers to find their way back home, so be it. I sure don’t want them stuck in Starkville.
When we arrived in Sturgis, the sight was inspiring. And by that I mean it inspired me to make sure my unborn children bathe regularly.
The streets were lined with motorcycles, more motorcycles, and bail bondsmen.
The bikes ranged from simple crotch rockets to giant Harleys. One was a converted Volkswagen Beetle. One sported a six-foot tall Coors Light can on the rear. Some bikes weren’t even bikes; they were more like houses on wheels. I was very impressed with these until I realized they were just the trailers that are parked there year round.
There were people for miles, each one dressed in some combination of leather, metal, and facial hair. And that was just the women!
Some bikers and their families had tents set up in a field nearby, cooking burgers and playing football in the last of the summer sun. It reminded me of an MSU tailgate, only without the imminent threat of education all around you.
As we took it all in, speechless, Doc broke the silence.
“Guys,” he said, “when our founding fathers drafted the constitution, this was what they had in mind.”
God bless America.
We perched ourselves directly across from the library (which doubled as the official diaper changing area for the weekend) and counted the unattended children as they walked by. One was smoking a cigarette and using a retainer case as an ashtray.
Food was the next task on the agenda, and the rally had that in spades. Sausage corndogs, shrimp on a stick, turkey legs, giant nachos, and even lobster tails were all available.
Salads were not.
We bought as much food as we could carry (cargo shorts make excellent egg roll holders), and headed back to the truck.
We sat on the tailgate and listened to visitors from all corners of this great nation squeal tires and rev engines for four hours before heading home.
Motorcycles and machismo will never be my scene, and one night Sturgis sure didn’t make me want to blow my meager savings on a hog and hit the open road.
But good friends and funnel cakes are hard to find, so count me among those crusty souls who can say they’ve enjoyed Little Sturgis and lived to tell the tale.
