…Kopi Time

**2013 Harley Davidson Anniversary Party in Milwaukee

All hotels rooms are booked…… try an AirB&B booking.

Enjoy the festival, the museum, the plant and all that the

beautiful city of Milwaukee has to offer –

and that happens to be a lot more than beer and cheese!

please see this listing and inquire. House is available

for the full week.**

It is the Harley Davidson 105th year anniversary in Milwaukee this weekend.  I survived the 100th, and joined in the celebration of the 95th.  If you haven’t lived through it, you can’t even imagine what it is like to have 100,000 bike riders descend on your hometown.  I have no complaints, I have never had any trouble with any attendees, but it is dang hard to get around.  My son called me from his cell phone last night, while he sat in his car at a railroad crossing downtown.  He told me his little Honda was the only car in the middle of a huge group of cycles, waiting to cross the tracks.  He wasn’t frightened, it was just very odd.

There were 25 routes from 105 starting points the bikers used to get to Milwaukee from across the US. Bikers have come from all over the world to attend.  The routes gathered riders as they traveled to the meeting point of Milwaukee, starting on August 17th.

The event brings back quite a few different memory points in my life.  When I was twelve years old, my family moved from Milwaukee to a small town. I saved my babysitting and pickle-picking money and bought a horse.  It was a life long dream come true for me (I had my first pair of cowboy boots at four, and fully intended to be a cowboy when I grew up).  By the time I was sixteen, my home was no longer next to a farm: the town had grown, and the farm turned into a suburb.  No place for the horse, so she had to be boarded at a farm out in the country.  There was homework, band practice, art projects, and of course, boys.

I sold the horse and got a motorcycle.  A Harley Davidson.

It was a small bike, 250 CC, because my father said I had to be able to pick it up if it fell over, and I wasn’t exactly muscle bound.  Riding that bike was a lot of fun.  I had an American flag helmet, just like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider.  I lived and rebelled during that time, and had friends who were much like Captain America and Billy.

The Steppenwolf tune from the movie was my life theme.  That is another story, however.

The 95th anniversary in 1998 was “practice” for the 100th coming up in five years.  That party was great fun.  I owned Cecilia’s Pub at the time, and it was located in the middle of many of the festivities.  The streets were closed to cars; bikes and people milled about, listening to music. It was body to body.  I worked and played hard during that party. I met many interesting people.  I had only one fight in my bar.

No, it wasn’t that guy, it was a couple of women.  That is the worst kind of fight to break up.

So here we are at the 105th, Labor Day weekend.  I will avoid the lakefront and downtown when I am driving.  I will try not to think about work at all, until Monday evening.  I will enjoy my son’s last weekend at home before he moves to New York.  I will spend time with my Mom and sister.  I will begin the rewrite of my work in progress that was lost when my computer crashed a couple weeks ago.  I will end the list right now, so stress and being overwhelmed are not part of the weekend.  I hope you enjoy the lovely weather I am fortunate to have.  What are  your plans for this nice, long, weekend?