Photography is quite frustrating for this all-thumbs, non-techie, but well-intentioned long rider… I seem to never be able to accurately capture images of what my eyes have beheld… This was a nice scene of Marquette, MI, with a slice of Lake Superior thrown in, that doesn’t appear at all like it had when it struck me at the time… Oh well, my memory suffers no such limitations!
A nice, soothing sunset to cap off an easy but very enjoyable day just ambling along backroads taking it all in… Somewhere in Wisconsin…
Stayed one night near this town…
We were gliding along out in the countryside of rural Wisconsin, when we came upon an intersection with only one lone building (or two, couldn’t tell if they were actually connected) on one corner. A motel, restaurant, and bar that clearly catered to hunters. Hmmm, might be something of interest there, so… I did what I so often do… We pulled in, checked in, and…
The food was pretty good, plus the bar and especially the patrons were interesting. However, alas, the room I’d rented was a disappointment. Oh well, there was nothing better to do, so I’d unloaded our girl, tucked her in for the night, and prepared for the evening follies anyway… No disappointment there! Nothing spectacular or truly report-worthy, really, but still worthwhile… thought inducing if nothing else. BTW, no Batman or Superman sightings… perhaps we weren’t quite close enough to Gotham… Next time through, maybe we’ll actually go into town and look around...
I perched my not-so-tired-that-evening tookus upon a bar stool and ordered my first adult beverage (E Pluribus Unum). I then scanned the room, and… yep, they were there, all right. One led to another, food was ordered, and I kept studying what was going on in front of and around of me… No music that evening, so naturally no dancing either, but… Waylon Jennings (a famous C&W singer for those Bee-boppers who may not have heard of him) had a tune out once upon a time entitled ‘Honky-tonk Heroes’. That song, and particularly the lyrics, kept rolling around in my noggin’ that evening, as I continued to ponder another of the great mysteries of life… the social implications and facets of barroom behaviors.
Among the many things I can identify with in that song were the lines that go, “Rolled piano blues, dance holes in my shoes, and generally blowing all of my hard-earned pay…” Later, “There weren’t no other way to be: but lovable losers, no account boozers, and honky-tonk heroes like me…” Back somewhere in the annals of history, it had appeared this naïve young fledgling would in time likely turn into one of those three, but… I was rescued by a good woman instead. Nowadays I’m just a curious, but most grateful, on-looker… Well, that’s not to say there were none of those in that bar that particular evening… Fact is, all three types were present.
The main character of interest to all was a genuine ‘honky-tonk hero’ type of the sort Waylon sang about. A rather large, middle-aged man seated in a place at the bar where he could be seen by all… (I suspect that was no accident.) He was plenty jovial in an exaggerated macho sort of way, though, loud but not overly or inappropriately so, and he did have some funny comments to make and stories to tell. He generously used practiced, broad, sweeping gestures as he spoke. He really seemed to relish his role as life of the party and being the center of attention. What really caught my notice, though, was the beer bottle I’d seen in front of him…
At first I’d assumed the obvious; but, then I noticed the bartender/’nurse’, discreetly take his empty, hold it out of view below the bar surface, proceed to fill it with Tequila, then set it back in front of the man holding court and entertaining the rest of us. I wondered what sorts of things had led this guy to become who he had… Was it unmet needs of some sort or other voids in his life that had led him to this form of compensating? Was he even compensating at all for something lacking in his life or self-awareness? We all have things about ourselves that subtly influence how we act, as well as who we’ve become… Change anything significant in our own past, and we likely change much about who we later became.
Gathered around that long, horse-shoe shaped bar were the usual losers, boozers, casual onlooker locals, association/acceptance seekers, motel guests trying to make sense of the spectacle… and yours truly - mighty glad to be me and not who I might have become. I was, naturally, still glad to be there… I did get my fill in time, however, so I reluctantly returned to the room to proceed with preparations to continue the original adventure already in progress…
A couple more days of riding and adjusting for missed and wrong turns; I lost track of how many… days or boo-boos. Then, finally, I found myself down in Clinton, IA, at the host motel for the ‘Quad-State Ride’… Watching curiously as others of our clan began to trickle in; and, witnessing the whole group gathering thing beginning all over again… Different locations, faces, names, rides, stories, but the same good-hearted, well-wishing ‘friends’… Yep, you are spot-on with that thought about me you just had: I was indeed mighty proud to be there! Not so fast there, folks… Y’all stay tuned now, hear…? This gift has even more yet to give!
DDT
