Blowing Smoke

"...I've been a Santa Claus to ev'ry sonofabitch in town..." (Kit Gutherz)

So, I was wandering around on the Net, last week, looking for some way to be amused on the weekend, and came across a couple of local benefit runs. One was in town and the other, near the lake, just shy of 66 miles from my doorstep.

My best compadre, who has to be in that area, pretty regularly, indicated that there had been some benefits going on out there to help out some folks who’d had a run of bad luck.

Saturday morning traffic was light and my ride to the event site was uneventful except for the minute between my engine dieing and the realization that I’d, somehow, hit the kill switch.

Ground zero was a restaurant and bar where I’d played music long ago, when it was the only building on that particular Farm To Market road. Even before the building came into view I could see a large barbecue pit on a trailer, the one my bud said had been parked on the corner for many weeks.
Behind the building, there was a large pavilion tent to seat fans of the night’s headliner band, a dunking booth and a couple of empty vendor booths.

After I parked beneath a mesquite, but before I entered the bar, I read the event flyer. They had a poker run going on, but no afternoon entertainment of any kind, odd in an area where you can't throw a rock in any direction without hitting musical talent.
Musicians and DJs will jump at the chance to be part of a charitable community event.

Just inside the front door ladies sold barbecue sandwiches. Others were folding and stacking event T-shirts or manning (womaning?) the poker run sign-up table.

Not a one shouted, “Hey, come on in, sign up for the poker run and have a cold one!”

I began to consider that, perhaps, the best part of this adventure would be the ride back to town, when who should walk by but “Harleychik”, who I’d met on a lunch ride, some months ago. She introduced me to two fellow Bluff rats I’d never met (though we recognize each other’s motorcycles) and I moseyed over to where they were sitting and got acquainted with a couple of officers of the Latin Ladies MC.

Since I’d blown by the taco stand, on the way out, I decided to try the barbecue. The ladies warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. In fact, someone gave me wristband so I wouldn’t have to pay to eat (I still kicked in the price of the sandwich, for ‘the cause’).

Let me tell you, I wouldn’t let the neighbor’s dog gnaw on meat that gristly.

The goobers who had the pit parked out front advertised Texas barbecue. There ought to be some kind of law preventing that kind of misrepresentation.

Thing is, they operate as a place of business out on that road and if they served those scraps every day they would soon be defunct. Someone suggested that it was, after all, donated meat and you couldn’t expect too much. My response to that:

1. Bullshit. I’ve attended any number of fundraisers and the worst food I’ve been served, on a scale of “sucks-to-doesn't-suck”, didn’t suck. Smaller clubs will serve good chicken or sausage rather than insult their rally goers with third-rate brisket.
2. When you want to help someone, you don’t skimp. That’s not true charity and it won’t work off any karma. Believers are admonished to ‘run hot, or run cold because the half-assed gets spit out’.

It looked to me that still another bunch of the uninitiated tried to use “bikers” as a piggy bank. I doubt they would support our legislative efforts in Austin even if they were aware of them and the volunteers didn’t seem to have any affinity for us as a group.

So, as you might guess, that price of the sandwich and a cheap Made in Honduras T-shirt was all they got out of this old boy. I blew off the poker run and there was no way I was going to spend the day sitting on hard plastic chairs listening to cookie cutter cowboy music on the jukebox while waiting for some other “hat” band to play the same stuff later on.
Instead, I took the long way home along with the other Bluff guy and the Latin Ladies and their friends. That was, for sure, the best part of the adventure.