Annual Pig Roast, November 13, 1999

Page # 2 If you got here via a search engine or by any means other than from page # 1,  click here and start at the beginning. Click thumbnails for full size photos. Use your "Back" button to return. This photo was taken near 3 pm and just outside Mom's front door and looking across the street. I liked the paint job on this bike, and I very much liked the decoration on the bike's rear seat. Along about this time I'm wondering if I can sell my body for maybe $15,000 and buy my own Harley. It seems that every guy with a Harley has the same kind of rear seat decorations. I'm thinking that the Bluesmobile's passenger seat is sorely lacking in the decoration department. As you can easily tell, these folks look really worried about something. Behind them you can see the pine woods behind Mom's. Unfortunately, those woods have a date with a power saw. That land is the planned location of a new motel. That doesn't bode well for tent camping. On the plus side of that sad equation, you can rent a motel room and walk to the hog roasts at Mom's. Me, I'd rather tent camp. I'm really worried about those woods. Here's a shot of the band, playing beside Mom's. Their name is Borderline. They started around 3 pm, and they played 'til I don't know when. They did a fine job of playing lots of slow and rockin' blues and rock ‘n' roll. All afternoon and night they only played 2 country songs: "The Dance" as a special request and "Last Date" as a special request from a very special person--Mom. For more info on Borderline and their gig schedule check out their web site at http://www.borderline.net They play at Mom's a couple of times a month. The tiny biker dancing alone on the dusty dance floor sure liked Borderline's music. Check out that miniature leather Harley vest he's wearing. Reckon there's a proud papa somewhere in the crowd? Here's another shot of gorgeous little Jessica. (For another shot of her navel, click here.) The guy is Brian, her boyfriend. He's a nice guy, but me and my buddy Donald wonder what tha heck she sees in him. Think about it–she could have us, and she picked him. Must be that belt buckle.   Here's some Louisiana boys sitting on the round table. Minden and Ringgold are east of Shreveport. This is white blouse girl. The hog roasting crew voted that she had the best body at the hog roast. Behind her you can see Mom's back porch and folks lined up to order beer through the hole in the wall. This is pink blouse girl. Reckon she's having fun?       This is black blouse girl. My tent is in those woods behind her. The blue object beside her right ear is the tent of Dr. and Mrs. Freud.   I suppose by now some of y'all have figured out that little miss Wild Thang pulls my trigger. Here she is again in a sneaky shot I took with a telephoto lens. Around midnight that night and at least 6 long necks later when she was even less inhibited than her normal uninhibited self and so was I, she posed for a very good shot. Alas, alas, alas, the batteries were dead in my camera. There ain't no justice. Those 2 little girls at Wild Thang's feet had as much fun at Mom's hog roast as any big girl, including Wild Thang. They played in that dust and dirt all afternoon. Every once in a while the band would strike a responsive chord, and they'd start dancing. Dust would fly. Their mommas told me they intended to strip the girls naked in the yard, wash then down with a water hose, then put them in the tub. Hummmmm, I wonder how Wild Thang. . . ? Here's 2 sisters, from Longview I believe. Seated directly behind them and on top of the round table, you can see the knees of Carl Casteel of the roasting crew. This photo gives an idea of the 2 x 4 construction of the round table. Notice the built-in bench the sisters are sitting on. To the right, notice the slot in the bench where they slide the trash barrel under the hole in the table top. I just noticed the girl almost hidden on the right and wearing black leather knee-high boots and a black leather outfit. I'm wondering why I didn't get a photo of her. I know for a fact that here begins the activities that started at 3 pm. I know because at this point I was sitting on a pickup's lowered tail gate with 12-string Leon and his "sister" Kouri while 12-string alternately sipped Jack Daniels straight from the fifth and chugged Budweiser from the neck, all the while telling me how great they both tasted and asking me why my face was green, all designed to make me puke my guts up. But I foxed him. I went in the bar and bought me a long neck Budweiser. When I returned to the tailgate and took a sip, somebody asked, "Taste bad?" "That's the most awful tasting stuff I ever put in my mouth," I replied. "Hair of the dog," said 12-string Leon. "Yuck," said off-the-wagon Junior. "You're not doing it right," said 12-string Leon. "Watch this." He put the bottle neck to his lips, then raised it high. A large bubble gurgled upward through the beer. He lowered the bottle. His cheeks swelled. He went, "Buuurrrrrp." I went, "Oh, damn." He said, "See? That way you get to taste it twice." "Oh, damn," I went again. By taste # 3 or 4, it tasted fine, and I forgot all about my vows of sobriety and my intended life of teetotaltality. Here's Boonie at the tail gate and looking in the wrong direction. Hey, Boonie, eyes left!   Here's a close up of the same lovely lass. Hugh Hefner, check this out. Hey, what is she doing to her navel? Here's a biker babe on her own Harley and lined up for the slow race. For you folks who don't know about the slow race, they measure off about a 50 feet long section of street. 2 bikes line up side by side at the starting line. At the word go they start, and the one who makes it to the finish line last without touching his or her feet to the ground wins, wins $250 in this case. This lady won her first race but lost the next one. We all yelled for her. In fact, the only person who got more screaming and yelling than her was the person who ran against some fool on a Honda. If you look closely at the full size photo you can see the starting line in front of her front tire. In addition to 3 lovely biker babes, this photo shows the front of Mom's. The head of the guy on the right hides the front door, which by the way, like the side door, is solid steel with massive bank-vault-type hinges. Mom's building, made of concrete blocks and steel, is like Fort Knox. A thief might could get inside with a sledgehammer and an acetylene torch, but I'd sure hate to be that thief if some of the guys you see in these photos happened by and caught that thief about halfway inside Mom's building. Do y'all know the difference between a bull and a steer? It's getting dark, as you can tell. This lady's t-shirt says, IF YOU PLAY ANOTHER COUNTRY SONG I'M GONNA HAVE TO KICK YOUR ASS! Needless to say, the crowd at Mom's Biker Bar ain't a country music crowd. It's my kinda place!   Look, Ma, no teeth! The guy is wearing last year's, 1998's, t-shirt. It looks just like this year's. The gal had a lot of fun. Earlier that afternoon Big George and Cholly Mac were about to turn over 2 pigs. From across the fire, Big George said to Cholly Mac, "Ready?" The gal, standing behind Big George, told him, "I stay ready." The astute observer will notice that, starting now, I have beer splattered on my camera lens. Sorry 'bout that, but what can I say? I was enjoying myself. This photo proves the theory that good-looking women only go out with good-looking men.     Here's 4 drunks enjoying a rack of roasted ribs and a hambone. Same to you, fellows. Up yours. By the way, I'm sending a copy of this photo to your mothers and to your parole officers.     The biker babe on the right is the one from the slow race. At next year's hog roast I'm asking her if she'll take me for a slow ride on her Harley. Since her bike doesn't have a rear seat, we can sit real close together on the main seat.   All good things must come to an end, and this photo was very near the end of my camera batteries and a very good night. The pigs are gone and so is most of the crowd. The band quit playing long ago. I guess it's around midnight. Sweet little Sunshine has just given me a hug and disappeared into the darkness. The fire, once raging red coals covering the area beneath the pig roasting rack, is now a small bonfire near the center of the area beneath the rack. I don't know who those dimly illuminated folks are on the other side. Here's the last photo my camera contained. That's a very cool local couple named Mexican Ray and Martha. In Ray's ass-pocket there's an almost-empty pint of whiskey. Martha will soon drive him home and put him to bed. He had a large time both nights of the hog roast. So did she. Lots of guys tried to make time with Martha, but to no avail. She's a one-Mexican woman. Not long after this photo I ambled over to my tent and crawled inside. I woke the next morning, Sunday, November 14, 1999, my 57th birthday, to the sound of rattling beer bottles. The sun wasn't nearly so bright as the morning before, and the pain in my head wasn't nearly so intense. I crawled out of my tent. Beside me, Dr. and Mrs. Freud were still asleep in their bright blue tent. I ambled in the general direction of the smoke drifting from the fire in the middle of the roasting rack. All around me older biker-types picked up beer bottles and trash from the ground and loaded rattling barrels in the back of pickups. There stood Moses at the edge of the woods, long neck in hand and in charge of all he surveyed. "Any coffee?" I asked him. "Mom's is closed," he said. He held out the long neck Budweiser. "Want a beer?" "Nah, but thanks," I said. "I never drink ‘til after 3." "Doctor at the V.A. told me not to drink so much," Moses said. "I told him I'd quit drinkin' in the mornin' time." I looked around us at Sunday morning coming down. "Well?" "Since I ain't been to bed," Moses informed me, "it ain't mornin'." I laughed and he said, "You have a good time?" "A blast." "Comin' back next year?" "I'll be here." "Don't forget that—" "I know," I interrupted. "Parkin' in front is for bikes." Moses grinned and shook my hand goodbye. I walked over to the roasting rack and looked down at the smoldering fire. I was a little cool, so I kicked a log in it. After a minute, it flared up, warming me. A guy on the other side asked me, "Cool in that tent last night?" He was in his 50s, maybe, perhaps older, with long hair, long beard, and he wore boots and faded and ragged jeans and a denim jacket in the same condition. He was gray from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, covered with ashes. I said, "Nah, had plenty of cover. Stayed warm all night." "I did too," he said and pointed down at the thick layer of ashes beneath the roasting rack. "I slept right there in them warm ashes. Rolled out this mornin' when the sun come up. You want a beer?" I soon packed my tent and hit the road for home, a 4 hour drive. About 1 hour later while I tooled down I 20 at a Bluesmobile-saving and respectable 55mph, Big George and the roasting crew whizzed by me in Big George's big crew-cab Chevy. About 2 hours later, Dr. Freud whizzed by me on his big black Harley–minus the tiny black trailer and Mrs. Freud. Explain that if you can. When I arrived home, I piled up in my dad's old easy chair and slept all afternoon. An observation some people won't believe: All weekend I observed no evidence of illegal drug usage and not a single fight, not even an argument. When I asked Mom about that fact, she said, "They know I don't tolerate it."