haps mey were looking for anything,
something, "Get me some copy!,"
i u~t '0 cover.
Face it. You get 50,000 strangers
together in an isolated spot and rub
them elbow-to-dbow for a week, well,
hey, it's a wonder WWIII doesn't
break out.
Not in Sturgis, though. This is a
civilized community. Why, look here.
We have not one, but two vendors
featuring official Hells Angels key
rings, bUllons, etc. And to prove it
ain't no sham, there are some genuine
Angels staffing the counter. That's in
the first block of Main.
In the third block of Main, right
there in the drive-up-window area of
the First Bank of StuTgis, was an
honest to goodness prayer meeting.
Run by the Christian Motorcyclists,
complete with music, pamphlets, witnessing, and a little low key preaching, the meetings began about sundown each night of the week and
played to a somewhat mixed crowd of
the merely curious and the faithfuL.
Now anyplace where Hells and
Heavens Angel's can co-habit can't be
too bad.
Sturgis is like that. It's a neutral
ground, a meeting place, no -one
group owns this turf and, frankly, the
other 51 weeks of the year, most of the
local residents wouldjustas soon not
hear anything about the event. However, a great deal of the open hostility
of the rally's critics has been muted.
This has occurred for several reasons; not the lead of which being
some of the former critics having
found a way to make a buck on the
event. Money is like that. What goes
around, comes around; it's breaking
into the circle that's tough.
Perhaps the news from this year's
edition of the rally is no news. That
is, no "news" as the regular media
perceives news. A headline describ-
ing the event truthfully might read
something like this, "50,000 Bikers
Invade Heartland Town ... Town
Survives .... Easily!"
Monday mOTnillg after a week'
long run of nearly 24-houT days,
Sturgis returned to "normalcy." The
10 o'clock coffee crowds at Bob's
Steak House and Weimer's Bakery
hardly mentioned the event outside
of the usual cliches.
You could almost hear the grass
grow.
•
