Quote:
Originally Posted by pwd72s
To shorten an old tale...a group of "Gypsy Jokers" (Then rivals of the Angels) went into the Maples Tavern of Cascadia, Oregon on a Friday night some decades back, told the loggers to get out, that they wanted the place to themselves. 'Twas the bikers who left...in tatters. Don't mess with people who carry heavy gear up and down steep brush covered hillsides...
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Similar story up here in Darrington (old time logging town about two hours northeast of Seattle) almost 30 years ago:
It was the weekend of the annual Darrington Logging Festival. Some older guys in the shop I was working in at the time invited me up to check it out. They lived out that way, so I was just going to meet them there on Saturday morning. Seemed like a great bike ride as well, so I hopped on the old (actually kinda new back then...) Sporty and rode up.
I was immediately descended upon by some very unhappy looking loggers, the minute I pulled into the fairground parking lot. My buddies got there pretty quick and calmed everyone down, telling them I was "o.k." and "with them". They (the loggers) got real friendly just as fast as they had gotten upset earlier. I didn't know what the hell was going on.
Several hours later, we could hear what sounded like a pretty fair number of bikes approaching. All the events stopped. All the men headed out to the parking lot. Their wives and kids stayed in the grandstands, booths, and whatnot. The men started pulling hunting rifles, shotguns, chainsaws, and axes out of their trucks. They started the chainsaws.
There were three or four sheriff's deputies on hand. About the time the men got over to the parking lot, all of the sheriff's cars were pulling out. Then the bikes came down the highway, about 20-30 of them, and turned into the parking lot. Every rifle and shotgun in the place got leveled at them, and the guys with the chainsaws and axes started approaching them. The bikers never slowed down, making one pass through the lot and leaving the way they came. When they were gone, the deputies came back.
WTF, over??? I was dumbfounded. What had I just seen? Well, my older buddies explained it all to me. Seems a handful of these bikers had been in town the night before, raising hell at the only bar. Threatening people, acting tough, that kind of crap. Some of the locals had taken exception. What my buddies described as a minor scuffle broke out, ending with all but one said biker prostrate on the floor of said bar. The one that wasn't prostrate on the floor was pinned to a pool table, getting a haircut. They cut his ponytail off.
So, the bikers collect themselves, and head out. But not before threatening to come back tomorrow and have their own little "fair" at the logging fair. It looked like they tried...
I shudder to think what could have happened had these bikers tried a little harder. Several dozen men armed as these loggers were would have made pretty short work of them. They clearly just weren't going to put up with one little bit of crap on the day of their fair. Good for them. Good for my buddies, too, who got there in time to save a dumb kid that had stumbled into this...