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As the 80th year of the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally rapidly approaches, my thoughts go back to our very first trip to South Dakota on the 50th anniversary of the event.  My son was racing dirt track professionally, and Sturgis was the place to go for a week of racing events, including a Grand National half mile in Rapid City.

Back in those early days on the circuit we had to economize on travel.  And, due to the fact that the 50th anniversary of the Sturgis Bike Week was a HUGE event, accommodations were scarce to none.  So, a fellow who worked with my husband informed us that he would be employed as security for a rancher who was renting out his property just outside of Sturgis as a campground for the week.  Hey, we had a tent!  And we had camped a number of times before at the KOA in Bulow when we went to Daytona Bike Week, so – a resounding yes!!!  We will camp there.  Suffice it to say…we had not given this adventure much forethought.

After driving pretty much forever (South Dakota is a long way from the Midwest), we finally arrived in the Rapid City area and headed north from Rapid City toward Sturgis.  Motorcycles everywhere! Everywhere!  We got to downtown Sturgis and found it extremely difficult to wend our way through the streets due to the thick crowds of street vendors, bikes, and bikers.  The layout was not conducive to navigation in a maxi-van.  But we finally made it through the tiny town…after about an hour…and headed for the ranch.  Did I mention bikes were everywhere?  Everywhere!  We, who had failed to correctly assess the situation before we left home, came to realize that the town of Sturgis normally had a population of 5,000.  This particular week, however, they were hosting 400,000.  Four hundred  thousand!

We arrived at the ranch and found — guess what! — motorcycles everywhere. Lots of tents, a few rudimentary camping trailers.  No motor homes.  And not much available space.  Luckily, our friend the security guard ushered us into an enclosed area near the farmhouse where we were to pitch our 8×10 cabin tent.  The ranch was at the foot of Bear Butte, a huge mesa, and the ground was covered with shale…which made for some interesting sleeping for folks who brought sleeping bags but no air mattresses.   Because I had some personal health issues that required the use of actual bathroom facilities, we were privileged to have access to the farmhouse bathroom for emergencies, although I felt like an intruder entering the home of people to whom we had barely been introduced.  (It should be noted that the facilities available to the general camping population consisted of a row of outhouses that we learned were already close to overflowing.)

Bikes everywhere!  Bikers everywhere!  I can’t remember how many gangs were represented on the ranch that year, but fortunately they were largely…hmmm…not friendly, exactly…but…well, no, not exactly cordial…but…at least tolerant of one another.  (Well, there was one gang in particular that tended to behave rudely and audaciously; but security kept them contained for the most part.  I could name that gang, but I won’t because I really wouldn’t want to irritate them.  And I have to admit that, even though we are normally nice people and rather accepting, we did do a lot of smirking in regard to that particular group.)

Speaking of gangs, while inside the farmhouse bathroom one night, I  overheard the conversation from the kitchen table.  The security folk were noting that one of the gangs had posted armed sentries at the foot of the hill, just in case their foes should try to descend upon them in the middle of the night.  Rather disquieting news for a non-camper Midwest mom who already wasn’t sleeping well on a bed of shale.

Bear Butte, we learned, was a sacred site for Native Americans.  According to farmhouse lore, one year during the Sturgis rally, a group of badly behaved bikers had been camping there and had been quite disrespectful and had proceeded to try to climb the butte.  They were informed that the great spirit protected Bear Butte, but they scoffed at that. So at night, a nasty little windstorm came down the butte and blew their tents over.  They reportedly packed up and left.  Good riddance!  Oh, and did I mention that Bear Butte is also protected by rattlesnakes who have made it their habitat.  Fortunately, we only encountered one of those when it slithered across the road as my son was bump-starting his race bike to check it out.  And the snake promptly hid because it apparently was not fond of the noise and chaos of the camper/biker crowd.

Due to the density of the camping population on the ranch, the porta-johns quickly came to overflowing (and no one seemed available to come and empty them).  And the line of makeshift shower stalls in a barn yielded only a trickle of water.  So in order to get clean, we took advantage of interstate rest areas between Sturgis and Rapid City for the purposes of washing up.  Fortunately, we found a road through some sort of national cemetery we could use to bypass downtown Sturgis so we could get to the race tracks on time.  Bike traffic on that road was slim to none because the road was thick gravel and dust — not so bike-friendly but quite amenable to vans.   For bathing, we also had an offer from a racing friend from our home state to use his hotel room — an 80-mile round trip — to shower.  We accepted, and it was great!  (Although the evil-looking black spider in the corner of the tub was a bit off-putting.)  And we went to the water slides one day!  Clean at last!!

To get our clothes clean, we located a laundromat in a little town a bit out of the way from Sturgis proper.  It had a little restaurant attached, so we could put in our laundry and then hang out next door to wait.  At that point, the owner of the place let us know that the highway patrol had been informing businesses in the area that one particular biker gang had visited the K-Mart in Sioux Falls and bought out all the knives, guns, and baseball bats on their way to Sturgis.  We hoped they weren’t camping at our place.

Another laundromat story I want to mention was from a later year.  We had (wisely) stayed in Rapid City that year so went to do our laundry and spent a couple of very pleasant hours chatting with Andy Tresser, a rider from California.  Tresser, unfortunately, later lost his life at the Rapid City track during a crash.  God speed, Andy.  A really nice guy.

Returning to thoughts of keeping clean in Sturgis, the Jackpine Gypsies club sponsored a series of short track and half mile races during bike week. Because the short track consisted of red dust, they would oil the track to hold the dust down.  Otherwise, there would be zero visibility.  At our first race there, I kept teasing my son and husband about the reddish-black dirt they were covered in.  Haha!  I would boast that I had brought along a container of wipes and thus, using them regularly all evening, stayed fresh and clean.  Haha!  So…after the race, we went to a restaurant and, seeking facilities other than a porta-pot, I headed for the restroom.  Imagine my surprise when I looked in the mirror and realized I had a reddish-black outline of my face, my nose, etc.  (I had missed a few spots with my handy-dandy wipes.  Oops!)

Over the years we collected more Sturgis stories involving the races, Mount Rushmore (all I can say is “Amazing!”), Crazy Horse (also amazing!), panning for gold in Keystone, pyrite and pink tourmaline, the mammoth excavation site, Wall Drug, the Badlands, buffalo, and the trip there and back.  But, alas!  Those are stories for another time.

Stories from the deck:

Good things: Since he has been unable to get rid of me (surveillance and staring me down don’t work), Chippy has decided to befriend me. He now visits me on the deck, and I think he is interested in negotiation for shared occupancy…perhaps with a shared meal or two in the mix. Chipette, of course, is avoiding me as she is wimpy (and may still be miffed about my making fun of her a couple of years ago when she kept running up the pole to the bird feeder and repeatedly bonking her little noggin on the preventive inverted pie tin halfway up).Chipmunks can be rabid. Don’t get too close. If they approach you rather than run away from you, it could be problematic.Okay, I am already really old; there’s a deadly virus lurking; there is horrendous social and political unrest all around; and now I’ve gotta worry about an otherwise friendly but potentially rabid chipmunk???!!!
Hmmmm…he has approached me for a couple of days now with no incident (ran under my chair once)., sooo….

Good things: a cool morning on the deck. A handsome cardinal has joined the group of onlookers. Chipette and Chippy are scurrying about on the hill attending to some important munky-business or other. There are other things I should be doing, but hete I am… (Actually, I seem to recall it was Albert Ellis who thought we did not need shoulds and oughts. I second that!)

Just spotted Quirrely who apparently snagged a treat from somewhere and ducked into a patch of weeds to enjoy it privately.Good things: Two — yes, two! — visits from the shy little Chipette. Chippy must have given me a positive review. Wow!!Good things: lunch on the little deck. (Lately have been adding aji amarillos (yellow chilies) to sandwiches. Does a good job of mitigating allergies and stuffiness! And quite yummy.

Am wondering, however, how it is that a chipmunk can covet food from a distance if someone else is eating it….but can’t seem to find food put out in plain sight specifically for her? Although this is Chipette to whom I refer. And, as I mentioned previously, she is the one who used to regularly bonk her little noggin on the upside-down pie plate on the bird feeder pole as she’d repeatedly try running up the pole to get food (the whole run up-bonk!-run down-repeat cycle). Not sure if she was always this ditzy or just since the closed-head traumas. So far she has zoomed right by her proffered meal twice! ?Woohoo!! Chipette finally claimed her peanuts and strawberry tops!! We are forging a relationship (although she did wait until I was napping).

Good things: Chipette ? is sitting in the vegetation by the little deck trying to muster the courage to come to the wall for her peanuts. (I told her she only gets 4 because I have heard that squirrel kin have a tendency to overeat, and I don’t want to give her a tummy ache.) But wait!! Said chipmunk moved a bit further away and proceeded to do some scratching (apparently had an itch) which provided a brief profile view which leads me to suspect that today’s visit is actually from Chippy. (Thought “she” looked bigger than I remembered. Hmmm….) Actually, now that I look closer, I can see that the eyes are bigger and rounder than Chipette’s. So maybe Chippy doesn’t know where to look for the peanuts. It took awhile for his girlfriend (wife?) to figure it out. Thought it was just her personal ditziness, but maybe a characteristic of chipmunkness..Well, Chippy never found his peanuts, so Chipette has out-munked him. Sbe apparently overcame her shyness, and he in turn backed off his bravado.Good things: cooler on the deck than indoors after power out all night — again. A couple of nigjts ago it was out due to a car hitting a pole. This one was caused by a tree that came down. It would really nice to have a longer break between stressful events. Chipette did visit briefly this morning. She waited for awhile for me to go in quest of peanuts, but I guess she got tired of waiting. Haven’t seen her since I came back out.

Well, the wildlife seems to be harboring a bit of a mean streak today. There’s a feisty mosquito trying to work its way around the peppermint oil mist to take a nip at me. There’s a kamikazi fly. And Chippy and Chipette have engaged in some kind of tiff in the yard. (I think she won.) I am beginning to suspect a foot fetish with Chippy who occasionally attempts to sneak close to mine. Once-shy Chipette, however, has come to enjoy posing on the tie wall.

Sadly, my breakfast deck party with Chipette and Chippy is rained out today. However, my sunflower is getting a drink!

Good things: learned something new from the auto mechanic. Apparently mice like to ear the wiring on vehicles because the wiring has a yummy soy-based protective coating. Who knew?! (And apparently Irish Spring soap shavings sprinkled throughout the engine block will ward them off!)

Good things: a quiet morning on the deck so far. Damn Groundhog has not shown up; one chipmunk (not sure which) skulking in and peeking through the shrubbery; a minor squirrel tiff.

Chipette is a bit lighter in hue, has smaller narrower eyes and a scrawnier tail, and lacks some baggage that Chippy seems to boast.

Chippy has rounder eyes, darker more reddish coloring, a bushier tail, and some additional accouturements which Chipette seems to lack.

Apparently chipmunks will engage in fisticuffs over a juicy strawberry. Pretty sure it was Chipette that won the skirmish.

Okay, who invited the Damn Groundhog? Apparently I do discriminate as I do not welcome him. Perhaps I am stereotyping, but he or his kin were responsible for digging a hole under my son’s deck once upon a time which partially collapsed it and required expensive repairs. And it was a hole into which my then-three-year-old grandson almost fell and got lost!! So I attribute bad manners at the least and destructiveness at most on the groundhog ilk. And this particular groundhog has made no effort to learn English — specifically the key phrase “go away”. My biases are fairly obvious as evidenced by his given name, Damn Groundhog.

Good things: brunch and a bit of napping on the deck till the heat bullied me back indoors. Chippy and Chipette decided to visit simultaneously and had a small spat over who got to be on their favorite spot on the tie wall. They trounced one another briefly and then both took off in different directions. Interesting. Despite their kerfuffles, I am thinking they have better manners and social skills than many of the (alleged) humans I’ve witnessed lately. (Not referencing my friends and family, of course).

Good things: when I came out to the deck today, Chippy came barreling down the yard to greet me…and skidded right past his fruit snacks I had provided. I had thought Chipette was the ditzy one, but I am leaning toward the theory that ditziness and chipmunkness are synonymous. Actually, I am beginning to wonder if Chippy might be on uppers as he is prone to zooming around a lot and is rather twitchy. Hmmmm..

Damn Groundhog is back and has apparently decided the birdfeeder seed is his…which is frustrating the squirrels and chipmunks who know it’s theirs (even though the birds keep eternally hoping the term “bird” feeder actually means something).

The squirrels are a feisty lot, however, and may band together to protect their turf. Heck, they’ll rumble over an acorn! And I wouldn’t discount my dainty little Chipette’s ability to give ol’ DG a quick nip in the nuggies to drive him off (the aforementioned Rhonda Rousey syndrome).

Hmmm….just had a brief visit from a squirrel who happened by the deck. It was a comparatively smallish one, so not Burly Quirrely or Quirrelette. Rather bold, though. (Actually, it appeared to have some sort of bluish chip stuck to its nose on one side, so maybe it came to take issue with the distribution of Irish Spring shavings in the engine block.)

Been out here for awhile now and nary a chipmunk. Quirrely and his gang have disappeared, too, but high, high above, I have seen the broad wingspan of what is likely the evil redtail hawk… Well, no sooner than I noted his absence, Chippy paid a brief visit. He did skulk about very tentatively and close to the tiewall, though. Safety first!

Things (not necessarily good); DG (Damn Groundhog) sighted hanging out under the bird feeder, gleaning. Am pretty sure he was the bigfoot responsible for dislodging a wood block from the tiewall by the little deck (since it would have taken multiple little chipmunk and squirrel legs in a flurry of improbable team effort to accomplish same). Grrrr…..

And so, the inaugural collection of the Munky Stories (not to be confused with the Monkey Stories)….

As kids (oh, about 7th grade or so) we were all amused by tongue twisters. “She sells sea shells down by the seashore” and the like. Which one tripped you up the most?

Here are some of my favorites from years gone by:

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Rubber baby buggy bumpers.

Big black bugs spit big black blood on the barn floor.

If a sheet slitter slits sheets, how many sheets can a sheet slitter slit?

Give ’em a try. Whaddaya think?

My mom, my aunts, my cousins, my oldest friend’s mom, my foster mom, my mom where I did live-in babysitting, my moms-in-law — wow!! What an amazing cross-section of women influenced my life.
Despite the fact that, after my dad died, she and I were pretty much a diad living in a city at some distance from other relatives, my mom instilled in me a strong sense of family. Several times a year we hopped a Greyhound bus, rode the “rolly-coaster hills”, and went “down home” to visits aunts, uncles, and cousins on the farms of central Ohio. As a city kid, I was not fond of outhouses, spiders, geese that chased me, chickens that defended their eggs with their beaks, or dung that required careful navigation of the fields and barnyard. But, oh, I loved the people! And sheep! And dogs and cats! When my mom, widowed and thus a single mom, needed a break, I had warm and welcoming places to go.
My mom encouraged my interest in drawing, designing doll clothes, pretend play, singing and reading. She made sure I went on school field trips to orchestral concerts and took me to a few plays. These events fed into my lifelong love of the arts.
When my mom had bouts of illness and mental health issues, a whole cadre of women stepped in.
My friend from Belgium (the Brussels sprout) had a mom who was friends with mine. She took me in on a couple of occasions when my mom was hospitalized. I learned to love rare steaks and garlic. And to parle francais un peu.
An aunt who lived half an hour away in another town took me in for a number of weeks and drove me back and forth to my high school daily. (I learned twenty years later that her daughter, my dear cousin, had begun to make plans to adopt me should it be necessary.)
Eventually, arrangements were made for me to live with a minister and his wife in a mansion that would later be razed to construct a nursing home. So, for much of my junior and senior years of high school, I lived in a 28-room mansion on eight acres of property with two ponds and a stream. (The minister and his wife were to become the administrators or the nursing home later on, so were living in the mansion and showing a sample room that had been built on one of the porches.) These folks had been missionaries in Egypt for a number of years, and the woman’s elderly father lived in the home as well. I learned a lot of elephant jokes, a teeny bit of Arabic, saw “Lawrence of Arabia” with them, and fell in love with camels. (In fact, I can do a rather impressive camel imitation — facial features, vocalization, the whole works!) My “foster mom” encouraged my writing and had me enter poetry contests for the two years I stayed with them. I won a third place prize and an honorable mention! Wow!
I began to do babysitting my senior year for a family with five kids, and became a live-in babysitter for that family for about a year. The mom was a librarian and fostered my love of reading. She also introduced me to the music of The Weavers and Bob Dylan.
Mothers’ Day has certainly dredged up the memories for me. And they are precious.

As Mother’s Day approaches, my thoughts go back to my mom.  She passed away when I was 25, and there was so, so much that she missed.  I wish she could have been here to share in all that I am proud of.  She only knew my son until he was five so never got to see the ornery all-boy rough-and-tumble kid growing up, the motorcycle racer who eventually raced the Grand National dirt track circuit, one of the best motorcycle racing motor builders in the country, and eventually the multi-talented entrepreneur managing apartment rentals, planning and implementing construction and design projects, owning  and running pizzerias, and fathering five sons.  Mom never got to meet her bright, handsome, wonderful great grandsons and her superhero great great grandson.  And, sadly, they never got to know her.  My mom always supported me, the shy kid, and prodded me to get my education, have friends, and create; yet she never got to be involved in my adult life of theatre, racing, writing, social work, and more.   

She worked hard as a single mom (my dad passed away when I was a little over a year old) to ensure my needs were met.  She had a unique sense of humor that I keep tucked away in my heart.  She was renowned for her indecisiveness over major purchases (e.g. had me take piano lessons from 4^th through 6^th grade but couldn’t make up her mind on which piano to buy until I was 14).    My mom loved fashion and glamour.  She taught me to love the color blue (almost exclusively, actually, until I finally figured out there was a rainbow out there).  She taught me basic morals and values – don’t lie, cheat, steal, etc. – to the point that I was pretty much a goody-two-shoes back in the day.  She taught me to be kind to people. She respected me, and I in turn respected her….at least insofar as obeying rules.  Being an only child, I was also a spoiled brat and believed that tantrums were the way to go.  They always worked with my mom.  With others, not so much.  I learned that quickly! 

My mom had some wonderful recipes!  I wish I had kept up some of those traditions better over the years.  She would bake fruitcake bars (NOT to be confused with yucky fruitcake) at Christmas time along with gingerbread cookies, rum and bourbon balls (I didn’t eat those), and stuffed dates (of which I ate a lot!).  Her recipe for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with semi-sweet morsels was the best, an amazing blend of salt and sweet that was so delicious that I consumed a lot of cookie dough back in the day.  (Hint: be careful with that – not so much due to salmonella as to the fact that raw cookie dough will expand inside a human stomach just like it does in the oven and can produce a bit of a tummy ache.)

Because my mom, in her later years, had many health and emotional health issues, she was unable to attend my high school graduation, and that broke my heart.  She did, however, get to attend my first college graduation—although we nearly missed it due to a flat tire on the way to the university.   Mom, I miss you and love you!!

With my mom’s health situation and a number of hospitalizations, I was fortunate to have a string of “second moms”:  my aunts, my older cousins, the mom of my closest friend (the Brussels sprout), a foster mom found through our church, the mom of the five kids for whom I lived in and babysat, and a couple of mothers-in-law.  These women were instrumental in my life at the times when my mom was unable to be, and I thank them wholeheartedly.

Once upon a time my husband and I were fortunate to be cast in a local production of Amadeus. I was cast as Teresa Salieri, wife of the protagonist, a non-speaking role which allowed me to wear an elegant blue gown and to attend the opera. (Admittedly, my ADHD tendencies came into play at one point and I, along with several other performers sharing a lively chat in the green room, was UNfashionably late for the opera. Oops!)

My husband was cast as one of the two Venticelli or “Little Winds”, whose job it was to keep the story moving through narrative and whispers which took them from past to present in the action. (We lovingly referred to them as the Vermicelli, of course. How could we not!)

Salieri took the audience through the chain of events with a series of lengthy soliloquies which also alternated from present to past to present. This vacillating chronology required several quick costume changes for the Venticelli, who had to go from foppish 18th century court attire with satin, lace, knickers, wigs, and makeup to everyday 18th century street clothes. And, at the time of this production, the theatre’s dressing rooms were located on the second floor — with two long flights of stairs and no elevator to help. Timing is everything! During a long monologue in one performance, as the Little Winds were upstairs halfway between street clothes and wigs, they heard on the monitor as Salieri jumped ahead two and a half pages in dialogue (did I mention l o o o n n g soliloquies?) which indicated an imminent entrance for the Venticelli. Somehow, they managed to scramble to come up with the costume change and fly down the steps without injury, hoping to arrive in time for their entrance. Just as they prepared to go onstage, they were brought to a screeching halt (amazed they didn’t leave skid marks!) as they heard Salieri loop back two and a half pages in his dialogue to the very place from which he had jumped ahead a few minutes prior. Whew!!

Another aside regarding Amadeus, during the run of the show one of the Venticelli (not my husband, thank goodness!) had managed to fall off his icy roof while cleaning gutters and broke his wrist. Luckily the costumes involved very long, lacy sleeves, so his cast was obscured…although his hand gestures were just a bit stiffer than usual.

Well, as they say, the show must go on….