April 2013 - Thunder Roads Texas Motorcycle Magazine

ey, Hey, Hey good people. Welcome back to
Thunder Roads Texas. It’s time for another bull
session with the Pig. Yep, it’s me again, your
favorite little pink porker with another dish of bacon just
for you. (Hey there is no imitation bacon here, just the real
deal.)
Today I have great news but sadly, I also have some bad
news. The good news is that I just returned home from the
St. Valentines Day Massacre. Now don’t go looking at me
like that, I know it was back in February, it just takes a while
to get some things published, okay? Jeez.
Like I said, I was at the St. Valentines Day Massacre and
it was a great time for all. Those guys and gals from the
Alamo City Gypsy’s really know how to throw a great
party. Oh, and the sad news, I lost all my pictures from that
weekend! Modern technology and pigs don’t mix very well.
For three days, February 8-10, everybody lived high on
the hog in God’s country - Hondo Texas. This year the
Gypsy’s brought the Massacre back to Hondo and the town
welcomed them with open arms. Unfortunately for us, we
couldn’t make it out for Friday. It seems that Rainman’s
work refused to let him off early that day. He came home
all cranky and fussy and pissed off about it so Mama had
her little boy lay down for a nap before he was allowed
(Yes I said it, ALLOWED) to go anywhere. What a whimp.
We finally got to go on Saturday morning. We brought
along Rainman’s nephew Raymond AKA “Little Man”. He’s
thirteen this year and this was his first rally. We knew we
were about to open this young mans eyes to a whole new
world.
Since Little Man doesn’t have a father around, he and his
Uncle Rainman share a special bond. Uncle Rainman has
always been around for his nephew doing those dad-like
things with him. We’ve taken Raymond all over Texas on
the back of the bike so Rainman (with some specialized
help from me) decided the rally would be a good time for
Little Man to experience some grownup fun and maybe
learn a lesson or two about being a man.
As we headed out toward the wild and wicked west of
Hondo, the first lesson we had to teach Little Man was
trust. Every man has to know who he can trust and the first
lesson in trust is: What happens at the Massacre stays at
the Massacre! Little Man agreed but then he asked, “What
about Pig?” I just looked up at him, smiled, and said “Kid,
you just need to watch and learn.”
We signed in and picked up ride pins at the registration
tent. Rainman and I had one of the Gypsy ladies place our
pins on our chests. Another lesson we wanted to teach
Little Man was that it was an honor to have one of the host
club ladies do this for us. We wanted to show Raymond
that is was okay to trust a lady to stick a pin in his chest!
The Gypsy’s had arranged a day full of fun and excitement
with rides, field events for the kids, and vendors galore. We
Page 14 H April 2013
It Was All a Massacre!!
walked by all the vendors’ booths and rummaged through
piles of patches and new leathers. We looked at knives to
buy and jewelry to wear. Along the way we ran into all sorts
of people we knew.
The next lesson for Little Man was to use proper biker
protocol when making introductions. Rainman explained
who everyone was and what clubs they rode with. Several
patch-holders showed Raymond their patches and
explained each one to him so that he had a better idea
about the people he met. This also allowed us to teach
Little Man a little about love and respect among bikers. It
was pretty exciting to see the look on the young man’s face
as he took all of that in. It was a whole new world to him
and he enjoyed every minute of it. Little Man was rather
surprised to find out how many friends Rainman and I have
in the biker community.
With all that walking around, the meeting and greeting
began to take its toll on us and we started getting rather
hungry. It was time to find a couple of cold beers and some
hot food from one of the roach coach vendors. We got
a coke for the kid and beer for us and began to decide
just what would cure our hunger. We stopped by one
vendor and saw the sign for “Piggy Puffs” and decided to
investigate.
WARNING: The following information is a little graphic and
may be unsuitable for some people!
We walked up to the table and horror flooded my eyes!
I could feel the bile rising in the back of my throat when
I realized that “Piggy Puffs” are actually fried pork rinds!
Arrrggggg! It looked like a massacre had really happened
at the Massacre. Immediately my head started swimming
and my mind went all crazy. What if they were made from
someone I once knew? Oh how disgusting. I look over and,
WTF, are Rainman and Little Man really… Yes, they are
tasting some free samples, that’s what they were doing! I
held back my vomit; I tried my best to keep from doubling
over. I wanted to speak out in protest but the mere thought
of someone eating fried pig was just too much for me to
handle.
I looked at my betrayer of a friend and said, “I sure hope
that pork rind you have in your mouth is a piece of Cousin
Wilbur’s ass.” Rainman just smiled and said back, “If it is,
he sure is tasty. Here try one”, he offered. With that said,
I just walked away as I could bear no more. As I walked
away I turned to look behind me; Rainman was buying a
whole bag of “Piggy Puffs”. Damn traitor!
Rainman responds: Hey everyone, Rainman here. I
decided it might be a good idea if I wrote this next part,
who knows what Pig would say next. Well actually, he
is refusing to write about what happened next since he
cannot jeopardize his PG-13 rating. Well anyway, Pig
walked off all in a huff about the Piggy Puffs. I do have
to say in all fairness to the Piggy Puff people, those are
some damn good pork rinds! They are light and airy and
seasoned just right. They practically melt in your mouth.
I would highly recommend you get some at the next rally
where you see Piggy Puffs. Be sure to tell them Pig sent
you!
We continued on, I made amends with Pig by agreeing
not to eat the pork rinds in front of him and I bought him
another beer. The world was at peace for us once again.
Well, the truth is the peace only lasted until we came upon
another vendor. We were looking for something to eat but
couldn’t decide what. We came found this one particular
food vendor trailer unlike all the other ones with their fancy
paint jobs and signs galore advertising their menu. No,
this place was a little different. It only had two small signs,
Norm’s Place and Deep Fried Baby Back Ribs. It wasn’t
very busy. As a matter of fact there wasn’t anyone around
it when we strolled up.
Norm stuck has head out the window and I asked him if
the ribs were any good. He informed me that they would
be the best ribs I’d ever had. Now let’s review the situation
for a moment. Here we are at a biker rally, we’re drinking
beer, hanging out with friends and about to order ribs from
a rolling roach coach food vendor that has no customers,
and this guy is telling me that he has the best ribs I’ll ever
taste. Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with this situation?
Yeah, that’s what I thought too.
I looked at Little Man, he looked back at me and said, “Lets
try them”. Words spoken like the dare of a true biker. “Give
us a cheeseburger for Pig and ribs for Little Man and me”, I
said. “I promise you won’t be disappointed”, Norm replied.
A few minutes later Norm appeared at the window with our
order and I thanked him as we began to walk away. “Hold
on there boys”, Norm said. I thought maybe I forgot to pay
him or something. “I want to see the look on your face
when you take the first bite.”
Raymond wasted no time in digging in on his first rib; a
smile crossed his face as he nodded his approval. “Pretty
good Sir”, he said. Now it was my turn. I looked over at Pig.
With his mouth full of cheeseburger he attempted to say,
“It’s Cousin Wilbur”. Not to be out grossed by a pig, I took
a big bite out of the biggest rib. It was heavenly pleasing!
A crusty layer of rib meat mixed with so many different
seasonings it was hard to pin down all the different flavors.
Every spice complemented the other. It was wonderful; I
looked at Norm and he was smiling back at me! He was
right; it was the best tasting rib I’d ever eaten. We all went
and sat down to finish them off. I asked Pig about his
cheeseburger. He said he was quite pleased with it as he
chased it down with a beer. But Raymond and I could not
get over how good those ribs were.
After eating, we went back to talk to Norm about the ribs.
We told him we were with Thunder Roads Texas and his
jaw dropped with the excitement of a jack rabbit on a hot
date. Norm then told us the story of how his ribs came
about. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best), I would
You can contact Pig or Rainman by e-mail at pig8080@LIVE.COM
For more of Pig’s wild adventures, check out his blog at pigspage.wordpress.com
or follow him on Facebook.com/pig.meinhardt
ThunderRoadsTexas.com