Dawn, I got a lump in my throat as I read your description of the biker barrier at the funeral. I've seen that on TV and it's quite a sight. I know they come from all over and pay all their own expenses. I have a cousin who is a biker. He is a quiet family man who owns a home, has children and grandchildren, and worked all his life to have what he has. People fear that which they do not understand. I was in California in the late 60's at the height of the Hell's Angels era. We were told to duck inside if we heard them coming because they would rape women right out there on the street, and beat up men. I never knew if that really happened or not. Several years ago, on another forum, I passed along something I saw in the paper about bikers volunteering to be advocates for children in child-abuse cases. I thought that was wonderful. I was flamed after that by someone who said her brother was beaten to within an inch of his life by bikers. Personally, I have liked all the bikers that I have ever known. I have known them to be extremely respectful and kind-hearted, quiet and unassuming, yet confident, and I have never felt frightened of them. My son is adopted, and his birth family was quite large. The children from his birth family want to keep in contact with him and I approve of that. One of them is a biker. When he arrived at my house, in full leather, chain and tattoo regalia, all my neighbors stood up and took notice. I went out there and hugged him in front of everyone. I might add that one of those neighbors I had been having a little trouble with settled down quite a bit after that. Of course there will be bikers who give the others a bad reputation, just as there are in every other identifiable "group" of people. Somebody in a business suit can swindle you out of all your money. Should we distrust everyone that wears a business suit? I guess maybe there are some who do! LOL I, too, am too old and fat (and arthritic -- I can't even lift my leg high enough to get ON a motorcycle anymore!) to be a "biker mama" but maybe in another life.... --Ilene

You do know why old bikes are usually stolen, right? At least around here. They're used to transport drugs. The dealers load up the hollow pipes the frames are made of, and then just discard the bikes when they've made their delivery. They need a constant supply, and no bike left outside, unattended, is safe in my area of the country. Now it's possible, that's not the case in your situation, but it might be--he may have taken the bikes to sell to drug dealers. Sounds like a difficult situation to be dealing with. He definitely sounds both creepy and dangerous. Take care.

why thanks for asking Glenda! It was ssssooooooooo busy, fun, entertaining.... that I didn't even have a chance to think about pictures. Yep, NONE, nada no pictures. A couple of days before my friend Jean calls me, and asks, how many people do you think are coming? I say, I dunno. Her: how many did you invite? Me: I dunno... Then I went to the puter, and looked, cause after all, I was smart enough to make a list. I counted how many I had invited: 67 YIKES, that is a lot of people. Next I counted the ones I had marked positive, cause those had gotten back to me, saying they are coming. 24 Negative were only 6 BUT!!!! I had forgotten to remind people I don't text. No telling how many people replied via text. YIKES!! But, in the end it looks like 30 people came. A very good friend from Newkirk Oklahoma even stayed the night. Another good friend came from Tulsa, and one from Ft.Cobb. There where mostly cycling buddies, some Master Gardeners, some fellow knitters, people I worked with at Home Depot, people I work with at the school kitchen, and one lady from when I worked at Braums. Terrific mix of people. :) I had a guest book out (unfortunately not many signed in), name tags, and little slips of paper to fill out for fun. Those slips read: I know Moni since............. I met Moni at.................. I know this about Moni.................... that someone else might not know name optional............. Then later, after we ate, I read them off, whitholding the name, letting people guess who it was. That was a HOOT. The whole thing was over by 10:00 PM, and Helen and I were in bed by 11:00 Next morning Bill and Judy came by early to see, if I was ready for the Saturday morning bike ride... but Helen was still here. After Helen left, I headed to the route the riders take on Saturdays, which is just 5 blocks north of me. Met up and rode with them. My house is almost back to normal. Still need to vacuum. Must have a wine tasting party sometime this fall, to get all those bottle of wine gone, that people brought with them. LOL Moni

Also older than ... and glad to be above rather than under the ... dirt. Anyone remember 78 mm. ... no, that was r.p.m. ... records? And the needle being on a circular disk that one lifted off of the record and put up, over and back to be held in place above the arm that swung back and forth over the record but didn't move up or down? Our "Party line" phone was a big brown wooden box on the wall with a metal thing like a tulip sticking out of the front into which you talked, and a line with a black tube on the end that hung on a yoke sticking out of the side of the phone, that lifted when you took the receiver off to listen, which connected the phone to the line, by making the contacts with the large batteries inside. If you wanted to call some other person on your line, after listening to see whether the line was busy, you turned a crank on the right side to make the double bells on the front of the phone ring, in a code of short and long rings, which rang in everyone else's phone on the line, and the ones whose code it was answered ... sometimes others did, as well (almost always remaining silent while doing so). If you wanted to call someone on another party line, you pushed a black button on the left side of the phone and turned the aforementioned crank on the right side, which silenced all of the bells on your line and sent a signal to the operator on the central switchboard and she connected you to the other line and pushed a button or turned a crank to ring the code of the person to whom you wanted to talk. ole joyfuelled ... who liked eating at the dining room table ... in the large kitchen