Mondays with Mike: Happy birthday Gus, Harley, and Davidson

Greetings from Milwaukee, where Beth, Whitney, and I have just boarded Amtrak’s Hiawatha, which will begin rolling toward Chicago any minute now.

We had a good visit with our son Gus at his group home in Wisconsin in a town called Watertown. The home is operated by Bethesda Lutheran Services, and it houses eight  people, with a split floor plan where four live on one side, and four on the other—it’s like a connected duplex. The residents have varying levels of developmental and physical disabilities so the staff has its hands full but, valiantly, they manage.

People in show biz unions practiced a little polka before the parade began.

Gus’ birthday is actually today, but we celebrated during our visit yesterday. As is our custom, we ordered a boatload of Chinese food to be delivered for the residents and staff to share—it gives the staff a break from cooking. In the past, while Beth’s mom Flo was still here, she’d mail us a card with money to help pay for the meal as a birthday present—it’s a tradition that Beth’s sister Cheryl has continued. Somewhere Flo smiles about that.

Gus turns 32 today—something of a wonder considering that on the evening of the day he was born his doctor told us Gus had a 50-50 chance of making it through the night. I’m awfully proud of our son.

Our typical visit starts with a walk to Union Station, boarding the northbound Hiawatha, grabbing a nearby Zipcar when we arrive in Milwaukee, driving to see Gus, returning to Milwaukee to drop off the car and checking in at whatever hotel we can get a good deal on.

It’s sort of automatic now, and we’ve come to know Milwaukee pretty well—it’s a great break from Chicago. But there was something different this time when we got out of the train station. It was a nice day, and on nice days it’s routine to see a lot of motorcycles, and especially Harley-Davidsons—Milwaukee being the company’s headquarters and all.

But they were everywhere. They swarmed to roaring stops at intersections. Above the roar, some—with giant rolling sound systems—blared music. Well, it was Harley-Davidson’s 115^thbirthday celebration. Dozens and dozens parked in front of coffee shops and watering holes. Dozens constantly roaring and whooshing by us. Who knew? We didn’t, obviously.  One hundred fifteen doesn’t seem that significant, but apparently they do this every fifth year.

After we checked into the hotel, we collected ourselves and walked to a local restaurant to meet a friend who’d traveled on our morning train to go to the Milwaukee Art Museum for the day. As we sipped our drinks, we learned that because of a Harley parade’s route,  getting to the museum became such a hassle that he gave up on the museum entirely. Instead he visited some familiar haunts to fill the time before meeting us.

Just walking to and from the restaurant was unsettling because of the constant roar of bikes—often in groups—rolling by. (Of course Whitney was unfazed.) It had a little Mad Max quality. And that quality ran through our hotel lobby where tattooed, bearded, and let’s say, husky people waited in the lobby for friends, checked their cell phones, or carried on in the lobby bar. Among them, for certain, were doctors, lawyers, dentists and computer programmers carrying on their version of cosplay.

At one table sat eight or nine people who looked especially gnarly. Sleeveless leather vests, weathered faces, long white hair and ZZ Top beards, women who looked like they could kick ass, tats and piercings everywhere. When one guy came up to the bar to order, he had an Australian accent. The whole table turned out to be Australian. And completely, utterly civilized. I guess characters from Mad Max wouldn’t be staying at the Intercontinental Hotel.

On our walk to the train this morning, the roar of Harleys was mostly gone, but we did encounter an encampment of what looked like every labor union in Milwaukee passing out literature, playing bags, getting ready to embark on a Labor Day parade route. Teachers, electricians, plumbers, hotel workers…you name it. It was pretty cool, especially if, like me, you are by heritage friendly to organized labor.

I would’ve like to stay awhile but we had to make the train.

Thanks for the adventure, Gus, and happy birthday.