A while back I mentioned Hells Angels was coming to town. Yeah yeah yeah, I left out the apostrophe – apparently, that’s how they do it and I’m not gonna argue with these dudes about punctuation!

They rolled in just over a week ago and began setting up camp a couple of miles from my house. Within a day or so there were hundreds of bikes and bikers cruising through the area and a zillion trillion police right on their tails. It was amazing!

Our local Sheriff’s Department had been planning and coordinating with other local law enforcement agencies. We are a tiny little town in a tiny little county in the middle of nowhere – they’d never dealt with anything like this. On the heels of the Angels were members of the FBI, the DEA, Homeland Security, State Highway Patrol, members of various law enforcement agencies from several hundred miles away, and the local air base was put on alert. At night helicopters buzzed overhead shining their spotlights down on any activities the Angels had going.

Overkill?

Who knows.

I do know that nothing bad happened while they were around, but I also shook my head at what I felt was blatant harrassment of the Bike Gang by law enforcement.

I’m no fan of Hells Angels. I know their reputation. I know they deal drugs, run prostitution, and are known for violence and murder. Even so – I think things were taken too far.

In a quarter mile stretch near Angel “headquarters” hundreds of vehicles and bikes were being pulled over each day. When bikers went into local stores, police followed them around.

Evey local I have spoken to was embarrassed, irritated, frustated, or furious with the heavy handed tactics of our police. The police adamantly denied they were profiling and argue that nothing happened because they kept us all safe. We’ll never know.

In any case, I have no wild stories of the Angels to tell. I doubt they will ever be back to my part of the world. Not only did the police chase them around every waking moment, but the weather was shit. If it wasn’t raining, it was windy and cold – not exactly pleasant for anyone.

So tata to Hells Angels. I do hope that next year they find somewhere else to visit. I prefer NOT feeling like I’m living in a police state each time I venture from my yard.

Peace

Who knew a family vacation would start out with what has become an unsolved mystery involving a roadblock and a very dead body?

Day one in Montreal – the hub opted to sleep like a slug so the cubs and I decided to head out to explore the area around our hotel. We were in a fantastic spot – right between Sherbrooke and St. Catherine – two absolutely luverly streets in the heart of downtown.

We wandered for a bit, then went back to see if the sleepy slug decided to join the land of the living. As we neared our hotel, we could see the street was swarming with police. As we got closer it became obvious that whatever happened was on the side street next to our abode. To get into our hotel meant having to go through the police tape while showing our hotel key so they knew we weren’t simply gawking tourists.

When we got onto the elevator we were joined by a hotel employee and a police officer – both of whom were extremely quiet as the cubs and I glanced at each other with apprehensive looks. As soon as we got into our room we dashed to our balcony to see what was transpiring on the street below and there they were – those creepy silver tarps covering something ‘orrible below.

The hub was in the shower and the cubs swarmed him when he emerged from the bathroom.

“Dad, there are dead bodies outside the room!”

He gave me a “yeah right” look, then went out onto the balcony for a personal opinion. I peeked over from my chair to see him shaking his head and saying “Uh, there really are bodies covered out there.” Duh, I may be livin’ in a small town in the middle of nowhere, but I have seen enough cop shows to recognize something like this. It was bad.

While we waited for him to spritz and dress we occasionally wandered to the patio to see what was happening below. Yeah, it sounds gruesome and intrusive – but I’ll admit – we looked. It was one of those things that your head tells you is wrong to gawk at, but the morbid curiousity inside just grabs ya’ and you can’t stop wondering what happened.

One person was on the sidewalk below us and another in the middle of the street. There were shoes laying there in the street as well, but there was no car around to indicate there’d been a pedestrian hit. It became our own little mystery. What happened outside our window in the short while the cubs and I explored the city nearby?

Eventually, the bag in the middle of the road was removed – there was no body beneath it. Instead, it appeared to be parts of the body that was laying on the sidewalk. Men came and picked up random pieces of the poor person that was dead and, eventually, the person was taken away.

For the rest of our visit we avoided walking past the spot on the sidewalk that was covered with some kind of substance put down to absorb whatever couldn’t be picked up. We watched the news to try to learn more about the accident – nothing was covered.

My only guess is that it was a jumper. I’d seen other news stories involving a person hit by car the day before our person, but nothing was said about the body outside my hotel.

I’ve searched online to no avail. It’s as if we imagined the entire thing – yet I know something happened.

As for the rest of the vacation, we enjoyed. We explored museums. We at fantastic food. We wandered through the funky neighborhoods that make up Montreal. We went jet boating on the Lachine Rapids.

There was one bit of a spat. I’m a huge fan of Cirque de Soleil and they were actually in their hometown while I was there. Their giant yellow tents were impossible to miss and I let the cubs and hub talk me into checking on available seats for one of their shows. The only thing available was premier seating – that meant big bucks – way more big bucks than I was willing to pay.

They knew how much I’d wanted to see Cirque someday and they all began nagging at me to bite the bullet and splurge on the show. How weird to be saying “no” to something I wanted so badly to people who had no real interest in going themselves. In any case, I couldn’t justify dropping about $600 to $700 for something I’d not anticipated or budgeted for. I have no regrets.

Whew – long post.

In any case, that’s one bit of why I haven’t been online for a bit.

Peace