During my second tour of duty at the Great Lakes Naval Station I was invited to join a small local club. It consisted mostly of retired Navy, active duty Navy, and a few others. We had a pretty good time together and never had any hassles with others in the area.

Once we were invited to a party with another slightly more hard core club and several of us decided to go. Had a pretty good time and way too much to drink. They told us their next get together was in LaCrosse, WI during the annual Octoberfest, and we were invited to crash with them in their motel. Four of us were able to make the run, tho two of us had to drive. My Sporty was down with a bad generator and regulator and no bucks to fix it, and one of my buds had fried the clutch on his Guzzi at a hill climb the weekend before. We got into LaCrosse late Friday night, found the rooms we were to use, and hit town.

We saw a couple guys from the club that invited us down and went into a very packed bar. Once in the door everyone was handed a flaming drink to down. They called it the LaCrosse Loop and it did throw me for a loop. I blew out the flames, downed the drink, and listened to my gut tell me to clear the way, because it was gonna get rid of the gift I'd just given it. I started for the john, but there were too many people between me and it. So I turned around, fought my way to the door, opened it, started down the steps, and blew chunks over the side rail. I thought I'd aimed over the side rail so as to miss anybody. Unfortunately, there was one of LaCrosse's finest standing in my flight path. My regurgitated drink hit him right square!

I figgered discretion was definitely the better part of valor and jumped the rail and squeezed into the opening between the bar and the building next to it. Mr. Ossifer was too fat to follow and I saw him disappear from the opening. I thought he'd try to beat me around back so I reversed course, popped outta the opening, and ran back into the bar. I squirmed my way thru the crowd, looking for my now laughing brothers. Found them way in the back, told 'em what happened, and slid in to the booth, closest to the wall. The cop came into the bar, but it was so crowded with people wearing black leather jackets and bandanas he didn't stand a chance of identifying anyone. We stayed in the bar long enough for Mr. Policeman to get tired of wearing my gift, then headed back to the party at the motel. But that's another story....

 

Wonder how Mr. Policeman tells that story? Poor guy, that had to have sucked!

Mac